¡Adios a Mèxico!

I'm in the airport in Mexico City just about to leave the country - so sad! I am gonna really miss all my friends here and everything about this place! I have had an amazing experience and learnt lots about God and his amazing power!

This week has been a fun week of seeing new places and meeting people. It's so interesting the people you encounter when you're travelling from all over the world!

My time is just about to run out, so I'll write more when I'm in the US or when I get back to Aussie!

Thanks to all for your emails and prayers - I will get around to writing back soon!

Love to all!

¡Nos vemos!

Phil

¡Estoy una surfista!

Hola todo!

I'm in Puerto Escondido and loving it! I surfed for about 6 hours today! I haven't taken on Zicatela (Mexican Pipeline) yet, but I surfed today at La Punta. Now I am a little bit sunburnt, but all good! I've got a 6´11" pintail surfboard (for those that care) and it goes quite well. You need a bit more of a gunnier board for here.

Met new friends here from Netherlands, US and Brazil. Lots of fun.

I have a cool cabaña by the beach which is very comfortable and very cheap. The lifestyle here is really chilled and I like it a lot! Very much a surfer village!

I haven't got any emails from work so I am still coming home this weekend! hehehe All my flight hassles seem to be sorted out - my Continental flight has been fixed.

Thanks for all your prayers and please continue to pray for my safety and walk with God this week.

Phil

P.S. I miss you guys in QRO!!! I wish you were here to enjoy the beach!

En Aeropuerto Mexico

¡Buenas dìas!

I'm back at the same internet cafe that I was at 5 weeks ago, waiting for my flight. hehe this airport feels very familiar now after spending time rushing around it on the way over!

I just caught the bus here from Queretaro, it was sad to leave. I will miss my family, my friends, the team and the church in Queretaro but I trust that I will have the opportunity to return in the future.

Man, buses here are fantastic for intercity travel! The bus from Queretaro with Primera Plus only cost 220 pesos, so about $30, and it is really comfortable. You get given a little snack pack with a drink and sandwiches and galletas (biscuits). You have a nice little leg rest and they show pirated movies on the LCD screens jeje. I actually understood a lot of this movie which was cool.

I'm looking forward to seeing the beach here in Mexico - I've forgotten what sand and waves look like! Hmmm, I should check the surf report for Escondido while I'm on here.

Well, hope everyone is well. Look forward to seeing you, but still don't want to come home!

If anyone from work reads this and wants to give me another couple of weeks off so I can stay here a bit longer - please email me!!! hahaha Seriously! hehehe

¡Saludos!

It's time to pick up everything and put it away...

¡Hola chicos!

I hope everyone is well! Sorry that I haven't had the chance to update much lately, but this is a bit of a sad one because tonight is my last night in Queretaro! I have had the most wonderful, exciting, engaging time here and have experienced God in new and fantastic ways! Jesus Christ is Lord!

I am sad to leave all my friends here and it has been difficult to say goodbye, but for now it is necessary. I have made so many great friends here it is amazing. I will miss all of you lots and I feel so blessed to have spent this time getting to know you!

I head off tomorrow for Puerto Escondido to hopefully catch some waves. I am planning on staying in a cabaña by the beach for 120 pesos a night - bargain!

There is so much more that I could write about - swimming this week, farewells, much much more, but I must go. We are just about to go for dinner...

Nos vamos!

The team at debrief in San Miguel
Mi amigos
Mi amigos
Mi amigos (and PC)

¡Una buena semana!

¡Hola!

I haven't had much access to computadoras this week so I don't have the ability to put up photos right now... anyway, I'll let you know a bit of what I've been up to...

Tuesday was 21 de Marzo here which is a celebration for Benito Juarez's birthday, so it was a public holiday and no classes. (you know what's funny!? I'm thinking in Spanish which makes it hard to write in English - good thing!) I went to Balnerio el Colarado which is a swimming pool near Queretaro with my friends from the cafe. It was super! We hung out at played ball and ate food which was ace. It's so cool that I've got friends here now - if you're reading... you guys rock!
After that I caught up with another friend and we had coffee and I saw a bit more of Queretaro. Man, this place is so interesting! There's much more variety than I ever expected - from rich to poor, beautiful to ugly, cultural to normal it's all here.

Yesterday I had class, then went to the cafe for our Universitarios lunch and hung out with the young people for a bit, then I went to a movie with some of the guys. We saw "Un Mundo Marvelloso" in Spanish which was cool. I understood most of it!

