Hola everyone !
It has been far too long since we have been in touch with prayer news,  sorry !  Here are our P&P's and attached newsletter.  We hope it updates you with our news and what has been keeping us  busy.  We think you are all awesome and value your support VERY much !  Please let us know how you are and how we can pray for you.  We love to do that.  Also if you have any up to date family/individual photos- we like to pray with our kids through a friends and family photo album- so send them our way!
Bless you - Elliot, Jo, Georgia and Luca Marshall  xxxxoooo


Marshall's 5 min P&P -  June  2011

Dear Praying friends,

May the Lord surprise you with his blessings this week !  We are often unaware of how much the Lord blesses us, and when we stop and think we are quite blown away with his blessings.  I’m sure he delights in our gratitude !

Thanks for all your prayers in the last months, it has been a ‘full on’ few months and a little overwhelming at times.  But we are so thankful for your prayers- thanks.

We are now settled in Ticuman and have seen that the Lord cares for his children !
It is a privilege to be part of all that is happening at El Monte.  It’s exciting but also hard work!

Praise:
For provision of a home where we wanted one, a car, tools to borrow for Elliot to make some furniture for us, and even a wee choc lab ‘Moro’.  

Someone donated a large sum of money for us to purchase a car and we were blown away by the goodness of the Lord and that he know’s our needs without us even going on at him ! We feel like a new family with the flexibility it is giving us already and we have only had it a few days.  God is good and God is big!
The story surrounding the purchase of the dog was also quite amazing.  We were      looking for a dog to be a guard dog and companion.  Our missionary friend meet a man in the car park of a supermarket who was selling dogs and told this man we might be interested.  So a few days later we took the trip with our friend to take a look at these chocolate labs and a conversation was struck, at the end of it our friend had led the man to the Lord and we had a lovely dog who is a blessing!  It was definitely no chance meeting- the guy asked the questions and he was hungry to know about a relationship with God and wanted to get his life right.  He has a Christian friend who had just given him a bible before we meet him.  Wow God is amazing.  It challenged us- Why aren’t we as bold in NZ ? !

That we passed our final exams and that our trip from the coast to here was successful even though it was very ‘eventful’, with a number of close calls.

Please Pray:

That we can find a Church to be part of.
That we can settle into our new life and roles at El Monte
For the energy to cope with the heat and living life when it’s hot all the time !
that we will not just meet neighbours but build meaningful relationships
for the building of relationships with the team at ElMonte
for Jo’s special cousin who has been in hospital.  That they will get all the support and love they need as a family.  And for full recovery for her cousin.
for the kids to settle and be content and be able to get enough sleep every night
for routine and organization ! With small children we need to have a good routine at home, at the moment it is a shambles as there are so many changes
for Jo’s sore back and neck to be healed

Dear friends,

A big HOLA from Mexico! This is the land of dust - 2 seasons - dry dust and wet dust (mud!). Currently we eat and breathe dust. You guessed it, it is the time of dry dust and very hot temperatures! But the good news is that the wet dust season is coming - well they say it’s good news around here, where the land turns green again and all is well, so we will keep you posted. We haven’t really experienced any rain since Oct last year, but last night we did get a little. The funny thing is that Luca started crying and sobbing as he didn’t like the sound of it! He was quite upset until we explained that rain was good and wouldn't hurt him! A Waikato boy who is scared of the rain - oh dear.

Concerning our move, thank you so much for all your prayers concerning a house for us - we were able to rent outside of the rich area, PTL. Our home is a 2 bedroom house, so great to not be sleeping beside the kids, a little bit of an adjustment for us all after a year!

Since our move to the state of Morelos and to Ticuman (a small town near El Monte) in late March, we have been busy trying to unpack, as well as; clean up the property, fix all the broken things, get orientated to our surroundings, trying to understand the new Spanish accent spoken in these parts, meet some of the locals, orientate to our team and El Monte, settle the kids into some sort of routine, deal with telephone companies, get to know our new puppy(Moro) who is to be our guard dog etc etc!

It has been BUSY, and a challenge coping with the heat (the temp is always in the high 30’s - and regularly is still in the late 30’s around midnight). BUT - there are some things we are really enjoying: a kitchen in our house, with running water and a sink, and a bench! The Lord really answered our prayers concerning the house. We have tiles and internet, and even hot water in the shower if we light the gas heater! What more could you want!

