Martin's B-day

I'm actually sitting on the third floor of Martin and Laura's house, listening to salsa music with Martin and Arnulfo and I each on a computer. It's Martin's cumpleaños today, he's 37. So I'm sure some cake...or tacos...or something is in the works. Martin is a great guy, and I am privileged to be his friend.

When I got here, Martin was finishing up soldering some cables for our praise band's big debut in another church. We're going as a church to Iztapalapa this Sunday, where Mayra and I served for 6 1/2 years. It will be good to see Fernando and Margarita. Martin preaches. Fernando directs the service. Our praise band plays.

This past Sunday my little boy David knocked over Alberto Prieto's guitar...and broke it right at the neck. We took it somewhere to try to get it fixed...but its beyond repair. So we canibalized his guitar and took the equalizer and pick-up out of it and put it in Mauricio's guitar. Now we just have to replace the broken one. Believe it or not, this is not the first thing that David has broken, and surely won't be the last! But it truly was an accident. Mauricio, on the other hand, got a pretty nice deal out of it. Mauricio, our young musician...he plays pretty much everything: guitar, bass guitar, keyboard and even drums. He is also in charge of our newly formed youth praise band.

Today we received our kids 3 passports, delivered actually 2 weeks from the time we solicited them at the U.S. embassy. So we're good through 2014 on the U.S. side. I hate paperwork of this nature...and am still waiting to get my visa totally renewed. Hopefully that will happen soon, because if it doesn't before Feb. 20, we won't be able to drive our van from 5-11 a.m. everyday, because I won't be able to renew the emissions sticker...and...well, that just wouldn't be fun at all.

We just cashed $550 that we received through CAM's Christmas at CAM Catalogue. With it, we will submit a construction permit to the municipality and begin construction on a new addition to the church. We still need around $3000 more than we have (and not counting another generous donation that is forthcoming). So if anyone hasn't cashed in your penny jar, well, you have a project to consider.

Last night we had a neighborhood meeting, I forget what you call that in English. It went from around 9 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. Interesting. Mostly. Part of what motivated the meeting is that a car right up the road from us was robbed of all 4 rims and tires, a couple of days ago in the early morning. The question is, of course, why didn't the armed security guards notice? Never a dull day in Mexico!