Experiences from the Special Assembly Day

A brother related his experience of before he became a Witness. He had been in the Vietnam war and was on the "Search and Destroy" team. (We were told by his best friend later that his job was to go around after the ambushes and kill anything that moved, he didnt tell us that off the platform as it would have been a little graphic for us all).

He told us of a situation where he found himself in a shoot or be shot situation with a 12yrs old boy. He shot and killed the boy to save his own life. He explained that he now suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. He talked while tears ran down his face of how every day he sees the face of that young boy and it strikes deeply at his heart that he took his young life away.

His experience was related in the part about how we have the privilege of living in a spiritual paradise even now. He said that before he found the truth he was lost and wanted to kill himself because of the extreme guilt he felt over his past actions in the war. He then went on the explain the impact the truth has had on him and how now although he still grieves every day for that young boy he has the hope of seeing him again in the resurrection and he hopes and prays that Jehovah will give him the chance to meet the boy, to study with him and to teach him the truth!

The dear brother had tears rolling down his face throughout the entire interview and he had to stop a few times to get it together so he could carry on. The brother interviewing him was the same and we, the audience silently felt his pain and cried quietly with him too. What a moving day that was!

The truth cant take away our past actions, but it sure can put them into perspective. It allows us the chance to make amends as it were and to make the most of our now precious time sharing a wonderful hope of eternal blessings for all, with others. What a privilege!!

Special Assembly Day

Back in Jan we had our Special Assembly day in a city called Morelia. First time we had been there so that was cool.

Our whole congo traveled by bus for the 8 hour trip, one way. We made it safe and sound and had a fantastic weekend of up building spiritually, physically and emotionally, thank you Jehovah!

Anyhoo, I have to say I have never cried so much EVER in an assembly. The experiences and interviews were so heartfelt that they were bringing the entire audience to tears! I will share a couple of experiences with you over the next few days.

What was that you said?

I was lying in bed the other morning listening to all the new sounds of our new house when I heard this very strange squawking kind of noise. I listened and couldnt figure out what it was. So later I went and did some investigating. Turns out there is a huge parrot that lives next door and it chats away to itself constantly. The parrot is very cleaver and can talk too, whats funny though is that its speaking Spanish!!! Weird how in my mind parrots only speak English!!!

ON THE MOVE

We have just moved house as our old landlord wanted to raise the rent by 75%!! Yeah whatever, dreamer! Our new house is very cool, it is way smaller than the last one, but thats just fine, its much easier to keep clean.

Funny thing happened though when we first walked through the door to the house...... It has not been lived in for a while so all had been quiet in the house. Well we opened the door and switched on the light. We walked into the main living area to see how messy it was and how much cleaning we would have to do before we moved our furniture in. As we did so there was a flurry across the floor as cockroaches scattered in all directions, they starting coming out from under the skirting boards, everywhere!!!! We began jumping, stomping, yelping on a murder spree of epic proportions!! In the end we counted about 25-30 squished ones!!!! AWESOME! and we thought we were the only ones in the house......

Obviously the first thing we did was buy highly potent spray to kill them. It has been funny, as each morning there have been bodies big and small to greet us, but the good news is each morning so far there have been less and less of them, so Im living in the hope that there will be none soon!!!! Ahhhh the joys of life in Mexico!!

Apart from the cucarachas, the house is lovely and quiet, which is very weird for Mexico, but Im not saying it out loud in case it changes, so shhhhhhh.

WELCOME BACK TO YOU ALL!

Hello all you out there!

Yes I am back! We have been trying very hard to get ourselves settled here and to be honest it has taken a lot of our time and energy and has taken longer than we expected. Obviously in the process the blog has gone astray!

We are some what settled now so thats good.

Never fear, it is back and running and I will endeavor to keep you all updated on the happs for us on this side of the world.

By the way we would love to hear from anyone on the other side of the world, we miss you all and love you more!!

SHOWER TIME?

As some of you may know, not everyone here in Mexico has the luxuary of hot running water in their houses. We dont which is fine when its hot hot hot, but when it cools down a bit, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, not so good!

So hears a funny story from our first day in our new house.

I was emailing mum when suddenly I hear splashing water and screamng kids next door.

Turns out that its shower time! Today is quite cool as it has been raining a lot, so keep in mind, no hot showers.

The family next door do not have a proper bathroom with a shower in it at all. So they basically shower in the backyard from a bucket.

Tonight the dad is pouring a bucket of COLD water over the head of the first child while mum soaps him up. Dad moves on to the next kid and so on and so on for all the kids (theres heaps of them).

Once the kids are all wet and soaped up they are lined up in a row as though facing a firing squad while dad throws/pours COLD water over them again to rinse them off.

The poor kids are used to showering this way but because its much cooler the water is very cold for them and they were all screaming and yelling Nooooooooooo at the top of their voices.

All you could hear was " Nooooooooo Splash, ahhhhhhh. noooooooooo soap soap soap, ahhhhhhh, noooooooo, splah, splash, splash!!!"

It was quite funny to hear, but now as I contemplate my own nice COLD shower, the smile is wiped from my dust smeared face!

At least for me there is no bucket involved!!!

ALL MOVED IN

The day is drawing slowly to a close and we are all moved in.

After a full day of cleaning like banchies yesterday, today we moved in "all" our furniture.

The house looks as empty as it did before we moved in but its much cleaner now!

We cant wait until a certain someone who will remain anonymous in the meantime gets here to help fill the space.

Thanks for your kind thoughts by the way, much appreciated!