A few random pictures from life here.
The “die”chotomy of life and death. The little one, Jodie named Rosamund.
Alvin on his 12,000 peso horse.
Frank. Aww…. isn’t he schnuck? One of Jodie’s students.
Jacob is an 11 year old kid that drives to school every morning. He is in my class.
This is Jason with his horse
This is Celia. She is an eight year old kid in my class.
This is Rosamanda. She is not in school, but her 3 brothers are.
Guess what? We are actually safe and sound in Mexico. Below are a few pics
Here we are before we go. Dorcas, Floyd, Laura Conley, Jodie Kooistera, Caleb Crider, Rose Mary, Virgil, and myself.
Nislys feeling all cheesy with the sun in our eyes.
Sitting and waiting to have the van fixed
We decided to sing some of our songs while we waited. It was very warm.
Sitting at a Resturant when we should have been at our destination hours before. Enjoying some weak humor.
At the border
Orientation
Sorry there aren’t any more recent shots, but at least you know now who we are with and that we are safe. Sometimes I wonder if teaching English does something to the “sound” part. The group here is great! It is good to have some more experienced teachers here as well.
I am teaching from 8 am to 2:30 pm then from 8:15 pm to 9:30 pm. So it tends to be a pretty full day. I am getting into the swing of things slowly. Teaching is work. Strange eh? All you do is sit around and think…. ha ha ha! well, strangely enough, you have to stand to teach and besides that you have to play soccer or some wild game for at least half an hour a day. Oh, and the other thing is that bad company corrupts good manners, so that can be a problem with the teachers here… 
This weekend we are planning to go deeper in and to Copper Canyon as well. That means 3 days and 3 nights on the road. We will be sleeping at motels so that is a bit of a bite because it is always more interesting to stay at someone’s house. It should be interesting. Mexico is usually.
Why Men Are Happier (a woman’s perspective) –
What do you expect from such simple creatures? Your last name stays put. The garage is all yours. Wedding plans take care of themselves. Car mechanics tell you the truth. You can play with toys all your life.
You don’t have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt. Same work, more pay. Wrinkles add character. You can open all your own jars.
New shoes don’t cut, blister, or mangle your feet. One mood all the time. Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat. A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase. You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness. If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend.
Three pairs of shoes are more than enough. You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes. The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades. You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on December 24 in 25 minutes.
No wonder men are happier.
(Slightly abridged)
Thanks to http://www.pharocattle.com/
I don’t know why I get all these brilliant inspirations from farmers.
OLD VERSION: The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.
The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!
——————————————-
MODERN VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant sho uld be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.
CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast.
How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing, ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green.’
Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ants house where the news stations film the group singing, ‘We shall overcome.’ Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper’s sake.
Nancy Pelosi & John Kerry exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.
Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.
The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.
Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bill Clinton appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients.
The ant loses the case. The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant’s old house, crumbles around him because he doesn’t maintain it.
The ant has disappeared in the snow.
The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2008!
Thanks to http://barmbarranch.com/
We all know who we are talking about, so no need to comment further. On the other hand, to quote an unnamed acquaintance, “At least the Democrats are Christian. They believe in taking care of the poor.”
Bibles
Time to go home. All aboard the Gospel ford Dodge.
Kathryn playing in the water
Cornerstone Mennonite Church leaving ceremonies. Check out the details here.
“Time to go home Caddie.”
“Goodbye!”
Becca
Gotcha! Reading blogs again!
Title credits go to Sheri.
I decided tonight to post some pictures that have been waiting to be published for a while. Sometimes I think I should get a Picasa web album because it would be easy… They are fairly random, but somewhat interesting.
Sometimes you just have to make a dash for it
Tornado clouds past us. This is in the general direction of the destruction that we helped clean up a week later (below).
the cows seem unconcerned after the storm. Interesting how my cows I sold to the neighbor still hang out close to the house.
Heavy metal
White clover
Monzy
The front yard
A tulip fetus
Monzy with my own heavy metal in the background. I just sold it recently for scrap price. If I was a real redneck, I would have bought a motor to put into it. Since I am lazy and don’t feel like doing all that work, I just sold it for too cheap. Oh well, At least there is another spot to mow and I didn’t have to haul it off.
Nathan’s new bike and Umphy
Hey!!! Don’t you take a picture of me!/ Cheese for the camera
Mom and Dad biking
We all biked up to the Smiths one Sunday evening. They were generous enough to feed us popcorn.
David Sommers on a Wednesday evening
Saturday morning pancakes
Nathan waking up and servant Mom feeding him some milk
The tornado damage we helped to put into piles. This is about 1/2 hour south of our house. A trailer house blew up against this other house that is still standing. Archie McGurik is quite a character and already had the trailer house’s i-beams cut up for scrap and the rest of it mostly dismantled.
What used to be a trailer house
My praying parents
Chadwin looks into the window of the men’s restroom.
Nathan, Christopher, Mark and myself went to Joplin to buy Nathan a bike. Of course we had to stop and eat too. 
or maybe just to drink…
Nathan ponders his purchase 
Also this weekend we had to got to go listen to Rachel sing. 
I am sure she sounded good but we could hardly hear her because she is was out on the side and they put the mikes right in the middle and up close so about all you could hear was alto.
Tomorrow I have off so I can go sell some puppies. I hope I make more money off of them than just paying for my gas to Goodman.
What do you do after a hard day’s work? 
It is called balancing on the ball. I know it looks like I am touching the couch but the point is to balance. 
Oh, never mind, the point is to get to the couch on the ball. I told you we had a hard day! Oh, we got Nathan two goats today down in the boonies South of the metropolis of Valeda. Nathan is so excited about milking them that he can hardly wait to get up at 6:30 tomorrow morning. If I am going to be that excited tomorrow morning, I better get to bed now. Good night, Luke
well………….. I haven’t posted in a while…. I wonder why. Probably I am getting smarter about what is important. (laughs wickedly) Work is going well. Yesterday I worked in the mill (just barely because there was too much help) for the first time. A lot of fuss for not more than got done. I found Nathan some milk goats to buy. He thinks we need to promptly go pick them up tomorrow night ASAP!!!! This Friday and Saturday I am going to a two day seminar by Bud Williams. It should be interesting (it better be for as much as it costs!). In the mean time I work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, etc. Sound boring? Well, such is life. You just have to have a boring life every once in a while to make up for expensive/exciting trips. Oh I do need to do something else this week. My dear younger sis NEEDS a horse! I am the one commissioned to find it for her or AT LEAST find someone who would let her ride. I guess what can I say? I do run into a lot of people at work, some of which own horses that their owners can’t or don’t have time to ride. Bed time on this Sunday night is 10:00 sharp. Good night luke
