Mexico… Heading home

We r back in the states!! Waiting at the San Diego airport to board at 2. Be back around 12:30 tonight to the large church parking lot

Mexico day 4-5

Day 5-6
I am not sure where to even begin today. It is early morning on Wednesday and the past two days have flown by so fast. The house is completed for our family and there are so many emotions, stories, and touching moments that I would not even be able to share them all. Let me begin by painting a picture of the family we built this Home of Hope for.

Marisol and Omar De Los Santos Valencia are from Tabasco. They have three children. Omar is 15, Moises is 13 and Their youngest daughter, Yolibeth (7), was born with a hearing and speech disability. Yolibeth goes to a specialist school. When they lived in Tabasco they had a house. Omar had a pick up truck that he used fro work. But his daughter got sick with pneumonia and was in the hospital for some time. When she recovered, the owed the hospital a lot of money. So they had to sell the house. A short time later, Yolibeth got sick for a second time with Pneumonia. For 1 year she was entering and exiting hospitals. Omar had to sell his truck for work. He was very desperate about their economic situation and decided to come to Ensenada, looking for a better job. He came alone. Later on he sent money for his wife and Children to come. They have been here for 5 years now. Omar bought some land, on credit, which he is still paying off. The school for Yolibeth is far from the house. They have to pay for 4 buses daily to get her there and back. The sons also catch a bus to school. Omar worked in a car body shop, but has lost his job. Now he does some cleaning work and also works in construction or whatever he can find. Basically, at this point he is unemployed and doing whatever he can to provide for his family. His wife Marisol works cleaning and makes around $30 per week.

This is a little info about this family but what I can also tell you is what a beautiful family they are. Omar and the boys helped us a ton on the house and really worked hard alongside us. Yolibeth has a smile that would break through the hardest heart and is so affectionate and loves to hug every person on our team

For two days our group worked hard building a home for this family. Every single student worked relentlessly to make sure that we accomplished what we had set out to do. But beyond completing our house relationships were made. This family will remember our group for the rest of their lives and I believe that we too will remember them. It was a powerful and special time.

Yesterday afternoon when we had completed the house we made a circle in the front of the house and went around the circle and as each person took possession of the keys to the house they would share with the family. It was a touching time and finally the keys were handed to Omar, Marisol, Omar, Moises, & Yolibeth. Then the family shared with us and many tears were shed. It was such a powerful time that even as I write about this my eyes are tearing up. To think that we have been able to provide for this family in a way that will impact generations is hard to fathom but we are so thankful to have had this opportunity. God is so good and faithful.

Last night we ended our day with a powerful team time. Let me just say that your children were impacted and beyond that they impacted the life of a family and others whom we have met and have been faithful followers of Christ. Our prayer and discussion centered around what next. Do we return to Winter Park and go right back to the same way of living? How do we live a life that brings Glory to God? What do we do the battle the injustices in our world? Our hope is that for each of us it is not just a one time a year we go do missions but that we understand our call to live a life of obedience where we are bold in our faith and truly live it out unashamedly. That is my prayer for our students is that they embrace their call and see there gifts and use them to reach others.

Evanne – Hi moms and dads and whoever else is interested! – Let me just say that this has been an absolutely terrific trip and our team has risen to every occasion and task with smiles and a positive attitude. You wouldn’t recognize the boys singing at worship, dancing and doing dramas in front of strangers and talking during group time !! Girls also are working together and are such a sweet group. Your letters have been a great ending to each day and I’ve heard some youth saying how much they like receiving them. I was just overwhelmed yesterday as we handed the house keys over to the Mexican family we had built a home for. I sat there looking at this lovely couple with their 3 children (2 teenaged sons and one younger daughter) and knew that we had given them the possibility of a new start and a security of owning a home which is something we all take for granted. They blessed our group by helping us realize how God uses us to show his love to all of his children throughout the world. I hope that all of you have this same opportunity some time. Everyone agrees that this week has gone by super fast – see you all back in the states!! J

The Mexico Dance Song

So after having to watch those dancing videos 43728947 times I had the song stuck in my head all day. So naturally I had to look up the entire song. Here it is if anyone is interested: http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/s/Super+Heroe/2GX42G

Dancing in Mexico Again!

