I am here!

Hello folks!

As the title of this post indicates, I am here! I arrived in Oaxaca Wednesday night. Cindy and JoEllen were at the airport to pick me up. I tried for a 180 day visa, but the migration official said that if you come on plane, you can only get 30 days. When I was able to talk him up to 60 days, I decided to take what I could get :-) I am settling in to JoEllen's house where I will be for the next few months.

The teacher's strike: As some of you know, we were uncertain of when I should come due to the somewhat unstable condition of Oaxaca's teacher's strike. The missionaries here agreed that they did not feel like they were in any danger, but that it was more of an inconvinience. I was able to experience that yesterday when we went shopping. At most every major store, there were protestors outside, their presence there in hopes to discourage people from entering. But, they had no signs, they were not shouting anything or confronting anyone - they were mainly just standing or sitting around. Many stores did end up closing for that day, but if you went in to an open store, no one bothered you.



Yesterday, I spent time reading articles about the situation in Oaxaca. The teacher's strike has been joined by groups from all over and now they say that they will only be appeased if the governor resigns. This quote seemed to sum up the message of most of what I read, "Oaxaca, known around the world as the Mexican capital of art, food and culture, is on the verge of something - perhaps peaceful change, perhaps revolution, government repression or just anarchy." So, we will wait and pray and see what happens.

Today the main thing I will be doing is watching the news to see how President Fox's final "State of the Union" speech goes.

Thank you all again for your prayers and support!