Happy New Year! I know we’ve been MIA these last few months…and we’ve had lots of questions about where we are and what we’re doing, so I figured it was time to answer in one post.

We moved from Puebla back to the States in November and have spent the last month or so re-acclamating to being back and celebrating the Holidays with our families. It’s been a big transition, but we can definintely see God in every step. He has provided a peace in our hearts in spite of many unknowns in our future.

First good news – Tyler found a new job and is so excited. He will be the Area Vice President (in Phoenix) for Apartment Life. We had a great 3 years as a CARES team and he is excited to now be recruiting, training and placing teams.

I (Paige) will still be doing graphic design for ILAM long distance. Thanks to the internet, I can continue to do the same sorts of projects as I did when we lived in Mexico. I’ll also be staying home with the boys full-time – I could definitely use your prayers for patience!

We are so grateful to all of you for your prayers during these last few months – we feel very blessed to have such a great support team.

Please continue to pray for us as we look for a house and settle down here in Arizona. We are excited for the journey ahead!

Almost two years ago we came to all of you to announce an amazing opportunity to serve in Mexico. We were overwhelmed by all of your support and prayers as we embarked on an incredible journey. We spent one year raising support and were shown God’s faithfulness time and time again. Living here has been a time of great learning for us. God has taken care of us, provided for us and stretched us in many ways. We have been involved in times of great ministry and have seen the Gospel advanced. However, we feel as though we have completed many of the tasks we came to accomplish and are sensing the end of one stage and the beginning of another.

We have felt God moving us to end our time here. We feel in a sense like Abraham, in that we know that we are supposed to leave, but we do not know exactly where we will be going.

We will be leaving Mexico in a few weeks to return to the States and are currently looking for future possibilities. We would like to ask you to pray for us in these coming months of transition:
- pray for wisdom in finding a new job
- safety in driving our things back to the States
- pray for an easy transition for our boys – Zander leaving friends, school, etc.
- pray for our team at ILAM as they continue to share the Gospel throughout Mexico

Our prayer is that God would lead us into a new ministry position and are currently seeking His will. We will be sure to keep you all updated on this blog so that you know where we are heading.

If you have an you have any questions for us or any job leads, please feel free to contact us through the contact page above.

Trusting God,
Tyler, Paige, Zander & Pax Staton

Yes, I’m still working on my Spanish. You’d think after taking 5 years of Spanish classes and living here for 8 months I’d have it down, right? Nope. I understand a lot, but I have this terrible fear of speaking! My tongue gets all frozen when I’m forced to speak. I hate sounding wrong and the thought that I might say something poorly really freaks me out.

Thankfully, we have a great Pastor’s wife who offered to practice with me. She is working on her English, so it’s mutually beneficial. We spend half of our time speaking only Spanish and half speaking only English. I feel like just in a few weeks I have gained a lot of confidence in my Spanish and feel a little less fear when I talk to others. We meet weekly and talk about our families, life and many other things. It’s helping me so much with my conversational Spanish and I’m really enjoying the time to have a friend as well!

This lil’ guy is celebrating his 1st half birthday today!

I love stopping to really think about the last 6 months. It’s been a whirlwind of changes…moving to Mexico in January and having a baby here in March. I know if I don’t make myself stop and reflect, it’s all going to just zoom by. This guy has given us 6 months of pure joy. He is cuddly, loving, happy, content and loves to laugh and smile. He definitely embodies his name, Pax (peace in Latin). I joke that he is the perfect baby, but really, it’s no joke. He has been a joy to us and leaves me feeling like I could have more kids. (Everyone says after an easy baby, you get a really hard one…hmmm)

Happy 1/2 birthday to my favorite youngest son!

Being here in Mexico, we are definitely learning that we have to seek out ways to be Spiritually challenged. We go to a terrific church, but some weeks we are in the nursery or trying to keep Zander corralled, so we miss the sermon all together. In addition, the sermon is in Spanish, so Tyler only gets as much as I can translate (with my mediocre Spanish). I really miss the Bible Studies at our home church and having the opportunity to read so many great books. I’ve realized that we have to be intentional about finding ways to grow spiritually. We can’t order books here, so I’ve been trying to find online resources.

So here’s the big question: Do you listen to any challenging, Biblical podcasts? Online sermons? Read any terrific blogs?

I would love to hear any recommendations you have!

Here are a few of my favorite [spiritual] blogs right now:

Modern Reject
An honest, interesting, challenging blog about Spiritually and life.

Laura Parker – Life Overseas
If you ever wanted to read an authentic portrayal of being a Missionary mom, this is it. Her posts will inspire, encourage and maybe make you tear up (at least me anyway). Even if you’re not a missionary, her passion for raising a family with missional mindset will definitely challenge you.

Missions, Misunderstood
An interesting missions blog

Stuff Christians Like
So, this might not be the most challenging blog, but it is funny…you will laugh.

Upon returning back to Mexico at the beginning of August we had a couple fun weeks with Zander before school started back up (yes, they start school at a very young age here).  During those weeks we had the opportunity to explore the city we live in a little bit more and had so much fun.

ZOO
We went to the local zoo where we saw animals that were behind cages, but you could touch if you were insane and wanted to get mauled by a tiger.  Here are a few pictures from our zoo trip…

PARK
We also had the chance to go to our local park and run around for a morning.  We saw baby ducks, LOTS of giant goldfish, kicked the soccer ball around, and ran all over the place.  We even met some local kids and talked with them in Spanish and taught them some English words that they wanted to learn.