So Andy seems to like filming these skits. We’ve yet to figure out a way to get longer videos from there to here. The internet is just too unstable. But heres two more videos from mexico!

And heres the links if the videos fail to play:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1522215939348
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1522215579339

Mexico day 4

DAY 4

Buenos Dias! So today was another good day. We woke up and had a great breakfast of pancakes and sausage. It was yummy!! Sunday’s on the YWAM base are very laid back as that is just part of this culture. We spent the morning taking our time and getting ready for the church service in which we were to lead. Around 10am we all loaded up on the buses and headed to Pastor Phillipes church in an area of town. When you think of a church we automatically think of the beautiful building in which we worship each Sunday. This church was a building that looked like it was thrown together by whatever they could find. It was a building approximately 30 feet by 12 feet and we wondered how we would even fit in there and have room for others to come in. This church was started by Pastor Phillippe who is a young guy. He is from this area and became part of the YWAM staff years ago where he went to a DTS (Discipleship Training School). He was serving as one of the pastors at a large church in the area but felt the lord leading him to this poor area to start a church. He rents the 30 X 12 space each month for the price of $60. There are about 10 members right now so he pays for it by once a month getting up at 4am and making tamales to sale in the area so that he can pay the rent. Very humbling to even think about having to do this. His heart is to reach this neighborhood and he is willing to do what he needs to do.

The service this morning was great. Pastor Phillippe and another YWAM staffer Ivan led the music. After the music I got up and introduced our group and shared where we were from. Molly Matheson shared her testimony and did a great job….although when working with a translator that is a new experience and she had to repeat herself quite a bit. After her testimony we did our drama called Molding Jesus or as we have affectionately began to call it “Moldy Cheeses” because JP our speaker says it like that with his Swiss accent. Funny huh!! Nick George was going to share afterwards but did not feel well and needed to sit down (he is OK though Kristen and Kris, just needed to rest!) I shared and then introduced our next drama “Everything”. It was once again very powerful and touching. I can’t wait for you all to see it. Alex Confer is trying to help me post it but technology here is difficult. Thanks though Alex for all your help. As Nick George said earlier, “Alex is here and part of the team in Spirit and technology.” After the drama Amy Vance shared her testimony and did it very boldly and did a great job…it is her Birthday today too!!

After Amy, Richard got up to preach to us all. He did a wonderful Job!!! Emily Parkins was our scripture reader and 3-4 scriptures during the message. This was his first time preaching and it was great. He shared about our call as Christians to go beyond the walls of the church and not get so wrapped up in being in the church that we lose sight what being the church looks like. For those of you who do not know Richard, he grew up in South America and is fluent in Spanish. He had to help the translator many times!!! It was great though and I am so thankful for Richard and his many gifts that he brings to our team. He has also been getting up at 6am each morning to run with our overzealous runners…Hunter, Stephen & Coleman!! 6am…no thanks for me!! After the service Pastor Phillippe asked us to help him on Wednesday to help some people by painting their house and doing some other work for some people who are in need. We agreed.

While the service was going on we did have one of our students make a visit to the doctor. Danielle DiClemente got bit by some creature on her hand it began to have some kind of allergic reaction. We gave her benedryll but it began to get worse and spread to her other hand. Evanne along with the staff nurse on base took her to the doctor. He prescribed her some antibiotics and told her she would be fine. Getting a prescription here is basically writing down what she needs and saying go get it. The pharmacy’s just give you what you want and a prescriptions is really not necessary…..don’t worry though we are not bringing anything back!! She is a trooper and has been great about it all. She said the doctor visit was quite different then in the states. The doctor had to come in and look at her while the Mexico/Argentina game was going on so he was dressed in a Mexican jersey and was quick to get back to the game.

Wednesday was supposed to be our day to go to the Market but since Pastor Phillippe asked us to help we shifted our day off to this afternoon and went to La Bufadora (Translation: Blow Hole) This is a market place that at the end of the walk through all of the vendors there is some kind of hole in the rocks that when the ocean waves hit sends water up in the air like a blow hole in a whale. There is some special name for but I don’t know what it is. It is worth watching for about 3 minutes and that is it. Everyone went and haggled and negotiated all the trinkets and such. Most everyone bought a poncho….we look like a crazy white Mexican want to be gang. Loco Gringos as we were called by some of the Mexican staff…..and probably somewhat accurate!!

