The coyote

As a California native, this is just "too close to home":

California: The Governor of California is jogging with his dog along a nature trail. A coyote jumps out, bites the Governor and attacks his dog.

1. The Governor starts to intervene, but reflects upon the movie "Bambi" and then realizes he should stop; the coyote is only doing what is natural.

2. He calls animal control. Animal Control captures coyote and bills the State $200 testing it for diseases and $500 for relocating it.

3. He calls a veterinarian. The vet collects the dead dog and bills the State $200 testing it for diseases.

4. The Governor goes to hospital and spends $3,500 getting checked for diseases from the coyote and on getting his bite wound bandaged.

5. The running trail gets shut down for 6 months while Fish & Game conducts a $100,000 survey to make sure the area is free of dangerous animals.

6. The Governor spends $50,000 in state funds implementing a "coyote awareness" program for residents of the area.

7. The State Legislature spends $2 million to study how to better treat rabies and how to permanently eradicate the disease throughout the world.

8. The Governor's security agent is fired for not stopping the attack somehow and for letting the Governor attempt to intervene.

9. Additional cost to State of California: $75,000 to hire and train a new security agent with additional special training re: the nature of coyotes.

10. PETA protests the coyote's relocation and files suit against the State, costing the taxpayers another $100,000. in related legal expenses.

Total cost to the state: $2,329,400


Arizona: The Governor of Arizona is jogging with her dog along a nature trail. A Coyote jumps out and attacks her dog.

1. The Governor shoots the coyote with her State-issued pistol and keeps jogging. The Governor has spent $0.50 on a .45 ACP hollow point cartridge.

2. The Buzzards eat the dead coyote.

And that's why California is broke.

Have your Passport ready in case you need to travel abroad (or to Miami)

We are hoping to attend Claudia’s youngest sister’s wedding in Chile in just a few weeks, but realized that Jeremy’s passport will soon expire. (I didn’t even have a passport until college, but we’re already on Jeremy’s second!)

So, Claudia spent hours online and by phone only to find that a child’s passport cannot be renewed by mail, and that both parents must be present to renew. She then phoned all over Miami and found that the only “drop in” office in the city (all others had a month+ waiting list) opened at 10:00 AM. So there we were at 9:30 the next morning only to be told that yes, the passport desk opens at 10:00 but we needed to be there at 8:00 in order to get on the day’s list, which was already full for the day. (Why they left out that one vital detail when we called is beyond me). So, Claudia went back home with the kids, I went back to work and returned at 7:15 the next morning to find two people already in line (probably still there from the day before).

True to what we’d been told (the second time around), a gentleman arrived to open the post office at 8:00, but when we asked him for the passport appointment list he flatly informed us: “We don’t have a list; the passport desk opens at 10:00”. Deaf to our protests he opened a few doors, moved a box or two then had a cup of coffee, leaving us standing in front of the passport counter for 45 minutes. Finally, coffee gone, he casually walked over to the passport desk and produced the very clipboard and list we had been asking for! Everyone in line (there was now a small crowd) stared at him in disbelief, muttering descriptive words just out of his earshot so as not to jeopardize their chances any further. I confess that I myself found it rather difficult to “assume the best” of this civil servant at that particular moment as well.

So, the two men in front of me filled in the 10:00 and 10:30 slots and I took the 11:00. Not wanting to assume anything at this point I asked if that meant I could now go to work and return with the family for our 11:00 AM appointment. Not surprisingly he said “no” and explained that the times do not mean anything but that everyone in line (now about 20 adults, most with fidgety children making the entire post office look something like a sugar hyped, chocolate factory daycare) had to stay until their names were called starting at 10:00. (Flashback to the stunned disbelief and descriptive words from a few minutes earlier.)

“What’s the point in having time slots?” I asked.
“It works better this way” he said as I watched one of the kids spill sticky grape juice all over the floor.

So…Claudia and the boys joined me in line before 10:00. We were the second party to be attended since the first person in line left before 10:00 (possibly having a nervous breakdown). And Jeremy’s passport should arrive within a week.

It makes me proud to be an American and know our government handles these things with such dedication and efficiency. Maybe, once Jeremy has his passport, we’ll actually cross the boarder from Miami and visit the US one of these days!

Roof Repaired! (Room flooded)

Many of you know that we’ve had struggles with our roof for a long time. We discovered a few years ago that the reason our AC ran 24/7 during the summer in order to “cool” the house to 85 degrees was that our solid, cement slab ceiling/roof had no insulation between the cement and the black asphalt roof. You know how a black car heats up in the sun? Yep, that was our house with the ceiling running a 95degree fever all summer! Then during the rainy season (spring & summer) we consistently had 6” of standing water that the tree frogs loved to fill with millions of pollywogs. Eventually our roof lake started leaking into the house little by little, so after three years, multiple estimates, one refinancing, various gifts (thank you to those who helped in this way!) and a no interest loan from a dear friend, we were able to re-roof almost before the rainy season. I say almost because while Claudia was in Costa Rica for her dental work (see CR trip post), the boys and I came home one evening to their bedroom ankle deep in water, requiring the gutting of everything. Their furniture and most of their belongings were salvageable but the floor had to go down to the cement slab, which we discovered was not covered by insurance due to a previous claim for minor flooding in the same area which was applied to the roof repair. For now the boys have rubber matting and a throw rug, but thankfully no more water entry after two years of buckets!

