La Paz Day 3

We Arrived!!

It was a short, but interesting drive today- about 4 hours starting along the sea of Cortez and then into the interior flatland for a while and then back down to the sea of cortez at La Paz.

The day statred early as Caleb and Jacob ran down for a quick swim at the pool- it was a little chilly out so they did not last very long. Then we got all packed up and got ready to go on our excursion to the timeshare sales pitch.

We have had a little cold passing through our family (starting with Caleb) and he was not doing well on the twisty roads leading to the breakfast / timeshare place. Sharlene had the forethought to hand him a little emergency bag in case he felt sick... and he did. The poor fella had his little bag of fun with him when we got out of the car. We were looking for a garbage can and could not find one- so he held onto it until we forgot about it...

They took us about 25 minutes away (towards our destination, thankfully) past a humble little fishing village to the resort that was under construction. It was a beautiful area, but likely very much a disturbance to the local fisherman that lived there.

They fed us breakfast and it soon became obvious through the questions that we were not a good clientele for them. Carlos kept trying to pry and see if we would like this sort of thing and then took us in for a "presentation". We didn't ask many questions, and he finshed his presentation much earlier than he expected- so he took us to see the only suite they have finished at the resort.

Before we left over there I told Carlos that he had drawn the short straw today, that we were not buyers and we didn't have money for this type of thing- and even if we did- this was not really our style. He insisted we let him finishg his job- which we did- otherwise he would've gotten in trouble with his boss, for sure. So off we went to see the suite.

It was nice.

We went back to the sales building where he ran some numbers across us. It was pretty obvious quickly that it was well out of our price range. If we go on vacation, we stay with people or get hotels on hotwire for cheap-- so there was no way he could make this look better for us.

We asked no questions at all. We didn't really say anything, we just listened politely. He answered questions that people would normally ask while we listened quietly.

At the end he said-- would you like to pay the yearly fee for one week at the resort even if membership was $1.00. We said no, not really. It wasn't us, but thank you for your work!

The membership fee wasn't $1.00 it is $25,000!! The shock was probably evident on our faces! We were WAY over our heads...

He said we could do payments- we told him we don't borrow.

He was pretty dumbfounded at that point. As is normal, his boss came over to try to encourage us to rethink, but when he heard our situation- he let us out!

I'm not sure exazctly what it was all about- if God just provided us with a cheap room in exchange for our word. But Carlos told us that his mom and sisters were christians where he is from- Cancun. so maybe we were a little bit of light away from home- a part of an answer to his families prayers. We were very clear as to who we were in Christ and that because of that we weren't living for just the pleasure of this life- but living a simpler life for Jesus in service to Him and his people in Mexico.

We are hoping we were a bit of a witness to Carlos and that God will bring others in his path.

So we finally made it to La Paz, "the Peace". We are staying in a nice house of some missionary folks we don't know who have gone away for a while. It is on a campground with lots of room for the kids to run around and play- with a pool and a trampoline! All we need is a soccerball and everythign will be perfect!

Except that we're ALL sick now! Please pray that we would get better, quickly!

I have a meeting today with the president of the local ministerial to show him what we do and ask him for his insight as to the needs in the community. I'm also going to try to take a drive out to the poorer areas to see some of them for myself and see what the needs are out there.

Monday I have an appointment with another missionary to hear what he has to say- and a third person with whom I want to talk has not gotten back to me as of this morning. Hopefully with those 3 insights as well as some exploring of our own, we'll have a good idea as to what God is doing here!

Thanks for praying...