Autumn has arrived, and we’re preparing for the cold weather. Gathering firewood and making plans for the holiday travel season. My family is still kind of trapped here until I make a move on getting Carolina some legal documents. It’s kind of a bummer being stuck here, but on the other hand, there is always more work than I can finish. When I sat down this morning I thought I was going to dig right into this newsletter, but I ended up on a medical transport, and helped deliver a little baby girl on the road, and it all turned out good in the end PTL!

Autumn has arrived, and we’re preparing for the cold weather.

My parents have come and gone. They were here for 2 weeks of great family time, and projects together. Their visit was very encouraging to me, and a blessing to the children and Delia too. I have to say that this time around went very well in terms of the cross cultural family details. Delia and my mom shared the cooking, we all enjoyed the cider press together, and made good memories. We love you Mom and Dad!

Carolina still likes to do things by hand sometimes. (Delia too.)

One of the benefits of spending extended time with someone is that you (normally) get a better view of the reality of their lives. As I’ve read and written missionary newsletters over the years, I’ve written in my letters and perceived in others a recurring theme and tone of justification. Not “Justification” in terms of righteousness before God, but a sense of urgency to justify our daily missionary work. We missionaries, want ya’ll to view us as hard working, dedicated, focused, loving, perfect little angels! If you were to be here living with us as my parents were for 2 weeks the way that you viewed us would probably change. I don’t know how exactly it would change, because I don’t know what preconceived ideas you have, or even how I’ve possibly led you to a false view of reality. I do know that the daily grind does not seem as glamorous as the snapshots that sometimes are portrayed in my newsletter. It’s definitely a lot easier to write a newsletter the day a big project is completed, or when progress seems definitive.

One of the difficult things, about being stuck in Mexico right now is a feeling that I’ve really lost touch with a lot of you all. Right when I was making plans to come home and visit is when the situation with Carolina blew up on us. Financially, God has blessed us with supporters who give, and then give more, and just keep giving! But in terms of closeness and communication I feel like I’ve done a poor job of keeping our relationships alive. A lot of that is because I have been busy working and it’s hard to maintain a family, work hard and communicate with many supporters. Also I married a lady who speaks Spanish and Tarahumara, so that kind of rules her out of the English communications realm. So I guess that’s kind of an apology for not communicating on a personal level with many of you more frequently. I always say that I’m going to communicate more, and it’s a rare day when I do. Anyways, like most of you, I’m just trying…

Delia has been going through some rough times recently, so I’d just like to ask for extra prayer for her. Maricela was a blind diabetic lady that Delia had frequently visited, and 2 weeks ago she passed away. Then last week one of her close childhood friends, Eva was diagnosed with cancer. I’d appreciate your prayers for Delia, that she would be comforted and be able to comfort Eva as she is very ill already, and will probably be going into some kind of chemo therapy very soon. We hope to go and visit her in Cuauhtemoc in the next few weeks.

I really enjoy welding and every now and then a part on the airplane breaks that I can weld. Actually I’ve had many opportunities to perform weld repairs on medical equipment over the years too.

A few weeks ago we finished the annual inspection on our Carbon Cub, and in just a couple weeks We’ll start another inspection on Dr. Mike’s Airplane. It usually takes 1 or 2 weeks to inspect an aircraft and make the repairs necessary to keep it in “Airworthy” condition. Getting parts can be tricky at times so we try and anticipate the needs and make our purchases ahead of time.

As always please keep us in prayer, and pray for the Tarahumara people that God would open their spiritual eyes,

We love you, Sincerely,
David and Delia