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Saturday, December 19, 2009

Vow...

Vow…what does it mean? Depending upon the context in which it’s used, the definition varies somewhat but there is the common defining thread of a solemn pledge or promise. The original intent did not seem to allow for an escape clause.
It’s been a long, tiring day. Today’s events actually began for us a few days ago and most of them center around the ease of making a vow and the difficulty in honoring it. I have received about a dozen calls from Elizabeth (Miguel’s wife) this past week. They have been having some marital issues again. She wanted us to come to Tipitapa and talk with her about the situation. Because of some of the information she shared, I opted not to do an “emergency” trip there and told her in that and every subsequent conversation that we would be there on Saturday (today) at our regular time. She called again last night and asked if we could come early before class and talk with both of them. It seemed as though their situation was worsening by the minute. Jim and I agreed to do that and told her that she needed to tell Miguel that we were coming early and why. She said she would.
I sat up until 1:00 a.m. making my counseling notes…looking up scriptures and making counseling observations based on those scriptures, translating them in to Spanish plus copying scriptures from another Spanish Bible version. It proved to be much more work than I had anticipated when I sat down at the computer seven hours earlier.
When I finally fell in to bed, I was exhausted but my mind just kept whirring. I just wasn’t sure how committed either of them were...to their marriage or at that point, even to the Lord. I have worked with them so many times before and it seems like we’re always covering old ground. I felt short on patience and long on lecture…thank goodness there was going to be a night of “rest” before we had our conversation. Morning came much too early…somebody needs to make a huge pot of chicken soup using those raucous roosters out back! I swear there are nights that they “howl” at the moon in rooster-ese.
We left the house about 10:00 this morning. We had to take Pixie back to her house for the day…she and Xander are also working on their relationship! But progress is slow there…we’re not yet comfortable leaving them together all day long with only Felix trying to monitor their behavior…we don’t want either one of them hurt…or Felix for that matter!
While at Susanna’s, I ran in to the house to talk to Margarita. I asked her if she could switch her work schedule next week so that I could have her here Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday…we have Sadie and her boyfriend, Marc, coming for a visit next week. I want our floors to have Margarita’s magic touch before they get here. By switching her days, she would lose out on Christmas holiday pay from us as she would be scheduled to work for Susanna that day. I told her we would go ahead and pay her Christmas pay as we had planned. Knowing that, she was fine with switching days.
Our other reason for wanting Margarita to switch days is that Susanna’s electrical wire to her property has been cut or snapped…not sure which. ..and she has been without power since Monday or Tuesday. Susanna’s in the States so that she can spend Christmas with her family and won’t be back for a bit. This means there’s a refrigerator and freezer which desperately need to be cleaned out as they are filled with now-spoiled food…just another reason why I would like to get a freezer someday. I would much rather have had to transfer frozen food from one house to another than to have to do the dirty deed that is ahead of us. Jim and I are going to go over there on Monday morning to pitch the melted, smelly, brown stuff…and since I changed Margarita’s schedule, she will be there to help us with the clean-up, if we should need her. Not looking forward to this!
Okay…back on track. After dropping Pixie off, we stopped at McDonald’s and bought our lunch. I don’t know why but I find it funny that our McD’s here has its own version of a dollar menu! Actually, it’s the equivalent of an 87 cent menu! Even with us sizing up our drink to what would be a small in the U.S., we can eat a lunch for a little over $6.30 – with our hefty 15% tax included! I love bargains like that…which is good ‘cause it’s still a McD’s lunch no matter how much of a bargain it is!
We ate our lunch on the road. Traffic was horrible today! Guess everyone was out doing their Christmas shopping. The weather is warm, no snow in sight, no fireplace to hang stockings on but we came close to a U.S. Christmas experience yesterday at the mall. All the parking places were filled in the parking garage…where we prefer to park due to the semi-alert security guard there. Thankfully, a car was backing out just as we came upon them so we managed to snag a place right up front which is close to that particular entrance to the mall…the proximity to the mall isn’t for convenience…but again, for security.
The mall was packed! Lots of people hustling and bustling around…I could almost imagine the song “Silver Bells” playing…”city sidewalks, busy sidewalks, dressed in holiday style, in the air there’s a feeling of Christmas”…only in the air at the mall, there was a low key level of frenzy…if there is such a thing. The stores were all decorated, the little plaza area in the mall had a giant decorated Christmas tree, store employees wore elf hats and there was a very skinny, very bored Nica Santa Claus occasionally waving at the children. I guess the kids didn’t notice the discrepancy of the appearance of this Santa and the “real” Santa…joke.
We had decided to brave the mall because we needed to get gifts for the children of our employees plus a couple of more things for Kenneth and Lindsay. We headed to El Mundo…I love that store! They have a little bit of everything…children’s toys from China, faded scentless potpourri, paper thin shower curtains, gift bags with pieces of tissue glued to the inside, strange brand toaster ovens, cheaply made calculators, “leather-ette”purses…all packed in to a very small retail space. It’s one of those kinds of stores that you keep your elbows close to your side and your purse in front of you so that you don’t knock anything off the shelves. It’s crowded regardless the time of year but at Christmas, it’s packed. Their customer capacity somehow seems to increase in direct proportion to their Christmas inventory. I still haven’t figured out how you can put more people in less floor space…must be one of those principles of physics I slept through in college.
