Sabbatical week 12

This week for me began with District meetings at my church, where about a half dozen of us pastors interviewed about a dozen ministerial students studying for the ministry and working toward ordination. I really enjoy these meetings. By the way, if you live in the Springfield / Eugene area and are not part of a church, there’s a place here for you!

We then headed south for our trip to…

Mexico!

Our first stop was Cabo San Lucas – absolutely beautiful city!

We enjoyed downtown.

We also visited this church. This was the oldest church I’ve visited on sabbatical.

It’s called Iglesia de San Lucas - the main Catholic church in Cabo San Lucas.

It was constructed in 1730, and while it obviously has been kept up over the years, it has not changed much structurally since original construction.

Renee and I are pretty sure this was the first time our boys have ever been in a Catholic church.

It’s been said that one of the primary differences between Catholics and Protestants is that Catholics keep Jesus hanging on the cross while Protestants focus more on the empty tomb.

This is a view of the church from the front looking back and to the right. There’s also a section to the left.

Catholic churches have what is called the Stations of the Cross, depictions of the final hours of the life of Christ, and with this being the season of Lent, I wanted to get pictures of the stations. We visited three Catholic churches in Mexico, and so I thought I would show five stations from each of the churches. The first station is Jesus being condemned to death.

The second station is Jesus taking up His cross.

The third station is of Jesus carrying His cross.

The forth station is Jesus falling.

The fifth station is Simon of Cyrene assisting Jesus in carrying His cross.

View of the church looking toward the back. You can see the Stations of the Cross hanging on the walls.

Next we stopped at Cabo Wabo.

This is owned by former Van Halen singer Sammy Hagar.

When we walked through, this band was playing a fairly decent Guns N’ Roses cover.

Cabo Wabo helped put Cabo San Lucas on the map. This is their main stage.

Multi platinum sales award commemorating 6 million sales of Van Halen’s 1984.

Hagar doesn’t live in Mexico but comes here on his birthday every year for a big party.

Downtown Cabo San Lucas.

It was an extremely nice day.

Micah next to this human statue of a pirate on the pier.

View of Cabo from the tender.

Sunset in Cabo San Lucas.

An incredible sunset in Cabo San Lucas.

Next we visited Mazatlan.

Looking forward to what’s in store in Mazatlan with grandma and grandpa.

One of the beach fronts in Mazatlan.

An incredibly beautiful day in Mazatlan.

A beachfront view of new Mazatlan where we visited later.

Atop the hill in the middle is the highest natural working lighthouse in the world.

This is probably one of my favorite pictures I took while on sabbatical. It’s of a cliff diver diving 45 feet into the ocean. I wasn’t even sure I captured the moment because it happened so quickly, but you can see the diver about right of center (click on the picture for a better view). These divers in Mazatlan (there are only a handful of them) live on tips off of tourists (and yes, I tipped him).

Mazatlan has the third largest Mari Gras celebration in the world behind Rio de Janeiro and New Orleans. This is the main route for their Mari Gras.

Micah taking in Mazatlan.

Caleb standing next to a statue of Jose Angel "Ferrusquilla" Espinosa, a famous Mexican singer from Mazatlan.

The boardwalk along this beach is the longest in the world, approximately 10 miles long.

We found Mazatlan to be such a lovely place.

We stopped and had goodies at the oldest bakery in Mazatlan, in operation since the 1840’s.

Herman Melville wrote Moby-Dick.

We stopped in a museum where among other things, they had this nearly century old display of costumes from past Mazatlan Mari Gras.

A view of the city from the balcony of the museum.

Stopping at a local café for authentic pico de giao...

... and Mexican Coca Cola. Mexican Coke is sweeter because they use cane sugar instead of corn syrup.

Caleb’s turning out to be a pretty good photographer.

The opera house in Mazatlan – it has a long and rich history.

Inside the opera house.

When you’re almost eight years old, the army is pretty cool, and Caleb wanted this picture in front of Mexican army personnel to show his friends.