Anyways, I gotta go. My time here is coming to an end and I wish it was longer. I am going on a day trip with Justin and Lluvia on Saturday to debrief, then I leave on Sunday morning for Mexico then Puerto Escondido.

Please continue to pray for me, for safety, for my farewells and that God will continue to teach and guide me.

Adios para ahora!

Phil

Ultimo Domingo en mì iglesia

Today was my last Sunday at Horizonte, unfortunately next Sunday I won't be able to attend because I will be travelling back to Mexico City for the next part of my trip. The service this morning was fantastic - I was able to get into the songs even when they didn't have the words up on the overhead. It is so amazing to praise God in another language, I found it really exciting. It was particularly cool when we sang songs I know in Spanish such as Open The Eyes Of My Heart and Over The Mountains And The Sea! I am so encouraged by the enthusiasm and passion of the church community at Horizonte and have been blessed as they have welcomed me and I have been a part of their church.
Yesterday there was a "working bee" at the church and it was really cool to have a stack of us painting a wall together. Even that was a really cool time of fellowship as we painted alongside each other.

This is Horizonte. The actual room is really big but I was down the front!

Yesterday I also had a great afternoon going around el centro with a friend and seeing some more of the tourist sights. There is so much culture here and so many amazing stories behind all the buildings. The streets are magnificent and there are lots of little markets and little things that make this such a cool place. For example, there was a tango exhibition and a band playing for free as a cultural activity in one of the plazas and all around there are people selling colourful baloons and handicrafts. It´s wonderful and I absolutely love it! Tonight we again visited el centro and there was an a brass ensemble playing in the main bandstand and people dancing all around. It was amazing! So so much fantastic culture, sights and sounds to experience, I can't even begin to explain it!

This is not Horizonte! jeje it's another of the beautiful churches here

This is my last week working at the cafè so I must continue to keep my focus on Jesus and serve enthusiastically. I don't want to leave at the end of the week, but time is limited. I'm sure God has his plans in mind for the future, so I'll leave that up to him for the moment. Please keep praying for the cafe, my Spanish classes and for the relationships I have established. Pray that through my time here and everything that I do, God may be glorified and his name lifted up.

Adios for now.

Phil

¡Hoy es Viernes 17 de Marzo!

¡Hola amigos!

I'm still having a most awesome time here in Queretaro! I'm starting to get a bit sad because I only have one more week here in Queretaro! I love it here and I wish I could stay longer! I had a dream the other night that I was talking to the main partner at work and he was like "Phil, you should stay longer, don't worry about coming back to work for a couple of weeks, stay in Mexico!" Unfortunately in the morning, I woke up!

I have just completed my first full week of Spanish classes and I am much more confident speaking Spanish now! I had a really good conversation with a couple of guys from the uni / prep school this afternoon - Bruno and ?... I was able to understand much more and be understood which was super exciting! Right now I working in the cafè alone (which is also new - usually I have someone else who speaks Spanish!) and a few of the regular guys are in. Mario is in the cafe at the moment. He's a champion. He's one of the local Christian guys who comes in regularly and brings in lots of friends. He goes to a different church but he's really enthusiastic and cool.

I saw the coolest, most random thing today on my way to the cafè. When cars were stopped at the traffic lights, two guys dressed as clowns, got up in front of the cars and started performing. One guy was on the shoulders of the other and the guy on top was juggling!! Then they walked past the cars and asked for donations. I think that's definitely one big step up from our window washers at the lights!

Hmmm, what else has been happening. I had such a cool day on Wednesday! I went with a few of the young people up to the Technical School (escula Technològica) and taught them to play Aussie Rules (well as least to kick the footy). We met Osvaldo and this other guy called Alvaro (never met him before!) there and they joined us. It was sooooo much fun! They picked it up really quickly so I think I might be drafting a few of them before long! Alvaro particularly was really good - he loved it! I've had fun telling people about Aussie Rules - it's very different to any other football!

I've made some really good friends here who I will be sad to leave! It's so cool to have friends around the world now! God has really blessed me with the cool people I have met here in the cafè and I will miss them heaps when I have to go! Will definitely make the most of the time I still have here!!

I'm planning to travel in my last week to Puerto Escondido and Mexico City before I return to Australia. Really, really wish that I had more time here!!

Love to all back home - miss you, but wish you were here to experience the rich culture and life in Mexico!

Phil

Escuela de idiomar (Language School)

Today was my first day of group classes at Ole language school. It was really, really good! I had three classes and two of them were one-on-one which is handy. The other class I have a German guy studying with me which is also cool. I am learning lots and my Spanish is improving rapidly! I now have classes Monday to Friday for 3 hours a day. Please pray that these classes will be effective and also that I will not be too busy with all my activities.

