KEVIN ELWORTH LIVE

A great fear has swept our city, country for that matter. It started here in our town about a week ago. People have always worn these masks around, not really sure why, but last Saturday everyone was wearing them. They are terrified of encountering this horrible strain of the flu. I think rightfully so as well. We in Mexico started it!

All schools are cancelled until at least May 6, the Catholic church today announced that they were suspending their weekend masses at all churches (at least in our city, as assumably they will in other parts as well), many of small businesses throughout the city had their steel gates shut today and downtown looked like a ghost town compared to what it usually is down there in mid afternoon. People are genuinely afraid of what might happen. There have been over 2500 confirmed cases and over 160 deaths related to this here in Mexico, but as of this moment, none have been found in our state.

Our hearts go out to these people in such fear, especially the ones living in the poorer areas of town where cleanliness is not well maintained.

It’s a scary situation especially when you are in the heart of it!

Last Sunday we decided to give it a go and see how he did. We got everything we needed, set his little chair up in our downstairs bath, had his training pants, some m&m’s for when he “did good” and off we went. It started out pretty well. He liked the idea of what he was about to do, seemed to think strangely about the new pants, and loved the m&m idea. The plan was to ask him every 15 minutes if he had to pee, and it didn’t take long to realize that he understood what we were talking about. One time I asked him “Austin do you have to pee?” He yelled “TTTEEE!” and ran off toward the bathroom. I followed, helped him with his pants, then he goes, “SSSSS” and says “all done” and points to the m&m’s. Wow! He’s pretty smart.

It didn’t last long, he never really did pee in the thing, he did pee though…all over the walls! He seemed to be getting frustrated with it because he hasn’t learned how to control it yet. That ended up with some screaming, fits and hitting. Not a good situation. So for now we’ll lay off a while longer, maybe till his second birthday at the end of June and see where he goes from there. No pun intended! =)

Something that I started doing soon after we got here was going to Starbucks every Friday morning to get a few things done and try to build some relationships with the people that work there and anyone else the Lord might bring my way. We’ve been gone for a while, so I didn’t have any expectations for what might be when we returned, but God gave me a huge encouragement last week when I walked into Starbucks and everyone greeted my by name! Some of you are thinking that I drink to much coffee and probably spend to much time there, but think about it. Not only did they greet me by name but they also have begun to ask questions about why me and my family, being from North American, would move to Mexico. I’m still a bit torn as to what to tell people but most of the time I tell them that we are here to teach the Bible and something I think I’m going to start saying is that we are here to make sure people know of the vast love of Christ and the hope they can have in Him.

So yes going to Starbucks in fact can be a ministry!

Thursday night we had the opportunity to go to a bull fight here in Zacatecas. This week the city has organized hundreds of cultural opportunities throughout the city. Most people have this week off and this is spring break for the schools. Part of our orientation is to get into as much cultural stuff as we can so we can learn about Mexico, their history, and so many other things. Bull fights don’t take place here very often, it’s more of a Spain thing, so because they were going to have one we may not get another chance. We knew some of what we would see there, we knew there would be blood and some gore so we were prepared for that.

All in all it was very cultural and very interesting, but by the time they killed the fifth bull we decided we had had enough blood so we left a bit early. You can check out the pics below and see what you think.