CRAZY FRUIT
We tried a new fruit called “dragon fruit” and Zander has been asking us to get some more ever since (it tastes kind of like a kiwi).

piñata
We also celebrated and went to 3 different birthday parties (2 out of the 3 had piñatas).  Here is Zander taking his swings at his friend Isai’s birthday party while everyone sings a short song during your turn.  The Latin American culture is the only place they teach their kids to beat up on their heroes   Zander doesn’t really know much about Sponge Bob yet, but he took out one of the legs on the piñata (watch this short video of him beating up Sponge Bob).

BACK TO SCHOOL
After all the fun with him though school quickly came and now we have to say good-bye to him in the morning once again.

Several years ago this life mile marker felt like forever away, but years have past and I am now officially 30.  Exactly 30 years ago today I was only a few days old, just released from a hospital and heading home with excited parents who would spend the next several months lacking sleep because of me.  Now I’m that parent grown into a man, with two boys of my own and living the life of sleepless nights, it is crazy to think about how much has happened since my birth, how I have changed, who has influenced that change and how I have gotten to where I am today.  Many people in life might have the desire to go back and change their past or re-live it, but as for me I wouldn’t change a thing because it has made me into the person I am now and I love my life.  I also believe that the best is truly yet to come, so let’s move forward (plus I’m hoping for a day in the future where sleep does exist again).

Ok, enough of the introspective/serious part of the blog and now onto the pictures of the amazing party my wife threw me.  Many of you know that Paige is an amazing cook, but to be honest I had no clue about this till we got married.  You see, Paige rarely had the chance to even touch a kitchen because we spent most of our dating life eating takeout and college cafeteria food (our dorm rooms didn’t have kitchens in them).  So for my birthday party most of what I wanted centered around friends and some of my favorite food Paige cooks.  Here are just a few things that made my 30th birthday special…

Friends and Family (yes, our kid is freaking out)

Amazing Food and Decorations (stuffed mushrooms, bacon wrapped stuffed jalapenos, carrot ceviche and a cake that looks like an apple computer)

The signs (first one is my favorite and the second one was the most depressing to me)

The Happy Birthday Song (both in English and in Spanish)

Cake In The Face (A Mexico birthday tradition)

I really am lucky to have an amazing wife, great kids and some incredible friends down here in Puebla, Mexico.  Thank you all for making this birthday a special one.

Upon arriving back in the States a few weeks ago we were greeted with LOTS of junk mail and a couple packages we were happy to receive.  One of those packages came from One Church and was filled with fun things for our boys.  One Church is a new church plant located near Columbus, Ohio and if you watch them you will notice that they continually are looking to do things for people outside the walls of their church (community events, supporting missionaries, etc.).  A new church plant could easily look inward and focus solely on themselves, but not this church.  A couple of the items in the box included bath paints for our 2 year old Zander (which he loves) and a baby bib which we got right in time to start solids for our 5 month old named Pax.  So this post is just to say thanks to the staff and members at One Church Columbus for taking the time to think about the small things in life like this.  What many of you don’t know is that toys here are VERY expensive so we don’t buy our kids anything here.  Most of the time your basic car that might cost you $2-3 in the states will easily cost you $10 here (toys are usually 3 times the price they are in the States).

During our time back in the States we had the opportunity to dedicate our second child Pax, who was born here in Mexico.  As all women do Paige really enjoyed the chance to dress Pax up in an outfit that was cute, but more importantly we both were excited to publicly commit to being a Christlike example to our boy(s).  We firmly believe that the best way to raise up a child in the Christian faith is to model it.  We are far from perfect parents but it was during this moment at Desert Springs Church that we promised to be the best living example of love, grace, forgiveness, and peace to our recently born boy.  Paige and I enjoy baby dedications so much because we believe that the person(s) you have the most influence over in life are your own kids. It was a very special day for us and we were surrounded by a lot of our family, which made it even more memorable.

1 Samuel 1:27-28 I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the LORD. For his whole life he will be given over to the LORD.”

We’re back in Mexico! After spending a month visiting family in Colorado and Arizona and attending the 2011 General Council of the A/G, we  are glad to be back home! We had a wonderful time introducing Pax to all of our family, doing a few vacation-type activities and catching up with friends.

It was fun to eat at all of our favorite restaurants, shop at Target, drink water from the faucet and many other things that are very different from our life in Mexico…but…the most refreshing thing was time spent with friends and family. It was so fun to see our boys with their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, but it made it really hard to leave…really hard.  It’s hard when Zander asks to go swimming at his Uncle’s house and we have to try to explain why that’s not possible.  In spite of the differences here and things that we miss about the States, Puebla has truly become home. Being away for a month helped us realize all of the things that we love about living here.

I’ve come up with a short list of some of those things:

1. the food – Puebla has fantastic food! I really believe that there are no better tacos in the world.

2. the community – Mexico life is built around people and we love that. You know that if you go to the town square on the weekend there are going to be tons of people and music and food. It’s just such a fun atmosphere.

3. the weather – Man, I forgot how hot Arizona is…it was blazing. I have to say I am enjoying the daily afternoon rain here in Puebla.

4. cheap medical care – It sounds silly, but we were all sick in the U.S. during this trip and it cost a bundle for doctors and meds. Here, we can go see our doctor for 70 pesos (less than $7) per visit. It’s great.

5. our own space: there’s nothing like being back in your own bed,…with your own things…in your own space.

We’re also looking forward to getting back to work – so look for more ministry updates!