oh Mexico

After busy weeks of gathering boat items, visiting my
favorite twin sister, visiting friends, organizing
taxes, etc. I am returning to Mexico to be with my
mate, captain, best friend so we can resume our
meandering exploring trip of the Mexico coast.

One benefit of staying the extra timeI was that I was
able to attend a training in Berkeley taught by Bread
for the World. Their purpose is to continuously
advocate for legislation that assists the world's
poor. Their primary focus at this training was to
bring together leaders (Angel and I didn't know this
till we walked in the room) from Anglican and
Episcopalian parishes to hear what they're doing to
meet the Millenium Development goals (of reducing
poverty by half by 2015), and to give training on how
to influence legislators to vote for relevant laws.

The most interesting things to me:
1. I learned that many congresspeople don't even know
about laws that are coming through and often will vote
if their constituents call to educate THEM on the
issue. Hmm. I thought that was their job.
2. According to interactions Bread for the World has
had with staffers of various legislators, ONE hand
written letter is worth 4 FAXes, and one Fax is worth
10 emails. In other words, if we want to get the
attention of our law maker, we need to write them a
letter.
3. A vote on the Poverty Act is coming up in the
spring. I'll be writing a letter from Mexico asking
Barbara Boxer to support it (Feinstein already has).
Here's a link to Bread for the World's YouTube video
if anyone is interested.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lie0ZgG-Bw4

Your next update will be from Mexico. Yippee.
Thanks to all of you who support us in so many
different ways!
Megan