Exploring Puebla

In this month's update I wanted to give you a glimpse into some of the things we've been doing in Puebla to get adjusted. Living in a new country can be challenging, but we've been trying to make the most of our time here and enjoy exploring our new city.

One of the things we've done to help our kids get adjusted is to start having family fun nights every Friday night. It's important for your kids to have rituals and routines that can give you a sense of normalcy in the midst of changes. So we felt like a family fun night would be a fun tradition we could take with us to any country.

Our family fun nights usually consist of ordering pizza, playing a game, or watching a movie. We've also made a point to start each family fun night by encouraging our kids with one thing they've done this past week that makes us proud.

Below you can see some pictures from our family fun nights. One of our favorite family fun nights was going ice skating! 

We've also tried to explore our city. Amy and I really enjoyed going to a place called Val'Quirico. This is a small development that is modeled after an Italian village. The developer traveled to Italy and enjoyed it so much that he decided to build a replica of an Italian village just outside of Puebla.

Jared has been playing a lot of chess lately. He's been hoping it will be a way for him to meet people using a hobby. So far it's worked. He has been able to play chess with a friend from the language institute. He also got to play chess with one of the Mexican families that is housing an IMB journeyman missionary. 

There are beautiful parks, museums and historical sites in our city as well. Below is a picture of our kids at a park, an art museum with a beautiful plaza, an old Catholic church and a model illustrating one of the world's largest (in total size) pyramids located in Puebla. 

One of our favorite times this past month was getting to visit a pastor's house. He had several animals that he raises for food. Jared was able to take Elizabeth and Caleb with him. They got to ride a horse and try some traditional Poblano food called Mole (pronounced mow-lay).

Prayer Requests

While we've been intentional this past month to enjoy our new surroundings we also continue to face challenges with language learning and adjusting to a new culture. We are thankful for everyone who has signed up for our monthly prayer updates and has been faithfully praying for us regularly.

One of the reasons we have been intentional to implement family fun nights and exploring our city is to help our kids enjoy life here. Statistics show that one of the main reasons missionary families return from the field is due to their kids not thriving in their new location. We're happy to say so far they've done a great job and seem to be enjoying our lives here. But we ask that you keep praying for them.

We're continuing to grow in our language and getting more comfortable using Spanish. Amy has been doing extremely well and there is a chance she can test out of language school in April. So we ask for your prayers for that.

Jared will continue to take language school. While he is getting more and more comfortable, he still has a lot of room to grow. Specifically, please pray that he would improve in being able to understand native Spanish speakers.

We continue to try to get involved in our local church, but we're having challenges. It's been much harder to get plugged in than we anticipated. We can't tell if it's because of a language barrier or something else. But we ask that you would pray for us to connect with our pastor and with fellow church members.

We always love hearing from you guys, so please leave us a comment below.