Well, yesterday, I experienced my “Wal-Mart moment”…only it occurred in El Mundo. That moment comes when I’ve had my fill and am ready to check out and go home NOW! It’s like being on sensory overload and just needing some peace and quiet…and nobody’s elbow in the middle of my back or their foot on top of mine. It typically happens more at the most wonderful time of the year than any other.
Jim and I had to laugh at the whole shopping experience there. It was crazy with customers literally pushing you out of their way as they muttered, “Perdon” or “Con permiso”…that is if you were lucky enough to have a polite rude person physically moving you from their path. But the store personnel were amazingly kind and helpful. Our arms were filled with toys and they came and took them up to the register for us so that we could continue shopping in some comfort. Or at least, that’s what I told myself. I think maybe they were just trying to make sure we didn’t steal anything or poke somebody’s eye out with the wooden hobby horse we got for Gabriel.
When we were ready to check out, we got in line. Who am I kidding? There was no line. There is one checkout counter with two registers behind it, again, in a very small space and people cloistered around it, jockeying for a better check-out position. The young girl who had so kindly taken our purchases to the counter for us, wanted to make sure that the set of walkie talkies that we had purchased for Felix’s boys would work. Of course, just the fact that she wanted to do that didn’t put my mind at ease about the quality of the toys. And, since there was absolutely no other place for her to do this than on top of the check-out counter, it only added to the confusion already happening there with the cashier ringing up the wrong items for the wrong people. I was uncomfortable with our stuff being in the way but honestly, I think I was the only one it bothered…everyone else at the counter seemed oblivious to the mess spread out in front of them.
The walkie talkies didn’t come with batteries so she had to find a display toy that had batteries in it…naturally that took some time. She then had to take the batteries out of the toy and after carefully cutting open the clam shell packaging (yikes!...hope I can skillfully tape that package back to where it looks unopened) and putting the batteries in the walkie talkie, she realized she needed to repeat the process for the other walkie talkie to make sure they could talk to each other. Beautiful. As if that wasn’t entertaining (and time-consuming) enough, she and Jim were a hoot to watch repeatedly “Hola-ing” each other as they stood less than 2 feet apart. I began to laugh. Jim must have figured that I was on the verge of becoming “Wal-Mart moment” hysterical as he quickly nodded that they were fine.
We paid for our purchases, grabbed our bags and worked our way out of the store. It wasn’t quite like shopping at Pinnacle Hills or at Battlefield Mall but it was as close as we are going to get this year.
Okay...back to Tipitapa and the traffic…horrible! We arrived at Miguel’s house about 20 minutes late. Elizabeth came out to greet us and we found out he wasn’t there. When I questioned Elizabeth as to where Miguel had gone, she told me that he was at a church function. I asked why he wasn’t there and I found out that she had failed to tell him that she had asked us to come early to talk with them. She said I could just talk to her. Frustration. I reminded her that we had come early to talk with both of them and that we needed to go get Miguel.
I know it must sound like I was heartless about this. I wasn’t. Part of the problem these kids are having is in their communication with one another. Both are willing to talk to someone else about their problems but not to each other. That has to change. We needed to have Miguel be a part of this. So, I told Elizabeth to get in the car and to direct us to the church. She agreed and we drove a mile or so to get to the church. The closer we got, the more nervous she became. She wasn’t sure how Miguel was going to react. Neither was I but I was even more convinced that we needed to see this through.
Miguel was definitely surprised and seemed to be pleased to see us. When he found out why we were there, to his credit, he maintained his composure and agreed to sit down and discuss working through some of their issues. He wasn’t exactly happy that we were summoned there by his wife without his knowledge, but truthfully, neither were we. We returned to Miguel’s house so that we could talk.
The church where we hold classes is just two doors down from Miguel’s house. It was locked up tight and evidently our classes had been cancelled again…sure wish they would pass that info on to us ahead of time. We had one student come to class who also had not received word but he didn’t want to have individual tutoring so we are going to try again for next week. The lack of class enabled us to spend some intensive time with Miguel and Elizabeth. Our original plan of spending an hour with them turned in to a four hour discussion.
Out of respect to Miguel and Elizabeth, I won’t detail their problems. They have work ahead of them and they need your prayers. Don’t we all, regardless of our marital status? I will say that it’s not anything that can’t be solved with both of them being obedient to the Lord. Sounds so simple, doesn’t it? Well, you know as well as I do, that if you have anyone in your life whom you have to interact with on a regular basis, that obedience can be challenging. Self cries out to be exalted. God’s Word says we must deny ourselves and pick up our crosses daily. Sometimes, that “cross” turns out to be a person. Sometimes it’s the person we had at one certain point in time professed to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from that day forward until death should part. Wedding vows should not be taken lightly. Neither should God’s Word. What better counsel could there be for any of us than that which comes from our Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace?
“For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. (Romans 15:4) For “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,” (2 Timothy 3:16) “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)

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