El Milagro de San Xavier

It seems like a lot of my blog entries lately are about sick kids and broken A.C.'s and blah blah blah. Well, I'll try to keep the griping to a minimum but boy, do I need to whine a little bit about the terrible weekend we've had. I'll just say that even though it meant I was covered in vomit, it was immensely satisfying to have Ike puke ALL over the doctor's office yesterday. It went something like this...

Physician's Assistant: Well, you're a happy little guy. Can't be too dehydrated with a smile like...

Ike: BLLLLLLLAAAAAHGURGLESPEWSPLATgurglegurgleSPLATspewSPLAT

Clargaret: Told you he was sick.

To top it all off, our A.C. went out again. Do you know what a 90 degree house full of diarrhea and vomit smells like? It's not pleasant. I was really looking forward to going to church today just so we could have 3 hours of air conditioned bliss. I was looking forward to it, until around midnight last night when Booker woke up covered in vomit. You can take one sick kid to church, but two pukey kids is just asking for it. 

So what do you do when your kids are too sick to go to church and your house is too hot to endure? You take them to someone else's church, naturally. Basically we just needed any excuse to take a long drive in our nice, cold car and the San Xavier del Bac Mission was the perfect distance (plus it was free). And I didn't feel bad skipping out on my own church services because there was something spiritually fulfilling about this place. I think it had something to do with the tattooed guys in wife beaters getting down on their knees to pray and offer up milagros. 

And speaking of milagros, I stood in line to touch St. Francis myself so he could offer up intercessionary prayer on my behalf. As I stood there, I noticed people lifting up his head several times in a row. Later I learned that only those with a pure heart are able to lift his head. I didn't presume to lift his head, but I did touch his forehead with a prayer in my heart for our A.C.

And wouldn't you know, not five minutes later I got a call from the A.C. guy telling me that he was on his way to our house to fix the A.C.- on a Sunday, no less. Un milagro inesperado! We decided to celebrate by getting some Indian frybread from the locals who had camped out in the parking lot to sell things (the Mission sits on a Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation). And I didn't feel bad about breaking the Sabbath to purchase some frybread because frankly, I had no choice. You simply can not refuse delicious Indian frybread made by actual Indians right in front of your eyes. I only wish we had enough change in our pockets to add some honey or powdered sugar. But the plain old frybread was still divine. 

All in all, a fun and unexpected trip. And the best part, our A.C. is working again! More photos of beautiful San Xavier here.