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I know that it's difficult to see and you just might have to take my word for it. But in the photo, a guy lies under the van making repairs. And standing right next to the car, another guy plays the accordion. I heard the accordion and followed the sound until I realized that it was coming from across the street. That's a new one for me, car repairs with a live accordion accompaniment.

I know one thing for certain, the street where I live will never be accused of being boring.

We have animals- dogs, lots of dogs, pregnant dogs, nursing dogs, male dogs, puppies, dogs who bark, dogs who sleep, dogs who bring garbage into our yard...,
cats of every color,
chickens, yellow chickens and black chickens, lots of chickens, and some roosters. Whoever started the idea that roosters crow at daybreak, they were confused. Roosters crow all day long.
The biggest pot-bellied pig that you can possibly imagine, I mean BIG, used to be spotted across the street, but I haven't seen him in a while, and I'm kind of afraid to ask the owner what happened. He was pretty fond of that pig.

Vehicles- we have a lot of vehicles. A lot of loud cars. Pickup trucks. Carts drawn by horse and by donkey. Delivery trucks, coke trucks, beer trucks. And cars with loudspeakers on top- for water, for tortillas, for gas, today- for tamales (that was tempting...). Vehicles going much too fast, that screech to a halt for a speed bump and screech when they step on the gas again. Bicycles and mopeds and motorcycles all roll by.

We have people- all kinds of people. Men, women, children. Young people in uniform, sometimes with a uniform shirt for a school they don't attend. Moms with kids in strollers. Kids- lots of kids. Toddlers toddling. A grandpa with a walker. People that wave. People that don't.

And the activities in the street- men fixing cars, families practicing quinceañera dances, kids playing games, vendors selling drinks and popsicles and snacks, the weekly lotería game. One time a guy loaded down with pottery was walking down our street, selling it from gate to gate, door to door. We nearly always hear some sort of music. Recently we have heard drums echoing their beat at night, practice for upcoming holiday marking the Mexican Revolution.

The other day, one of our neighborhood girls brought a bullet to the community center, a piece of potentially live ammunition that she found in the street. My teammate disarmed it. Sometimes we see the federal police drive down our street. Sometimes we see young men with handheld radios on our street.

There is a permanent layer of dust in our street, replaced only by slick mud when it rains. But the buildings are bright on our street, painted in brilliant shades of blue and green and orange. Sometimes you might happen to be outside at just the right moment, when the sun rises in the east with a pastel palette or sets in the west burning bright orange and red on the horizon. At those moments, more perhaps than at other times of the day, there is a great peace on our street.

We pray for reconciliation on our street, for the families here to know Christ. We don't bring Jesus to this street; he meets us here.
Maybe even in an accordion serenading a mechanic on a fall afternoon.