I went to Guadalajara for a National Baptist Youth Leadership Workshop. It was the same type of workshop that I went to last year in Mazatlan. Huberto and Oscar were supposed to go with me, but they cancelled on me. Instead, I got a flight out on Friday and came back on Sunday.

We stayed at a home for retired Baptist pastors, and there were about 40 young people there in all. We had times of conferences, workshops, games, and worship. We visited downtown Guadalajara and had a photo scavenger hunt. The students were really creative with their pictures. We also visited the Mexican American hospital, the only Baptist hospital in Mexico. It is really nice and gives free treatment to Baptist pastors and missionaries.

While downtown, we ate some “tortas ahogadas,” or “drowned tortas.” They are normal tortas drowned in salsa, and are typical of Guadalajara. I also tried some Tejuino, a drink made out of corn, salt, and lime. It was okay. I had to try it since I was there.

Check out more photos from the trip.
Check out the video I made here.

We bought our tickets today to go back to Mexico. We will be leaving on July 27th, a day after our 8th anniversary. We bought the tickets today so they wouldn’t get more expensive than they already were. So, now we have a return date. It will be difficult to leave family again, but we have a lot of work to do there. We will enjoy the next few weeks of being back in the USA.

Janell’s grandma moved today closer to our part of Florida. She used to live near Orlando, so it’s good to have her closer to us when we are home. We went over there tonight to be with all of the family at her new house. It’s a pretty nice place, and she will be only 5 minutes from her sons’ houses and families. Also, Janell’s Aunt Patrice is going to be moving over here, too. So, it will be like one big family reunion for them all of the time. It will also make it a lot easier for us to visit everyone when we come back to the United States in the future.

Today, I had the opportunity to share with Sprit Life Tampa about the ministry in Mexico. Janell and Nathan stayed home because he had a rough night, but the time at the church went well. It is always good to be with people who are really praying for you and are interested in your ministry.

We went to First Baptist Church Puebla this past weekend. It was a good time. The pastor of this church is on the board of directors of the seminary. It was youth week, so they invited me to speak at their youth group on Saturday night and also during the worship service on Sunday morning. The topic was the 5 attitudes towards David in 1 Samuel 17. He was too fragil, evil, useless, inexperienced, and despised. But David’s attitude was the attitude that made a difference in the story. We had a good time at the church, and we are going to try to go back to Puebla again in March.

Today was our day off, so to speak. We had a long weekend in Puebla (more about that later), so we took today off from any “real work.” We went to the airport this morning to pick up our friend Rob. He had been in Central America this weekend working, and we went with his wife Tina to help her learn how to get to the airport.

Later, we had coffee with our friends Tim and Annette Gulick, who are working in the city of Toluca, training youth workers and working on an awesome resource website. It was a great time, as usual, talking with them about their adventures and our shared interest in global youth ministry.

We then went to a check up on Janell and the pregnancy. The doctor said everything is good with the baby. We heard the heartbeat again, and he is sending us to get a 3-D ultrasound. We told him today about wanting to go to the States to have the baby and be with family, and he was totally understanding. We have been blessed to have this doctor. He is great. He told us we had to call him when the baby was born to let him know. He’s a great doctor and has been great with us.

The good news about our doctor’s office is that it is right next to the Krispy Kreme. So we bought 3 dozen donuts (2 for our friends and 1 for us) and took them to the Torbert’s house to eat them. We even dressed up in our Krispy Kreme hats.