May Adventures: Language Progress, Local Holidays, and Prayer Requests

May was an eventful month for our family! Watch the video and/or read our update below.

Language Updates

Some of the best news is that we both had our first language evaluations. If you've joined our prayer alert email list, then you already know that Jared achieved Advanced Medium and Amy achieved Advanced High. (Thank you for praying)

This means that Amy was able to "graduate" from language school and no longer has to take language classes. Another benefit is that the kids could be removed from school and begin homeschooling again.

The kids will take a break over the summer before formally starting homeschool in August. In the meantime, they are still being tutored in Spanish a few times a week to help them improve their language.

Jared will continue to go to language school until we move to Bogota, Colombia.

Local Holidays

May is a month full of holidays in Puebla, Mexica. Most notably, Cinco de Mayo is celebrated here in Pueblo. Although many people in the United States have heard of Cinco de Mayo, you probably don't know that Puebla is the only city in Mexico that celebrates the holiday because it commemorates the battle of Puebla that happened on May 5, 1862.

To celebrate, we attended the local parades. It was extremely crowded, so we ended up seeing the back of people's heads more than the actual parade. Nevertheless, it was a fun time of getting to know the local culture better.

Church Involvement

We are still trying to get to know families in our local church better and we're happy to say that your prayers have been helping. We've been participating in Sunday school class and we recently had a family from our church over for dinner. Jared will be preaching on June 18th for the first time in Spanish. He'll be reading from a manuscript, but we're praying the Spirit would still speak through His Word.

Mothers Day

Mother's Day is always celebrated on May 10th in Mexico. It's a pretty big deal here in Mexico. The schools organized a special Mothers Day event which included dancing and performances by the kids and a nice catered meal for the moms. 

Our church also celebrated Mothers Day with a special fellowship after church where the moms got to eat and play games.

We are extremely thankful for Amy and showed our love to her by giving her a day at the spa with one of her close friends here in Mexico. 

Prayer Requests

We want to ask you to pray for our family in the following ways this month:

• Language learning - We continue to grow and improve in language. Jared is still going to school, but Amy is no longer taking classes. The kids are tutored 3 times a week. Pray especially for the kids to grow in their ability to speak Spanish.
• Rest - It's starting to get hot in Puebla and with no air conditioning, it can get hot at night, making it hard to rest. We've also recently been dealing with sickness. Please pray for better weather and the ability to sleep at night despite the heat.
• Vacations - This month we'll be taking some time to enjoy vacation and refresh as a family. Please pray for safe travels and a time of refreshment.
• Visas - We don't have any big updates on the Visa situation in Colombia. They still aren't issuing religious worker visas, so the IMB is looking for alternative visas. Please pray that we would be able to get long term visas that would allow us to stay in country more than 1 year.