For the roof we used a company that does “spray on foam roofing” see: http://www.coolroof.biz which provides insulation and a solid, rubberized membrane that covers the entire roof (before & after below).

As I said, we were blessed by a friend with a no interest loan to complete the roof job, but our desire is to return the remaining amount of $4000 as soon as possible and then complete repairs to the boys room. If you would like to assist in this way through a tax deductible donation, please see our support page:

Link to a Printable Donation Form. (click link for mail in donation form)
Link to Online Donation page (click link for online credit/debit card

Thank you for your prayers and the many ways you have and continue to assist us over the years.

God bless!

LAM Missionaries- Baptisms and Funerals

With my position in the Ministries Department and LAM I have the priviledge to corespond with our Latin partner ministries as well as all of our missionaries, which means I get to here the "Good News" (AKA the Gospel) at work. Here's another example of what LAM missionaries are doing:

From: Mirna Sotomayor y Diana Garrett

I´m racking my brain in the midst of all the noise to write down the words of the Costa Rican national anthem. Beside me is an 11 year old boy who is looking at me with nervous intensity. "Are you sure you want to do this?", I ask. "Yes. For my mother´s sake," he answers, and controls a sob.It was his mother´s funeral. Carlos is the only child of a single mother who just died of cancer the day before. His mother was Costa Rican by birth, and he wanted to honour her. So that is how his aunt, Mirna, Carlos and I sang the Costa Rican national anthem at a Mexican funeral yesterday. I was the only one who really knew it, and I was thanking the Lord for my Costa Rican upbringing.

It seemed hard to believe that just one week ago, on Sunday, Mirna and I baptised another of Carlos´s aunts in the beautiful Tuxpan ocean. Lupe received Jesus, along with her two sisters as a result of the team from Costa Rica that came during Holy Week. One of the team members from Costa Rica is a cousin of theirs and the Lord used the relationship to bring Jesus into their lives. Lupe asked to be baptised last Sunday because she was going to be operated on, also because of cancer, on Friday. She had the surgery on Friday and on Saturday her sister passed away, leaving their third sister, Marta, holding the fort.

Just before we stood up to sing the anthem, Mirna took advantage to share the Gospel to the extended family, many of whom were hearing the Good News for the first time. We were a handful of evangelical Christians that surrounded this family in their distress, and helped them set their hope in their newly found faith. We beg your prayers for the Mora family during this very difficult time, as Lupe is recuperating from surgery and metastasis of cancer to other organs in her body, as the grandmother is ill in a home, and as young Carlos hits his teenage years without his mother. And please don´t forget to pray for Marta, her husband and two children who have been buffetted on all sides, and seek to follow the Lord.

Thank you for your prayers and support for me as I provide support for others!

Date Nights and Answers to Prayer

I’ve never been an actor and usually try not to sing too loud out of respect for those around me, but two nights ago I found myself onstage for the curtain call of “Forbidden Broadway” playing at the Carnival Center for the Performing arts. What a surreal experience! Well that’s the latest in a series of blessings I want to share with you in order to give testimony to God’s faithfulness. Just before Christmas ’06 I had committed to having more “date nights” with Claudia so that we could step away from the normal routine and do the marital maintenance on the wonderful relationship that the Lord had blessed us with. The only problem was that we had precious little “discretionary income” to put towards these nights. I remember praying and asking the Lord for the means to do a little more than a cup of coffee every now and then. I had no idea as to what the Lord had in store!

Only a week or so after that prayer I was leaving for work at 7:00 AM, about ½ hr later than usual, when the home phone rang. The woman calling asked: “This is going to sound strange, but are you Kevin Ayebeg?”
“Yes, who is this?” I asked.
“That’s not important.” she said hurriedly, “I found your name in the directory. You need to call WIOD (local AM News station) right now! They just announced your name as one of the Christmas prize winners and you’ve got 5 minutes left to call in!” She quickly gave me the station’s number and hung up. I never even got her name.

Sure enough, I called the station, gave them my name and they told me that I had won a $100 American Express gift card (and a Rush Limbaugh bobble-head doll). Claudia and I got two really nice date nights out of the card and blessed our mailman with Rush.

It was about two months later that I called in on the same station’s early AM commute trivia show and got through on the second try, only to win yet another $100. certificate for a local Seafood Grill, resulting in another wonderful pair of date nights for Claudia and I.

Since finances have been tight, I’ve been doing various home repair projects for friends and neighbors to make ends meet. I often find myself in the garage working on pieces of furniture or simply getting the tools together I will need for the next project while listening to the local “oldies” station Majic 102.7 which also has various games and contests. I occasionally (maybe two times a month at most) will attempt to call in but only take time to dial up to two times in a row figuring that any more than two tries is a waste of time. Well, again, I got through and won a dinner for two at the local NYPD Pizza Parlor and was entered into a drawing for a new Lexus. I was relieved to not win the Lexus since we couldn’t have afforded the taxes, licensing, registration or insurance, not to mention how to reconcile a missionary driving a brand new Lexus, but we sure enjoyed a nice meal out once again!

It didn’t stop there though. From a local hardware store that I shop at we won a drawing for two tickets (usually $50. each) to the Weston Food and Wine festival, yet another great date afternoon. The most recent answer to my date night prayer came in an unsolicited phone call from another local radio station informing me that I won their monthly birthday drawing which included four tickets to the Broadway show I started with. Since my parents were in town we got to treat them to a night out (and I even looked generous doing it! :-)

God bless!