As I said earlier Sundays around here and very laid back so we did not have any ministry plans available so this was a laid back day. For dinner we had the most amazing fish and shrimp tacos at a stand on “Goodness Street” and what an appropriate name with those tacos!! We came back to the base and several of the YWAM staff were going to the movies since they have Sunday’s off. Several of our students went to go see the A Team. It was in English with Spanish subtitles. Not a great movie coming from someone old like me who used to love the tv show. Of course we had students who asked the question, The A Team was a tv show? I almost felt like denying that I used to watch it. Ever feel that way!!

Everyone is in bed now and we are ready to get started tomorrow with building the house. The next two days are going to be amazing but hard. We will leave tomorrow morning around 9am and get back the base at 5pm. It is going to be awesome an I am looking forward to meeting the family whom we will be building a house for. I wonder what that family is thinking right now? Are they lying awake like we used to do thinking about Santa brining us presents as kids? What is it like to not have a house and to know that someone is coming to build an entire house for you? I can’t even wrap my mind around that but I have been thinking about that a lot attempting to gain some perspective…although it really is impossible for any of us to truly know. God, give us all perspective on true life and allow us to not ever become so calloused with our own pleasantries that we tune out what is happening in the world around us to your children. They matter to you and therefore should matter to us. Thank you for this opportunity to change the lives of generations with this family.

Mexico day 3

Day 3

The British are coming!!! The British are coming!! I will begin the post today with part of the friendly banter that has begun between our group and all of the British folks here. Those are the words screamed last night by Donna Bailey’s room last after a battle began when they were up too late being loud. Amy Vance was actually the loud one and we will credit her with this new war between the Brits and the Americans. It did not help either that they Brits were pulling today for Ghana. A war has begun and we will be cheering tomorrow for Germany. Futbol down here is so popular and we are having a good time talking smack. I am very tired today so this may be short….sorry!

Our day began with a wonderful breakfast and good conversation around the tables. It is truly very refreshing to not have electronics so readily available. Everyone is actually having some great conversations and getting to know one another. After breakfast everyone headed off to for 30 minutes of quiet time. When Quiet time was over we headed into our session where JP shared with us. His illustration was interesting. He talked about how cows and camels when they eat regurgitate their food and taste it again and continue to chew on it. Disgusting I know but what he was talking about was that we need to continue chewing on scripture and bring it back up and as the Bible is referred to as the living word there are great insights that we can continue to learn. It was better than that might sound!!

After our session we went to practice our dances and dramas. Hopefully you all saw part of the dance on the blog and yes those are your kids!!! They have been wonderful and willing to dive in and do whatever. As silly as those songs are they are a great tool to minister to kids….as we found out today. After lunch we went to our first outreach and it was a church in the middle of a very poor colonia (village). We arrived and split our group into teams. We went door to door inviting adults and children to come with us. In the US people would freak out about someone coming to their door but this culture embraces relationships and getting to know people. Our students were amazing and bold in their faith. Many of them actually learned some Spanish today.

We went to an open dirt area and set up a fun environment for families with a bounce house, music , and of course futbol. Lots of children came and we spent a great deal of time with the kids just loving on them. There was one girl named Azule (Translated is “Blue”) and she was not interested in anyone there. For some reason though she connected strongly to Claire Baldocchi and would not let her go. She would not allow anyone else to talk to her and was afraid of everyone but Claire. I think Claire held her for 2 hours. It was powerful to see God at work in that girls life because what I saw as the work of the Holy Spirit through Claire. It was pretty amazing.

After all of the fun we gathered everyone around and did our dramas and dances. The children loved it and God moved in powerful ways in their lives. I am trying to get those videos online so you can see.