It has been so great to now be part of what is happening at El Monte, and to see the growth and get to know the team that we are working with. Elliot is starting to get a grip of what his role as ‘Maintenance manager’ will encompass and he doesn’t appear to be scared yet! Our team members (one in particular) has always been spread thin trying to cover both maintenance, and any new construction site management etc, so he is quite relieved to have Elliot here. They tease Elliot a lot about driving on the wrong side of the road, and the names he has for tools (different than in the States). Elliot is quite determined to keep his Kiwi lingo and rub off on them, rather than the other way around! We will see. (We are rather outnumbered by Americans in our team, and sometimes it feels as if we are adjusting to two new cultures! But they are great people!) Jo is getting great at cleaning toilets! It is so cool to know that by serving the Lord practically we can be part of something so big. Build a cabin - Mexicans can stay at El Monte and hear the gospel message! We like that.

Summer camp season is fast approaching so it’s getting busier and busier at El Monte and we expect to get a good taste of how things operate in the busy times. We really believe in the ministry of El Monte and are feeling as if it is a real privilege to be part of things here, serving the Lord in this part of Mexico. Last week the team hosted and organized a special camp that informed and challenged Mexicans on Mission and cross-cultural service. It is great to see things like that happening and to see the response of these young Mexicans challenged to step out for the Lord.

We have been attending the local Church which we are enjoying - it is within walking distance which is great. We have been encouraged by our WEC leaders in Mexico to find another Church as it’s a little bit too missionary saturated, so will do that when we have better transportation options. God has been so good to us in supplying what we need, and we are hoping that we are now close to buying a car, which will be sooooo good!

This change in location has generally been tough on us as a family, as we have felt very sad to leave those we had grown to love in Cacalote. It has really felt like a big adjustment for us all but especially for the kids. The routine of our day has been hard to establish with different sleep times, meal times etc. We have all been a bit grumpy! Yes even the parents!

Please pray:
* that we can make good friends here (the kids too), and that we will feel settled in our new surroundings.
* that the children will be happy and content and adjust to new routines.
* for our continuing language acquisition.
* for El Monte - for the supply of all the money, resources and personnel to reach goals for new construction etc
* that we will feel as if we are a part of the team at EM and can contribute despite our language challenges.

THANKS AGAIN FOR BEING PART OF OUR TEAM - we are so grateful to be serving the Lord with you here in Mexico. Your prayers and communication and support in all different ways is treasured - you are awesome!!

Dear Friends,

Greetings from our wee corner of Mexico. We pray that this finds you all well and happy and serving the Lord with all your hearts. Here is our latest monthly update so that you know how things are with the Marshalls.

You are a blessing and we appreciate all that you are doing to serve him as senders. It is so cool to see what God is doing in this place, and we should see it as a privilege to be serving the Lord together here in Mexico. God is on the throne, he has the victory and he is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords - no other! And people are coming to know the Lord in this part of the world. We have got to thinking that with all these natural disasters happening around the world it must make people think about their part to play in the Lord's plans for all peoples and all nations. And if it doesn't make us want to serve him even more and with some sense of urgency - why?

We have just celebrated Georgia's 4th Birthday and had our farewell in our wee fishing village, with the rest of this week packing up and trying to get through all the good-byes without too many tears. We are so sad about leaving here that it nearly breaks our hearts. Our friends here have helped us through a very tough 11 months and they have seen us wrinkles and all, which has somehow drawn us very close in a short time. And because life here is so basic, and everyone has to share everything you come to rely on people in a very different way than we are often accustomed to in New Zealand, where we have become so much of an 'individuals' society. So with sadness we depart early on the 23rd March for a long 11 hour drive to El Monte. We are blessed to have some of the El Monte team coming down with a large vehicle which we hope to fit everything in to!

We were excited to finish all our formal studies in Spanish and to pass everything was also a bonus! We have a lot more learning and a lot more of a need to practice, so the next thing language wise is to set a plan in place for our continued learning. We can have good basic conversations but our language needs much refinement! One thing we find quite hard is that most of the Mexican Christians still read the old King James Bible in Spanish - and that uses a lot of language that is never spoken unless you are reading the bible - so it's often very hard to get an idea of what is being said from the Bible.

