The last letter we sent out was apparently formatted wrong for most computers to open. I'm sorry about that!!! Then I tried to send it again in a simpler format, but it got lost in cyberspace. Sigh. So, we will try a third time to send the "March Update Letter" with pictures as attachments. If it comes through with no problems, and you have a minute, please send me a little "It worked!" email. If it comes through as jibberish, I guess I want to know that, too!
When I was reorganizing my organizer, I found several email addresses that I thought were already in my list. For those of you who have heard absolutely nothing from us in the past month (Karen, Sherri, Adam, Maria...to name a few!) I'M SORRY!!! I hope this letter will catch you up a bit!
God bless you all! You are in our prayers and thoughts daily!
Love,
The Coult Family
Doug, Rebecca, Sarah, Caleb, Jessee, Seth, Andrew and Evie
Here's the Letter:
Peace to you! And blessings from our Lord, Jesucristo!
Today is Saturday, March 18, and I finally have some time to write the long-awaited March update letter! Hurrah! Much has happened this month, and it would take many pages to tell you all the awesome things God has done!
We are settling into our new home. If Doug was missing the remodeling that has been so much of our lives for the past 7 years, he is no longer!!! Once again we have moved into a “project house”! Our landlord was not really interested in renting it until after Santa Semana (Holy Week). During that week, even a small two-room house in Las Glorias will rent for $2000 U.S. He was counting on getting that money so he could do some work on the house. We offered to do the necessary work for him. So, we are renting the house for 2000 pesos per month. That’s roughly $190, and the materials we need for repairs will come from that.
Two main things needed to be done: there was a cistern on the roof to hold water for the house, and the house was plumbed, but the water pressure here was not enough to get the water up to the roof. We needed to install an in-ground holding tank and a pump to move the water from the ground to the roof.
We found a Home Depot in Los Mochis (about an hour and a half from here). There we were able to purchase a stove and fridge and some building materials. Everything was more expensive than we would have liked. (As usual!) We were blessed, though, by one of our neighbors in Las Glorias. Her daughter was moving into an apartment and she needed to sell her washer, so she sold it to us for a very good price. It was good for her and good for us, too!
It has been wonderful getting to know our neighbors. Not many people live here during the week, but during the spring, RV caravans come in every week with 50 to 100 people. Lots of American visitors. There are workers doing maintenance and construction around town, too. Not many live in Las Glorias. Some live in Palos Verdes or Alamito, both of which are within 5 miles of here. The people who work at the hotel live mostly in Boca del Rio, which is a town about 1km from here. One couple we have met lives in Las Glorias during the week and Los Mochis on the weekend. Steve is an American doctor practicing Eastern medicine and acupuncture (sp?), and Elena is originally from Puerta Vallarta. Pray that we would be lights in our community, and that we would not be hesitant in speaking truth!
As I said, God has been doing awesome things here! A mission team from Arizona arrived here on Tuesday night and will be leaving tomorrow at about 4:30 a.m. They have been doing a crusade in a small fishing village about an hour from here called Huitussi. (pronounced wee-TU-see) When the team from Guasave went to this town last Monday to prepare for the crusade, they found a very tough village. The people were very closed and cold. Add to that the fact that “winter winds” were blowing (which means it was only about 55 degrees -- cold for most Mexicans), so the first two nights of the crusade were hard. We prayed that God would lessen the wind and bring a softening to the people. On Wednesday, it seemed that the village had been transformed. People smiled at us and waved. The wind stopped and the temperature rose and the people came out to see what those Americans were up to! The Arizona team (Trinity Church) had brought balloons and face-painting stuff for the kids.
Thursday night we shared another puppet show and the Guasave youth group shared music and skits.
Well, I’m sure that this letter is long enough, and I’m sure also that I could go on for a few more pages, but the final meeting of the crusade is this evening and I need to find all the kids and get them ready to go. I did want to address some specific questions that people have asked:
-- Yes, we now have a phone in our house! Our phone number is: 011 52 678 873 7131 (that’s what you dial from the States to get us.) We each have cell phones, too, but it is very expensive to receive calls from the US on our cell phones.
-- Yes, we have a physical address. I’m not too certain about sending anything to it, though. We did find out that DHL delivers in Mexico, but don’t know prices. I’ll be working on getting a mailing address this week and will send it out as soon as I can.
-- Yes, Sarah got her horse! I haven’t loaded the pictures of it yet, but he is very sweet-tempered and gentle.
-- Our Spanish lessons are going well. We hired a private tutor to come to our house 6 hours a week. People here say we are learning quickly, but some nights we have come home and could almost see the smoke coming off our heads. It is hard!!! Pray that we would not become frustrated with how long it takes and would not be afraid to speak -- even if we’re not certain of the verb tense!
I wanted to share one last photo. The twins’ 10th birthday was March 8th. This was, as I told them, their present from God on their birthday. The photo was taken from the roof of our house looking toward the ocean.
Blessings to you all!
In Christ,
Doug and Rebecca Coult and the kids
