It's so hard to summarize my 9th grade year for one blog post. It was a life-changing year for me.
The summer before 9th grade started, my next-oldest sister got married (at age 19). All my older siblings and spouses were together and my parents announced that they were going to move to Mexico to serve a "Church service mission" for our church. I was in shock. I remember my dad describing things and what they would be doing and I remember images flashing through my mind - Aztec ruins, desert, no-one to communicate with, no friends, living in a shack with dirt floors. I had no idea what to expect. I had also just registered for my classes at the local High school and my thought was, "I was going to learn French!" My dad was to help oversee the remodeling of the church school (Academia Juarez) and my mom would be teaching English at the school. I remember my sister-in-law leaned over to me and said, "You can live with us". Then I started thinking that maybe just my parents were going and I really would (get) to stay behind.
The next few months I was in denial and was a bit rebellious. Most of my 14 year old friends didn't understand why we would move to Mexico - and my best friends even offered to let me live with them. Eventually I came around (mostly through lots of prayers), learned more about Colonial Juarez and trusted and believed things would work out.
The end of August, we had sold our house, sold or gave away all our furniture and traveled south in our Truck and small trailer towed behind. We were to meet up with the Director of the school near Douglas, Arizona. The school's high school football team was playing against a local town's football team. It was an adventure even crossing the border (we didn't have the right paperwork for the trailer, so we had to leave it behind and loaded what boxes and things we needed on to the school's bus. I remember watching some of those football players willingly move and load our boxes onto the bus. Life didn't seem to bad at that point. :)
It ended up being a great experience for me. My biggest concern, and the thing I prayer about the most, was that I would be able to make friends. There was a great close-knit group of English speaking, Caucasians kids from church, that also went to the high school. They ended up taking me to all the fun places and we played a lot during the first week or so before school started. I experienced a lot of firsts like 4-wheeling, swimming in "the river" and general creative fun in a small town with no mall, theater, Walmart or even stop light!
I did well in school and tried out and played on the girl's junior varsity basketball team. It was a bit of an adjustment, but I learned the school system and schedule and classes. I also slowly started learning Spanish (they created a special class just for my parents and I).
My schedule that first year was Seminary, English, Art, Science, Math, P.E., Sociales (Spanish Social Studies), Spanish and Typing (on old non-electric typewriters!).
My move to Mexico with my parents drastically changed the direction of my life. I know I wouldn't be the same person I am now if we had stayed like I wanted to. I'm grateful for prayer and a change of heart.