It was a great day of outreach and there is no doubt that God used our students. Tomorrow we will be leading a church service and doing our dramas and sharing testimonies. Tomorrow Nick George, Amy Vance, and Molly Matheson will be sharing about how God has impacted their lives. Typically I am the one who preaches but I have lost my voice after a week of Choir Tour and a lack of sleep moving to our Mexico trip so Richard Brelsford will be preaching tomorrow morning. He is going to do a wonderful job!!

Our night ended with team time. Team time is my favorite part of our mission trips because it is where we share how we have seen God at work. I wish I could share with you the things our students said and how they are gaining more of a global perspective of life and the call of Christ in our lives as opposed to our typical American approach to things in that we get what we want, when we want it. One student shared tonight about a kid who had terrible ripped clothes and she commented on how we would simply go buy more clothes if ours were ripped or grab another of our 20 pairs lying around. These kids can’t do that. Someone else commented on perspective and wondered do these people envy us as Americans or pity us as they have more of a focus on what is truly of value in life than we do. Good things to ponder and for all of us to think about. I will end on that.

PS. INTERNET IS FLAKY HERE SO SOME DAYS IT MAY BE DIFFICULT TO SEND THE BLOG. Like yesterday

Dancing in Mexico

Andy just sent this to me and asked me to post it on the blog. We decided facebook would be the best means to share it.

Heres the link if the video fails to play:

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1518988818672

Mexico day 2

DAY 2
Our day began with waking up around 7ish and we had breakfast at 7:30. Coffee is a hot commodity around here and goes pretty quickly. I imagine by next week we could begin selling it for around $10 per cup and our adults would pay it….possibly a good fundraiser this week. After breakast we began our quiet time. Each day we will have 30 minutes to spend alone somewhere around the base to pray, read our devotionals and allow God to speak into our lives. I spent the first part of quiet time speaking with one of our students about the struggles of life and how to overcome them and connect with God….it is cool to see God already at work. AFter quiet time we all headed into our session where we worshipped God through music and message. Our wonderful swiss speaker Jean Phillippe (AKA JP) shared a great message with us. Before he spoke the YWAM staff did a skit to the song Everything by Lifehouse. It was a powerful drama that I will share more about later. Check out the song on Itunes though!! Last night JP shared about the love of Christ for each of us and about choices. He is using this illustration about chocolate and gave everyone chocolate to eat. he shared that God has given us the ability to choose the things in life. Chocolate can be good or bad depending and just lot many things in our life our God loves us enough to offer us free will. This morning he gave out some more chocolate but after we started to eat it he shared his second point. The chocolate he gave us was the worst chocolate in mexico. This was used to tie in the fact that there are things in our lives that are not good but yet we choose to eat it because it is like chocolate and appears to be good but is false in its representation. There was a lot more so i am just summarizing. he had really shared some great truths and is an effective speaker in many ways. He has a strong french type accent which is fun to listen to and he really connects to us all as a sincere follower of Christ

After our session our students were instructed to get on some clothes on for some games that they would end up getting wet. Our students were split into teams and we did several team building activites. The one that was the most fun was a four way tug of war on the beach. Four people are in tires that are all tied together and they each have to pull in four different directions to grab item. It was fun by tiresome. They did really well. I had the great idea to have our four adults give it a try. I will tell you that I have cuts on my belly,David Matheson messed up his back, Richard brelsford legs are hurting, and Brian Vann got pulled out of his tire and it did not feel good. We are all just getting old!! The students were fine though. OUr last game was a huge water balloon fight in which everyone got wet…imagine that.

After the games it was time for lunch. We had a salad for lunch and then the majority of our team went to the taco stand. Coleman, Matt, and myself have made it a priority to go to the taco stand at least once a day….or like today twice. These are the best tacos in the world and you would understand if you could have some. It is like a fiesta in your mouth with each bite. After lunch our creative arts training began…..and this is where the day began to get interesting……

I tried to prepare our students to be fat on this trip meaning flexible adaptable and teachable….essentially come ready to do whatever you are asked to do. The did just that and had a great attitude. No joke….we had to learn three dances!! There is another youth group from Oregon with us today and they joined us in these dances. These were not just move your hands dances but required some really moving. It was pretty funny to see our guys dance and i video taped the whole thing!! They are not going to like me but the footage is going on facebook when I get back. Peter Andros actually has some amazing moves and got on the stage to help lead the group with our british leaders.Because most of the staff are british Peter is not Peter but Petaaa. Everyone had a great time dancing…..they may tell you differently but every one of them had fun doing it and really got into it.