Please pray:

We would appreciate your prayers concerning accommodation for us when we move. There is a huge shortage of houses for rental in the villages close to El Monte where we are required to live. At this stage the team have only been able to find us a place in a gated community which contains mainly holiday homes of more wealthy citizens of Mexico City etc. It is far from what we want as we will have no neighbours and feel quite isolated from the 'real' Mexico which we have grown to love. The team are a little 'stuck' because apparently it can be 6 months in between available rental properties and we can't live temporary all over the place for 6 months! We trust that the Lord is bigger that all the rental property issues and ask you to join in prayer with us for the supply of a reasonably decent rental house at a good price outside of the gated community, but close enough to other families in our team so that we can get rides in their vehicles as required for meetings etc. We feel as if our location of housing will have a big impact on our continued language and cultural adaption.

Please also pray for a smooth transition from Cacalote to El Monte. There are some cultural differences with language and how it is spoken as well as how things are done. Where we have been living up until now is a very casual coastal area and where we are moving to is a lot more formal - with men having to wear trousers outside of the house etc. But the biggest transition prayer is more for us as a family - that Georgia and Luca will be happy and settled and not too affected by the changes. Georgia has already been in tears a number of times saying good-bye to 'aunty's' that she has grown close to.

Please pray that we have no problems passing through checkpoints on the way or explaining all our things packed in the vehicle. There are many checkpoints on the roads in Mexico and a lot of bribery and corruption. People have cars and things impounded for no apparent reason sometimes. We still have no official papers despite having a lawyer who we are paying to deal with our visa. We spent 4 hours yesterday at immigration to come away with no papers etc as apparently the paperwork was fine but it had been sent incorrectly from the lawyer to immigration. There is a lot of power play and we need patience. Please pray that those at checkpoints will not be interested in our papers.

Blessings!

Thanks again for all your prayers and support and friendship-It is needed!

Elliot, Jo, Georgia and Luca

Recently we got to do 2 exciting things with Turtles !  The children of our local village have had the opportunity to release some baby turtles into the ocean and we got to briefly visit a turtle breeding place/sanctuary a short drive from where we live.


Here is a wee message from Georgia and Luca:

Hola it's Georgia and Luca here- we want to tell you about something fun we did the other day !

We went for a walk with Papa and Mama along the beach from our house to find some Turtles ! Some of the local people are working at saving the turtle eggs from being stolen or eaten. They have a special place where the eggs and baby turtles are looked after carefully.


We got to hold a wee Turtle- even though we were quite scared ! Then when the sun was setting we stood in a row with the other little local ninos and let the turtle go into the ocean, even into the big waves ! Our turtle was one of the slowest, and even turned around and tried to come back to us- but Papa turned it back towards the sea and it soon went where it was meant to !  It was lots of fun !


Turtles are so beautiful and very special- you know they can live to they are really old ! We were told 50 years or something like that !

We had the chance to spent some interesting time in a village in the mountains doing a medical outreach. What a great way to share God's love through helping people in this way.

It was so amazing to experience something different and to see a different aspect of Mexico.  The village was at the foothills of the mountains and they didn't speak Spanish but a local tribal language which was interesting! We helped some friends with a medical outreach and the kids did really well as it was HOT!  Elliot and I both got to help in 'triage' which included taking temps, BP's, weighing people etc which was fun!  The people are small and poor, and we felt fat and rich.  The local children were adorable and they  loved our blond kids.  It's not a village that has foreigners visit so it was a novelty for them to see our blondes.  There was a chance to sit in on consultations etc which was facinating.  Elliot was able to sit in on a consultation with a little boy who had a huge testicle hernia which he had from birth.  At birth the boy had the chance for an op but the Dad wouldn't allow it.  Our team realised that if it wasn't dealt with the little boy was going to have big probs.  The Mother has been trying to convince the father ever since.  I saw lots of ladies who said that they had pain in their hearts, but always pointed to there tummies !  The team saw 220 ish people in two days- it was hard work  but interesting!


Some things really struck me while we were in the village.  A visiting American lady gave a wee village girl and Georgia small dolls each that were the same.  Georgia was grateful, but the little girl was treating the doll like gold- holding it as if it was her most treasured possession in the world. Georgia's looked all disheveled after an hour or two, but the little girl was still holding hers gently, nearly too scared that if  she played with it she might ruin it.  Georgia probably knows there will be plenty more dolls for her.  


I have been thinking that I don't think God necessarily wants to to give up all our possessions or our kids toys or anything (but he may ask us to!)- but he has reminded me about generosity and being very grateful for all the things I do have- which is a hang of a lot.  So enjoy God's goodness to us today and his blessings.