Thanksgiving in Acapulco

On November 14th, a new intern came to Casa Hogar to stay for 5 months. Her name is Cristina and this is her first time to come to Acapulco. That whole weekend consisted of getting her settled in and kind of showing her the ropes. She does not speak much Spanish so it was all very overwhelming as expected. I was expecting that on Monday we would be able to go to the office and show her all the stuff we do there and show her a little of Acapulco but much to our dismay, the public school teachers of the whole state of Guerrero were holding a huge strike right in the middle of the main road in front of the convention center which cancelled out all opportunity of transportation getting through. The strike lasted all week so Cristina's first week here was incredibly random and unroutine which was hard as she was trying to adjust to a new place. I felt for her because I craved routine so much when I first got here.

We were able to take a group of the kids to a little fair on Monday night and 3 out of the 8 ended up throwing up. One of them twice! Unfortunately, it was more expensive than we thought so everybody only rode 2 rides. On Tuesday Sarah and I decided we would take Cristina out on the Costera as far as we could go before we hit the riot traffic. We went to Starbucks and the grocery store and just walked on the Costera. It was a really nice outting. On Wednesday, we made an atempt to go to work because we had some paperwork we needed to get done and since Thursday was the Mexican Revolution Day, we thought the riot would be worse, and it was. We took the bus and were literally one street away when we got a call from Myrtille telling us to go back home because the roads were closing and if we didn't leave right then, we wouldn't be able to get back! Huge disappointment. The next day we stayed at Casa Hogar again and helped decorate for Christmas. By Friday, Cristina and I were DYING to go to work.

Someone played a cruel joke on one of the little boys named Pedro...He woke up Friday morning with no eyebrows!!! Bless this poor child's heart, it was truly a challenge to look at him and keep from giggling but I tried my best. This is something that I had only heard of in movies. Never in my life had I actually seen it happen!

Mac left this week on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. His dad came down last week on Thursday to spend some time in Acapulco with Mac and help pack everything up. They also had a friend come in from Peubla to spend the weekend with them. We had some really awesome times of fellowship. Mac's dad was so obviously brought to us by the Lord. I had had a tough week just not getting out a lot and some junk happened with some of the kids and Cristina was struggling through her first week and he brought us amazing encouragement and prayer. We went out to eat and just hung out with them and enjoyed their company. Mac was sad to leave and we were sad to have him leave as he had become part of our little family.

Thanksgiving morning we woke up early to get to Myrtille's house at about 8:15 to see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. This is a huge tradition for me and I was so thankful we got to see it. She was already cooking when we got there so Cristina, Sarah, and I piled in her bed and watched it all morning. As a treat, Myrtille had arranged for a woman to come to her house and give all three of us manicures AND pedicures. We were in charge of baking the pumpkin pies for dessert, actually I'll give Cristina the credit that they turned out really good thanks to Paula Dean! Please do not feel sorry for me that I was in Mexico for Thanksgiving. I was completely spoiled the whole day with the manicure and pedicure, watching movies and just relaxing, a DELICIOUS dinner, and great fellowship with the 3 other couples that came to Myrtille's house to celebrate with us. We spent the night at her house and the next day the four of us had a Bible study and prayer time together. We also set up and decorated her Christmas tree for her which turned out beautiful. Myrtille is French so for lunch she made homemade mayoniaise with garlic that she said is very common in France and we put it on our leftover turkey sandwiches which were delicious!

After our incredible time at Myrtille's house, we came to the Galeana's which is the family from the church that so graciously lets us come over every Friday night. There is a billboard up in front of the convention center that I see all the time advertising the Acapulco Philharmonic. I am obviously misinformed about what a philharmonic is because I was thinking it was an orchestra and I really wanted to go. Last night was the last night Sarah and I would be able to go so Mr. Galeana went with us. The program had a picture of a ballerina on it which really threw me off. It turns out that it was a ballet! It was still really good and we all enjoyed it but I was the only one who thought I had an idea of what was going on and I ended up being totally wrong. I am assuming that the Philharmonic Orchestra was the orchestra that played the music for the ballerinas...Anyway we felt very cultural going to a ballet in Acapulco:)

These next couple of weeks are going to be so full and busy as we try to cram as much as possible and make the most out of the last weeks here. Please pray that I will be intentional as my time winds down, that I won't get caught up in the busy-ness and let opportunities to love these children pass me by.