Click here to read our December '04 letter which includes encouraging notes from Latin American youth leaders who apparently like 9,000+ pages of free resources and training materials on the website. If you've ever supported our work in any way, these letters will put a smile of satisfaction on your face :-)

#1 - Annette came across this creative daily Advent meditation which we thought you might enjoy. It's free, animated and online at www.FollowingTheStar.org

#2 - Another inspirational read is this behind-the-scene BBC article covering the Ukraine's struggle to define what their democracy will look like. The author describes an energy, enthusiasm and hopefullness that - I believe - captures something beautiful that most humans are longing for and which many historic democracies need to relearn.

I just got done chatting online with Jim Young, the director of member care at our organization. He had some questions that I thought might be of interest to you too. The following is the transcript from our chat:

JimYoung: How is it going for you?
TimGulick: We're doing well. Last night we slept in our house alone for the first time in month. We've had constant houseguests and while usually enjoyable, it's also nice to be able to run around the house in my underwear singing at the top of my lungs without worrying about the guests (joke)
JimYoung: ha ha, OK, just as long as you aren't singing off key :-) I can imagine how free it feels to be alone again.
Do you have any special prayer request?
TimGulick: oh wow, thanks! We'd love prayer for finding schools willing to acredit the education by extension courses we have been developing over the last 2+ years (these are the 20 interactive, animated classes which can be taken online or via CD, which include a 500 page textbook and guidance from a tutor)
JimYoung: Did Annette get that textbook done?
TimGulick: she is still working on that.. the goal is to have it done by June 2005
JimYoung: OK. I knew it was a huge project and we have been praying for her as she was working on it, but had not heard much about it recently.
TimGulick: Annette is working next to me and adds, "One of the three authors who need to turn in additional text for the book, turned in their content yesterday. It's excellent! So now the last two people, just have to turn their content in... one being myself, and the other being our Argentine colleague."
By the way, thank you very much for the prayer.
JimYoung: Are you guys doing anything special for Thanksgiving?
TimGulick: nothing special for Thanksgiving unfortunately
JimYoung: At least take you wife out for a chicken dinner! :-)
TimGulick: We'll be travelling to another state to pick up a half ton of youth ministry manuals... so, if we're lucky we'll hit a chicken on the way and can stop, cook it, and eat it in honor of our forefathers' celebratory dinner with the Indians :-)
JimYoung: Ok, should I pray a chicken tries to cross the road in front of you?
TimGulick: why would a chicken cross the road? (i'm setting you up here... hint hint)
JimYoung: I think it has something to do with the feathers on their heads that probably grow inwards or something. Either that or he just wanted to get to the other side.
TimGulick: okay... we've hit rock bottom :-) have a great day... adios
JimYoung: Yes, let's put this chat out of it's misery (smile) Bye.

So this is how our days have been lately: Tuesday, after a sleepless night of trying to cure our houseguest, Evan, of bad-Mexican-food-itis, I get up and turned 40...12 midnight the same day Cameron, a graphic designer from Colorado, arrived from headquarters to help us design the 500 page youth ministry textbook and related CD that Annette and I have been working on...Saturday 4 a.m I take Cameron to the airport (they tell him his flight is cancelled and stick him on an alternative route going thru L.A. and getting home 7 hours later than expected)...Saturday evening, Evan (our other house guest) moves back in and then decides Mexico is not the place for him and makes plans with American Airlines to fly home on Monday... two other friends and colleagues, Kory and Laura Eller from Guatemala, arrive in Mexico on Sunday and we have lunch together and show them around our town...Sunday night Evan calls American Airlines to confirm his Monday morning flight and they tell him "We thought you said Tuesday morning" (he corrects them and they change his flight to Monday after all)...Monday morning we get up at 6 a.m. and take Evan to the airport bus station...Monday evening we take the Ellers (our friends from Guatemala) to the Mexico City airport to fly home...on the way we pick up our Mexican pastor friend and take him to the airport with us where we meet up with an old college friend, Andrew Barton, who has flown down to Mexico to meet us and the pastor...Monday night (late) we get home exhausted...we collapse into bed and lay there thinking, "At least life isn't boring!" :-D

(click photo for larger image)
Cameron Crawford, a friend and colleague who we got to know online, is here in Mexico helping us with the layout and design of the 500-page youth ministry textbook we are editing.

In the above photo - taken 10 minutes ago - he is training Annette and Nahum (me too) in how to use Adobe inDesign software which is perfect for getting text and images into a format that can be easily published in book form, on the Internet or on CDs.

I know that it is virtually impossible to believe but today -November 16th, 2004- Timothy Kent Gulick, aka: Tim, Timber, Tin (as they say here in Latin America) turns forty!

His life has been so full that i wanted to take this occasion to remind him of that and to chronicle a bit of that fullness.

If you need a laugh or are interested in reading colorful stories laced with a bit of sentiment here and there that friends and family sent wrote about him, click here to go to "40" his official birthday blog.

If want to leave comments (click on comments) or to send a note yourself, join the fun :-)

Annette

Usually we only publish here when we've done something story-worthy or if we took a particularly good photo that makes us look young, fit and beautiful (hee hee). But today - like many days - we sat working at our computers in our 9' x 7' office.

Annette was editing 4 chapters of a Spanish youth workers' manual so that it would fit into 1 chapter's space, and I was answerring emails, chatting with colleagues and buying airline tickets for some trips in December and January. Nothing story-worthy and definately not a young, fit or beautiful photo moment but, hey, that's everyday life, right?
[photo made possible by our house guest, Evan Williams, who was bored and took our picture]

photo: Jeffrey Greenberg

Although it seems as improbable as Hawaii running out of pineapples or France without Beaujolais, Mexico has a shortage of donkeys (aka: burros).

Click here to read our November letter which includes photos and memories from our last 10 years working with OC International. You can choose to view it in two flavors: Word or Adobe PDF (the PDF version looks snappy, but takes a bit longer to download)

Evan Williams, an american guy who is down here in Mexico looking for work teaching English and doing youth work on the side, is living with us until he can find a job and a place to live. In this photo (click it for big version) he is keeping the car from falling off the side of the volcano :-) It was our day off and we drove up and into the crater of the 16,000 foot extinct volcano which is only 50 minutes from our home in Toluca, Mexico.

Evan and Annette hiked around the inside of the volcano while i ran ahead and took photos. One minute it was sunny and the next a bank of clouds would flow over the rim and down into the volcanic crater changing the temperature by 10-15 degrees and the color of the lake from jade green to gray.

To help you get perspective on the size of this crater... click on the photo to view the big version, then follow the lake's shoreline around till you see a small, whitish, four-wheeled speck... that is a Jeep Cherokee!

Evan took this picture of Annette and me next to the lake of the Sun inside the crater. In this photo we are at nearly 15,000 feet above sealevel, but only about 3 feet above lake-level :-)

We just got an email from a respected national leader (named withheld for his safety) in Venezuela about the future of his country:

We may be headed into the most serious definition of the future of our country, and it will probably mean the cost of many lives, and likewise either democracy or the establishment of a regime a la Fidel Castro. The entire nation�s future is in the balance, and will be during the next three to four months.

Annette just published a humorous, true and almost inspiring story over at her blog. Click here to read it.