April

Wow. Its been a full month since I've written. You know why? We've been having so much fun being busy I just haven't had the time!

April was another month filled with happiness and blessing for the Reimann household!

We started the month out with a wonderful marriage conference in the small fishing village of San Felipe:

There were some wonderful pastors from Calvary Ft Lauderdale who lead the conference (though all in Spanish). It was truly a great time for Tim and I. We had a weekend where we got to focus on eachother and how much we love eachother. It was a great time to reflect on how much we have grown, changed, and bettered as a couple since September when things were a little rough at times.

Through the generous donations many of your have made, Tim and I were able to sponser the couple on the right from Hocaba to be able to attend the marriage conference. This is a huge blessing for them. 2 years ago when we started going to Hocaba, only their son, Brad, came to church. About 9 months ago the mom started coming. And just in the last 2 months the father joined them. It is so wonderful to watch God work in this family! Thank you for your donations that made this conference possible for them!

The weekend was especially fun because we drove there with Jeff and Nicole, who are our treasured friends here!!! Tim was in the praise band for the whole long weekend. He played lead guitar for more than 100 people!! And did a great job I must say! :)

After the marriage conference, we continued our rountine of school, teaching music lessons, going to Hocaba twice a week, home fellowship, and church. What a great routine!

Our routine was broken by getting to babysit baby Asher for almost a full day! It was so much fun and certainly gave me even worse baby-fever!! Look how cute he is!!!!!!!

Then, we had 2 weeks off in April for Easter vacation.

Right before the 2 week break, we had an English service get-together and pot-luck. It was a great time for food, fun and fellowship. We ended the evening with prayer and praise:

We decided to stay in Merida to take advantage of our last few months here. We are glad we did! We had a great, very much needed, relaxing vacation. We stayed the first week at our friends' house dog sitting 5 dogs and 2 guiena pigs when they were out of town. It is as crazy as it sounds!

Thats Coda the white one on the left, then the other white one is Tinkerbell, black one is Diablo, then Cody and Nemo. Lots barking, lots of poo, but lots of fun!

While at our friends' house, they graciously let us use their car. We had fun living the "fancy life" for awhile. We had a stay-cation. We went out to eat, made 3 trips to Starbucks, walked the malls, and went to a movie! It was a very relaxing stay-cation!

During those 2 weeks we also spent a lot of time in Hocaba. We did work projects to continue construction on the church. We helped put a major support beam in:

Tim, with the help of David, installed a sink and toliet seat in the pastor's house. They've been living for over a year with no sink. They had to go outside, fill buckets with water and then just use a cup to pour it over the dirty dished. Our next task, is to get the plumbing for a working shower installed so they don't have to use a bucket and cup.

That day that we went to Hocaba to install the sink, it was one of those "You Never Know" days famous to our Mexican experience. We left the house at 8:30 and didn't arrive to Hocaba till 3:30pm (normally it is a 1 hr drive). Long story short: we borrowed a truck from someone from church, they showed up 2 hrs late. Then, on the highway, carrying metal scaffelding, a tired pops, the car spun around and the scaffelding fell into another car spinning it around too, leaving scaffelding on the highway. No one was hurt praise God! But, we did stand on the highway for over 2 hours waiting for insurance companies and the police. After the police tried to get paid off, the driver of the truck from our church was taken to jail while things with insurance were figured out. Yikes! All is worked out now though, praise God!
We celerbated Easter by going to Hocaba and spending time with our favorite kiddos in the world! Sarah and John and their two precious girls came with us. We had a blessed Easter!

After Hocaba, we went for a traditional Easter lunch at Carls Jr. lol. Delicious hamburgers!

During our 2 week break I made significant headway on planning for my home church - Hilliard United Methodist - and their mission trip here to Merida/Hocaba in June. I made an exteremly detailed day by day hourly plan, made hostel and hotel reservations, and priced things out. I've since talked to the HUMC leaders and they are on board with everything, the last step is talking to Robert, and getting his advice and opinions, and then fine-tuning the plan. I am so excited to be able to share this wonderful place with a group of adult and youth from my home church. I know this trip will be a blessing for all the HUMC people, for me and Tim, and for all the people here in Mexico they get to work with!

We finished out the month by going to Hocaba to celebrate Kid's day. (it is like mother's day, but celebrating the kids)! We had so much fun! We played lots of water games with the kids:

Had a pinata:

Then we prayed for the kids and the mom's:

And ended the event with lunch of espegetti, sandwichs, cake, and Coke:

Then, we had another one of the famous Mexican "You Never Know" type moments. The pastor asked if he could come to Merida with his whole family (they are required to attend 2 services a month in Merida and can't afford the bus fair). Long story, but it ends with me and Tim taking David and Neftali to John and Sarah's house to swim in their pool with their 2 girls. We taught David how to swim for the first time in his life! We had a blast! All 4 kids, John, Tim and I were in the pool for 3 hours! Then, as we were literally walking out of the door, I thought it'd be fun to have the Scott's girls stay the night with David and Neftali at our house. Turned out to be so much fun! I made them pita pizzas and smores for dinner.

I told them a Bible story, Tim prayed for us, then we went to bed. Me, Alyson and Audrey slept in our bed, David and Neftali in a blow up mattress and Tim graciously suffered the night on our terrible, dusty, old, stinky couch in the heat of Mexico. The lowest low that day was 87. Poor thing. He took a shower at 3 am just to cool down and drank 5 liters of water in the night! What a true gentleman! (PS according to Weather.com the LOWEST high in all of April was 97. that is rediculous!)

Prayer Requests:

1. That God continues teaching us and bettering us as we try and become more like Him and better disciples.

2. The God continues to bless our marriage, and that we keep growing together as we have been so much in these last few months.

3. That God would bless me with a big HRSA scholarship that I've applied for if it is His will. If choosen, I would recieve 100% tutition and books, plus a $1,300 stipend per month during nursing school in exchange for nursing in an underserved area for 2 years. This would be a wonderful blessing for our family.

4. That God helps us finish our time here with as much energy, gusto, and impact as possible and that He will work through us in amazing ways.

5. That we can push our leaders in Merida and Hocaba to speed up the construction progress in Hocaba so we can see the church completed before July.

6. For the upcoming HUMC mission trip. That they can have a big impact on the people here, sharing God's love and forgiveness, and that each kid and adult on the trip can be lit or re-lit with a passion to serve God and bodly proclaim the Good News.

7. For Tim, that he will network and get line-up for a student teaching position.

8. For me, that God will open doors at the hosptials I've applied to to be a nurses aid during nursing school

9. That God blesses richy all those who have blessed us by donating to Hocaba!