May 27, 2019 A Date for Every Day of the Week

Hi all! 

All is well in the desert! 

It's date season and chile season, so we're just drowning in both. Everywhere we turn people keep giving us dates, and we can't eat them fast enough! I keep cracking date jokes although my companion doesn't think I'm half as funny as I think I am. 

Every time we see Esteban he hands us a big black back with a different color of bell pepper. He got a short haircut which makes him look even more like a Mexican general. He gave us matching embroidered pillowcases that say, "Siempre te amaré" with giant blue rosettes. He says he had been saving them for "some special occasion." They are much too fancy to sleep on, but it made us laugh. 

I remembered this week that one of my favorite books growing up was this obscure little story called "Esperanza Rising," that I remember just picking off the shelf one day. It was all about this young girl who moves up to the United States to work in the fields with her family. I remember reading it again and again-- I couldn't ever figure out exactly why I liked it so much, something about her story just stuck with me. She had to be so brave. Funny how now I've been able to teach people exactly like Esperanza. 

I keep thinking about this sweet little mom who came knocking at our door in Centerville once or twice, selling warm tamales out of a suitcase. I remember thinking about her long after she left and the tamales were gone. I knew so little about her, I didn't even know what a tamale was back then, but I remember aching a little that I didn't know her story. I'm so grateful the Lord has allowed me to be here and make it right even a little. 

We've started teaching a woman named Artemisa. We were headed back to the car, she was taking out the trash, we offered to help. It's funny how something that simple can be an answer to prayer. She told us later she just wanted to get out of the house so she could cry without anyone seeing. Her world has been crashing down lately, and as a mom she has to keep it together constantly. She ached to turn to God, but didn't know how. "Yes," she told us, "you can 'make it' here," she told us, "but what they don't tell you is that it is a STRUGGLE." 

These people are warriors. 

In other news, Hna Alvarado has started her own "novela" in which she just starts dialoguing with herself in different voices. The current one is about to childhood best friends, Chuey (??) and Timmy, but Timmy goes rouge when his family looses the farm and joins a gang in the big city. All in dialouge. In other words, she's nuts!! Sure makes me laugh though. I talk to her in Spanish and usually she responds in one of six different accents (and always in English.) oh boy. 

Love, 

Hermana Hawkes.