Oh The Weather Outside is... wonderful!

Oh the weather is... frightful? Nah, why you're in Mexico, sunshine ALL year long! :)

As the weeks pass I can hardly believe in almost 10 days little Ms. Gonzalez will be HERE!
I don't know how much she'll remember the few weeks she will be here in Guadalajara but I know for me, as her older sister, it will be significant enough. She was a toddler when she left this city and now she is a big teenager visiting the place of her birth for the first time again! It's insane that her 10-year old cousin and her will finally meet for the first time!

A couple of months before leaving Mexico, little Ms. Gonzalez enjoys an uncle's family ranch and its animals :) 

And yet I realize that for some reason this is the life God has given me, the unique aspect of being "home" in two homes, of (God-willing) having the freedom to travel back and forth in these two unique beautiful places. I AM so blessed with this, or will be at least!

However I don't forget that really, this is a small victory, my brother will still be in another country because of details in the immigration law, my mom still has a longer wait and there's the reality that UNdesired immigration is still present and pushing Mexico. I believe that roughly 1 out of every 10 Mexican citizens are in the U.S. most as illegal immigrants, most having suffered through an awful ordeal of poverty. Minimum wage here continues to be 50 US cents the hour and I know full well food prices are about the same in both countries. It's a beautiful place, with a beautifully deep inequality and much too well defined socio-economic groups.

Art thrives in this theater built in 1866 in Guadalajara, still VERY much in use to promote the arts in the city

The gorgeous hills in Veracruz

Slums in Guadajara

C'est Fini

It's finished, se ha terminado....

Alas I find myself writing for a bit here again, with the most arduous desire to re-take this habit and I think indeed with the opportunity to do so!

The past two weeks or so have been a blur, I am not certain where one started or ended, and what content there was in the middle of them! It's suddenly early in December 8th and I find myself with the sweetness of a few weeks where there is so little planned and with a semester at the threshold of its completion. I normally dread these occasions, I am reminded of 4 months about a year and a half ago where time was painful, where it much too slowly and painfully layered into depression, loneliness and frustration. However I know the circumstance are quite different but I still find myself a bit antsy about planning errands, helping, doing, feeling a day has had some purpose to it. If anything (once this flu is over) I hope to spend a few days a week with the gorgeous children at the home. I still stand in awe of them, in their simplicity, in their extraordinary way of just living and being present to those who visit and care for them. They simply do it, they don't plan how or why they do it, they simply do. They live. They tell you what they need with a great faith that their need will be responded and then express gratitude in their authenticity of their personhood. They ask to be loved, and they love you by being fully themselves. I can't possibly ask for anything else... with them or anyone else really.

Regardless, God is so good, indeed He is! In about a month I'll be packing a few things to fly (or maybe drive?) to the Mexican border city of Cuidad Juarez (right next to El Paso, TX) known as El Paso al Norte (the gateway north.. slight change from St. Louis gateway to the West nickname) according to a quick search in wikipedia. For about a week little Ms. Gonzalez and I will go through the various requirements (ranging from medical examinations, fingerprinting, lots of paperwork and a final interview with U.S. official) required by law to see a place a year ago I wasn't certain at all when I'd see. Things really will change after that, and I anticipate the date more than anything! It's been over 10 years of a process where at any point it could end and break (and many many times I saw its end so close for various circumstances) so yes, I am pinching myself again and again to see if it's actually happening...

Regardless, indeed MORE to come!

Photo Credit: Lianette Papaterra, dear friend from St. Louis who took this picture in El Paso about a year ago. The right shows you Cuidad Juarez, city that awaits this pilgrim soon enough!