After that we went to split the group into our dramas. We are doing the drama that we saw this morning and Eric Warner is Jesus and Alex felsing is the girl who gets tempted by all sorts of people like Coleman Leggett her boyfriend, Matt Mines the drunkard, Annie Brkich the bulimic model, Amy Vance the money temptress, and Stephen Clayton who is death and suicide. You will have to see this drama but it is powerful. The rest of the group did another skit about trying to mold God to fit their life instead of allowing Him to mold them into who He has called them to be. They will be doing these skits tomorrow in front of people and several other times throughout the week.

After this we had more tacos and went to our last session for the night. JP shared again about chocolate and talked about how sometimes we leave candy or things in our pockets and forget about them. They get washed and leave a big mess in our pockets and lives. He proceeded to address how God wants to clean those things that we see as a mess and uncleanable. We had a commitment service that ended with a live Passion Play. It was very powerful and moving to see Jesus die on a cross in the play that was outside and very realistic. We then split into smaller groups and talked and prayed for each other . God really moved tonight in so many ways and I know he will continue to do so this week.

Going to bed tonight very thankful for the movement of the Holy Spirit and confident that He has called everyone of us to live a life that is countercultural and bold in a world that places priority on so many things that are not important so far from where God desires us to be.

Mexico day 1

Day 1
So everyone made it on time this morning to leave at 5am. We prayed and loaded up for our journey to the Orlando airport. We got to the ticket counter and we were all getting our tickets. Courtney was the last to get her ticket and the guy said that they were trying to find her a seat. A little fear set in as they were trying to clear a spot for her….even though we had already booked her ticket. Not sure how these airlines work sometimes!! We got her ticket and had no problems getting our boarding passes and made it all the way through security checkpoint. Everyone had a little breakfast and we headed to Gate 129 to depart for San Diego. As we were boarding we ran into a situation. Two of our students had lost their boarding passes. I was thinking this was not a big deal and we could just get them reprinted…..and i was wrong. Apparently now you have to make sure you hold onto your boarding pass because if you lose it then you do not board the plane and they will NOT reprint your boarding pass. We began t scramble to locate the lost tickets. One of them was found back at the table in the eating area but we were unable to locate the other. Everyone was on the plane and they were ready to depart and one of our students could not get on the plane. The airline refused to print another boarding pass due to TSA regulations……so we had to purchase another ticket. They said I can get reimbursed for the other ticket but we will see how easy that is. NOTE…..we need to make sure we hold onto our passes for the return flight! Lesson learned and we are safely on our way and I am typing this first part while flying into Kansas City to drop some people off. To be continued…….

We arrived on base and after getting settled in we all went to the taco stand…. I cannot begin to tell you how wonderful those tacos are. Almost all of the students and adult indulged in this wonderful delicacy….yummy! We came back to the base and began to meet with all of the YWAM staff. The majority of staff here are from England so we get to hear that wonderful British accent for the next week. We have other staff from Switzerland, Norway, Mexico, and California…which is like another country too. The staff are wonderful and we all went down to the beach to play some Futbol (Soccer for those of you are not experienced in the knowledge of sports…ha) Afterwards, we came back up to the base for dinner….and we had tacos for dinner. You can never have too many tacos and it looks like we will be having them everyday!! One of the things here is that you cannot flush your toilet paper or it stops up the system. We are taking bets on who the first person will be that will have to dig it out. Feel free to chime in with your bets! After dinner we went to our first session and it was amazing. OUr speaker this year is Jean Phillippe from Switzerland and he shared with us all about choices and that we can choose to hear from God this week or we can choose not to. That our God loves us so much He has given us the ability to make choices. He did a great job and is going to really challenge us all this week. Everyone is so tired and we are off to bed!!

I will blog when i am able but the posts earlier were done from my cell phone so i am limited in what i can write. I will try to continue to keep you all up to date. Our students are amazing!! They have been tremendous and I am so looking forward to seeing how God will work this week. later!!