I want to share just a few thoughts and encouragements from the bible - I have been studying Nehemiah along with the Scripture Union Encounter With God aid and I was blown away reading Nehemiah 8-9 so I wanted to share it with you.

So check out Nehemiah 8-9 and follow along!

First of all, the people had just finished rebuilding the walls of the city - a major project. They had just settled in their towns. They then came to the city gate and told Ezra the priest to bring out the Law of Moses. The people went to their leaders and asked for God´s word to be read to them! How often do we have this sort of commitment and thirst for God´s word? How often do we actively seek its blessing and direction, instruction and correction?

Next, the whole assembly of men, women and anyone who could understand listened from daybreak till noon and they all listened attentively! They listened attentively all morning! How often I find myself distracted or my mind wandering during a 30 minute sermon or when I´m reading God´s word. Once again, they had a thirst for God´s word that is a testimony to us.

As Ezra opened the book, all the people stood up. I can picture the 50,000 odd people all standing up at once. Then when Ezra praised God, everyone lifted their hands up and responded "Amen! Amen!" Imagine that for a worship service!! It´s more like the whole of the AFL Grand Final praising God - how awesome would that be!?!

Then the Levites, the spiritual workers appointed by God, who studied the word and worked in the temple, read from the word and explained it to the people. They made it clear so the people could understand. What a blessing it is to have godly spiritual leaders to make God´s word clear to us. We should recognise these people, pray for them and support them.

Then everyone celebrated!!! They had a party to mark this holy time of reading God´s word. They didn´t mourn, they were happy because they had received God´s instruction and understood it. They had this amazing joy - how good is that!! I was reading the other day that "the joy of the Lord will be your strength." It certainly was for these people.

The next day they gathered again around Ezra - the family leaders, priest and Levites - to read God´s word. The next bit is super-cool! They found out something new from reading God´s word and they were like "Oh no! We´re not following God´s word! We need to do this right away!" So they got straight to it! They went out and obeyed what God had said in his word. What a massive lesson for us! How often we hear sermon after sermon of good teaching and we read God´s word only to fail in obeying it. "It´s too hard" we say, or "we´ll start that once we get this other thing fixed up." No - the people get straight to it and we should also have that kind of immediate obedience.

From that obedience, they had massive joy. It says that they hadn´t celebrated the festival like this, with as much vigour, since the days of Joshua son of Nun. That says to me that it was massive! Then every day they continued to read from God´s word. Obedience to God brings us real joy as we follow him. Can you catch a glimpse of the joy that these people experienced as they celebrate God´s goodness and God´s direction.

They go on in chapter 9 to fast and spend a quarter of the day reading God´s word and a quarter of the day confessing their sins and worshipping God. They praise God and recount his hand in the lives of their people, the Israelites, and how he has been gracious, compassionate, loving and patient with them. God is the same yesterday, today and forever and we can remember his goodness to his people and to us constantly.

I was so encouraged by this passage and I hope you are too. There´s many more lessons and applications in this rich part of scripture, but these were just some lessons that jumped out at me.

¡Adios!

Phil

Tecozautla: el parque acuatico

Here are some photos that I didn´t get a chance to put up last night. The first is Mauricio and Mauricio at the water park. It was such a cool place with some great water slides! I went on the water slides with Marco and Cyra who are niece and nephew of Mauricio (jnr).

This is my host family in the pool. Left to right is Mauricio, Susana, Cyra, Adriana, Marco, Mauricio and his friend Estefania.

This is Tequisquiapan - the city centre is so beautiful!

This is us having coffee at a restaurant in Tequisquiapan.

We all had such a good day! I was really privileged to see some more of the countryside and to hang out with my Mexican family - they´re a lot of fun! There really is cactuses (cactai?) all around in countryside here!! I even ate some cactus at lunch (comida) yesterday - it was kinda spicy and tasted a little like chicken (hehehe).

I´m understanding more and more Spanish! I understood much more in church this morning which was cool. I start full-on Spanish classes in the morning tomorrow - looking forward to it, but I´m sure it will be a bit tiring!

Noche de Musicà

¡Hola!

Only got time for a quick update, but I thought I would let everyone know that Thursday and Friday went really well - I´m enjoying and learning lots from my Spanish classes and the music jam night was great!

I had two people again in my English class on Thursday night, but I think at least one more will come next Tuesday so that´s really encouraging and an answer to prayer.

