Celebrating Mother´s Day

Today we celebrated Mother´s Day at my church. After our regular service, while we ladies waited for all the festivities to begin, the children marched out of their class, the boys with chef hats and the girls with aprons, and gave gifts to all the mothers. A little box they had designed with beautiful words of love and affirmation. Then later they handed some of us a gift that turned out to be a pillowcase turned into an apron! A few weeks ago their teacher Gaby asked us ladies to bring a pillowcase and a few of us did, and they turned out to be their gift to us, a cute apron!

And dinner! Wow! The men worked last night and early this morning making mixiotes (me-shee-ou-tess) for us! Manuel made the rice - he´s a good cook! Accompanied with tortillas (of course!) and soda pop of all flavors and kinds. It was delicious and so much fun to be served and watch, not just the men, but the young people, caring for all our needs. I made the mistake of saying all we needed now was some nieve (sherbet) that Felix and his girls make and sell as their way of making a living. Well, Felix said he´d bring us some next week! And I´m sure he will! They made enough mixiotes for an army - I brought two of them home to enjoy tomorrow or the next day!

Gifts for Grandma. Reyna´s daughter has left Reyna with her three darling children, who Reyna is lovingly raising. She makes so little and struggles, but the love she has for these children is obvious. Here she is with Alejandro and Daniel. Odalys is helping serve.

The mixiotes were meat, nopales (cactus) and potato in a special sauce, wrapped in a special paper, tied and steamed for an hour or so. Not spicy at all. Delicious!

Two of our chefs - Manuel above and Sergio below, with two of his children. These men are true servant-leaders.