It's been two weeks since we have moved to Mexico. If I'm being honest, there have been numerous times in those weeks where I have asked myself, "What are we doing here?" It's hard to adjust to somewhere new when you so love the place you left. It's not like we moved from Scappoose because we were unhappy; we moved here to Monterrey because we felt like it's where the Lord opened a door for us to go.
This Saturday's devotional in Oswald Chambers, "My Utmost For His Highest," really helped shift my focus back to the big picture of what we are doing here in Mexico.
"To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, not knowing what tomorrow may bring. This is generally expressed with a sigh of sadness, but it should be an expression of breathless expectation. We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God. As soon as we abandon ourselves to God and do the task He has placed closest to us, He begins to fill our lives with surprises."
Moving to Mexico has truly been one of the biggest surprises of my life (behind being pregnant with twins and winning a free kitchen, of course). Establishing a new home and routine here this past week has been tough. I've had many sighs of sadness, many longings for my old life in Scappoose, my favorite routines. I've wondered what my purpose is here in Mexico. Then I try to return to the big picture: this is good for our family, good for our kids, good for me. Ben has a great job. We get to travel and have lots of adventures. We get to learn to live in a new culture where we can't always plan or control our outcome. We learning a new language and all about a different people. My kids will be different for this decision, Ben and I will be different from this decision, our marriage will grow, and our family will also grow closer together. And most importantly, our faith in the God who brought us here will increase.
One of the biggest changes for me has been a much slower pace of life. In Scappoose, I always had something to do: clean house, cook, garden, homeschool, or visit friends and neighbors. Sometimes I barely sat down all day. Now, the boys and I have nothing really to do rather than school, find a park, swim, work on Spanish, read. Sure I'm still cooking and cleaning, but the amount of "tasks" I have here is minimal compared to Scappoose. It's been a long time since I've spent so much time just hanging out with the boys. It's an adjustment, but it's good.
Another great example of this more focused time with the boys was this weekend, our first Saturday together since Ben returned to work. Usually our Saturdays in Scappoose consisted of catching up with home projects, gardening, or running errands. Saturday, we didn't have anything to do except choose what park or adventure we'd be doing with the kids. We chose Parque Fundidora, an enormous park in the heart of downtown Monterrey. It was frying hot, 105 by the time we returned home to be exact, so we ended up spending most of the time inside at the Foundry Museum. The whole park was created on the site of an old Foundry, and they still have one of the structures for tour. It was pretty amazing. Here are some pictures from the adventure:
Thank goodness for all the shade, not just for functionality, but the trees are also beautiful!
We were fascinated by the different ducks, and Sam was just tickled that he got to see ducklings.
Inside the foundry museum.
Only in Mexico would there be an enormous slide with very steep steps...in a museum.
Sam and Seth posing as foundry workers
This is the outside of the museum. How cool is that? As you'll see in a minute, we took a ride in a cart up that ramp like structure on the right hand side to a cat walk along the outside of the structure. It was a great view of the whole city.
This is the view of the park from the cat walk. We can't wait to explore it more (especially on a cooler day!)
This is the ramp that the cart was pulled up on. It was so steep!
The crew in the cart.
On Sunday we spent the majority of the day with the only family we know in the area: Martin, Anita, Adrian, and Julian. They walked us to the street market in our city, which was pretty amazing. Two major avenues are closed to cars and hundreds of families take to the street: walking their dogs, riding bikes, rollerblading. The sides are lined with various vendors...basically imagine the Portland Street Market on steroids. It was so cool. I'm sure our family will visit it a lot.
Only in Mexico would you find Mickey and Minnie doing a promotion for a furniture company in the middle of the street.
Seriously, the best Popsicle ever.
After the street market, in which we literally walked at least four miles, we asked Martin and Anita if they would want to come to our house for a late (Mexican) lunch. They did, and then we all went to a park together afterwards. It was just so neat to spend so much time with another family without having anything else "to do." I think that this aspect of Mexican culture is going to be pretty awesome.
In the other park close to our house, there is a community trampoline. Isn't that amazing? Again, this could be only in Mexico, where liability isn't constantly an issue. It's refreshing.
Such a beautiful park!
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