Last night we had a jam night at Global Grounds which turned out to be a lot of fun! We had prepared guitar chords and lyrics for a handful of songs, but we ended up jamming a lot of songs in Spanish. Everyone got into it and a few stars were born! Good times!

Had a great day today also, visited Tecozautla and Tequisquiapan. We went to a water park at Tecozautla then went to Tequisquiapan later in the evening. Tequisquiapan is such a beautiful city (well from the part of el centro that I saw!). They had a festival on with Rondellas playing in the city square which I really enjoyed.

Gotta run, but will keep you updated and might try and tell you a bit more about these events when I get a bit of time!

Phil

Más fotos

Hola amigos!

Sorry I haven´t updated much this week, I´ve been kinda busy and also haven´t had any big events to report on. I start Spanish classes this afternoon, then from next week I will be having group classes for 3 hours every morning - very exciting! I´m getting quite busy with many things to do and see and be involved in - still loving it!

I did my placement test for the Spanish school last night - it was quite funny! I had NO idea of most of the things. They didn´t even have some easy stuff that I could gun! It was good to keep me humble, as I really need to improve my Spanish!














I´ve got a busy afternoon/evening today - I´m off to a 2 hour Spanish tutorial from 4-6, then I teach my English class from 7-8, then I am leading the Universitarios bible study tonight at 8pm! Please pray for me (if you´re out of bed!).

We are having another activity at Global Grounds this Friday night - a jam night for musicians. Please pray for the organisation of this and that we get some young people along to play and to listen.



I´ll leave you with a few photos. Over and out! Phil This is Convento de La Cruz. It´s very ornate and beautiful!

¡Bienvenidos a Australia!

Australian Night was great! Thanks to everyone who was praying!

We had about 15 or 16 people there which was a great turnout. The preparation was a little stressful, but all in all, we got everything done and it was a really fun night! I got the chance to tell people all about the great big brown land that I come from! It was really, really great to build relationships with the young people on the night!

And yes, I did cook up a storm after we eventually got something resembling a barbeque going. I cooked garlic prawns and snags in bread with salad to show everyone what a good Aussie barbie is like. Unfortunately, the flies were a little light on so we didn´t get to swat them.


We also had a handball competition so that I could bring a taste of Aussie Rules to Mexico.
Someone asked me if we play American Football in Australia... I said no!!! hehehe

We also did Vegemite tasting... it was about a 50/50 like/hate ratio. Some of the "oh my goodness, I´ve never tasted something so awful" faces were priceless! Apparently, there´s a medicine here in Mexico which tastes like Vegemite, so to them, Vegemite reminds them of medicine!

I also had my first English class on Thursday night. There were only two students there, but it went really well anyway. I am praying that a few more will join next week so that we have a group of about 5-6 to make the class more lively and interesting for the participants. Please pray for this.

Justin and I also had our first discipleship time on Friday. We are studying the book of Philippians in the bible. It was a really encouraging time where we could share together and pray together.

Also, on Friday I discovered the BIG American chain stores - to buy things for Australia Night, we went to Walmart, OfficeMax and this other big store. My goodness they´re big. They are pretty much like Kmart and Coles joined together inside a Bunnings store (to put it in Australian!!). The store is like a warehouse and it contains everything from fresh food to clothes to electronics goods. Unfortunately, nowhere had the yellow and green streamers I was looking for (although I was still able to tell everyone how good the Aussie cricket team is!).

Saludos! (I found out this means like buenas dìas (good day). The other night a guy said it to us and I didn´t quite hear him, once we got back in the car I asked the others "What did he just say? Did he say Shalom!?" They assured me that he wasn´t Jewish, whilst having a good laugh at my expense. The answer: Saludos!)

Phil the Aussie-Mexican

My baggage is back!

¡Buenas noches todos!

My baggage is back - God has been so good to me in this. It arrived today at about 1:30pm. A few things had leaked in my bag, but it is very good to have it back intact and complete. I now have the AFL footballs and Vegemite for the Australia Night fiesta! Thanks to everyone who has been praying about this - God is faithful and he´s brought it back at just the right time.



Also, I thought I would share a couple of photos of the beautiful historical sites of Queretaro. I visited Cerro de las Campanas (The Hill of the Bells) on Saturday. This is where Maximilian was killed.














I realised that I had not published any photos really showing you Global Grounds, so here it is! Behind the counter is Sergio, one of the local guys who helps out at GG. Sitting in front of the counter is Mauricio. I am staying with Mauricio´s family. He is an absolute champion and we have been having a great time hanging out and discussing everything from Philosophy (which he studies) to why Mexicans say "bueno" ("good") when they answer the phone!