Well, lets see. Haha. It’s pretty hard to describe in words what we have experenced on the last day of this trip. We started the day off filled with energy and ready to go. We broke down camp before worship early in the morning while eating our breakfast. As usual, we went to morning worship but afterwerds we had a group communion with the other Lutheran churches in Michigan. We sang English and Spanish worship songs during this. This was our last time in camp. I’m running out of time, sorry guys, gotta cut it short. Mexicalli flexicali, haha. Alright, basicly we loved God, loved the kids, cryed when we had to leave the kids, gave the keys to the family who were extremely grateful, headed home… It was amazing and I’m sure you will be hearing about all of it from us when we see you in just a few hours. Love you all and thank you for the prayers.
Team Rana
The last day is always one of the hardest days of the trip. We finally get a great relationship with all the kids and our pastor, and then we have to leave. It is always a good day for the kids when we bring out the pinata and tell them they are going to get candy. I pretty sure if it was empty the kids would still want to hit the thing. The last day is always one that we pull out all the left over crafts and beads and have the kids use them up. On our last day our pastor’s wife cooked us a great meal where some of us got to have burritos and some of us got some soup. When it came time to leave our site, it got to be very emotional. Everyone is starting to cry, and if they arent crying then they were hiding it pretty good. 
The kids were tearing up and a couple of them were starting to cry. When it came time to say goodbye to the pastor and his wife, all they had to say was pray hard for us and god has done amazing things with you. With those inspirational words that just made us cry more. As we were leaving we sat in the vans thinking of the great year while heading to the build site. Once we got to the build site, it was mad chaos. Everyone was told to do something, from puting on lights to putting up drywall to even finishing up the plumbing. Once it started to get dark, our translator Saul had to head home. This was another hard part because we all became so close with him again. As everyone started to wind down and clean up our mess at the build site, we gave the keys to the family presented them with a little plaque, saying the family’s house is from God and that the family’s house was blessed by Him. Then we headed out to the border for a very smooth border crossing. We just want to thank you for all the love and support you have given us through out on our adventure with God. Thank you and we love you all.
Border crossing was less than a 10 minute wait. All vans went through
easily, except for the cargo… They had the dogs sniff it then let it
go! (I did get guns nearly drawn out of their holster when I (don’t
worry all you parents, it was just me! And my parents, its expected by
now!!) went back to see what was taking the cargo so long! If they had
unloaded the cargo, we wanted to help reload it so Dale and Bob weren’t
loading 40+ bags themselves! Once I explained myself, the border guys
put away their guns and were very nice!)
We are back at the
hotel, have unloaded and reloaded the vans, returned 3 of the 5 vans,
and a few of us took the traditional trek across the parking lot to Dennys! Off to sleep for three hours, then heading to the plane!
The
kids will be taking a “dancing with Bob tip fund” tomorrow morning to
surprise him with his wife at the hotel & to pay for their room!
They are very excited! (Bob danced for us each morning to get everyone
out of the tents! We called it “dancing with Bob time”!)
See you all soon! (Noon Saturday!)
In His Grip,
Amy & the 2010 Octane Team
Just finishing up on the house and will be leaving shortly. I will send a picture soon!
We
are leaving the dry wall, mud, primer, and stucco for the family to
finish. The family will certainly finish the work… They have been
hard at work all week!
All are currently happy and healthy, except for Nick who just caught the not so fun virus.
Will let you know when we leave!
The final day is one of the hardest days. We get to see the kids one
final time. The house is coming on greatly today we got the roof put on
and the walls supported the best way possible. Today they are going to
get the electric unit in drywall in and the plumbing finished. Everyone
is so sad that we have to leave it only seems that just yesterday was
the first day we arrived. We hope that today is blessed and that we get
home safely and without any problems during the border crossing. We
will update when we get back to the hotel.
Our team had a very similar day as yesterday. We
started off the day by playing and singing songs with the pastor and
the rest of the congregation. After the songs, we did our drama for the
day, which was the fiery furnace. The kids seemed to really like it and
especially the sunglasses we used as our craft. After the craft we just
spent the rest of our afternoon just playing with the kids. CJ and some
of the kids had a beat box competition while Jason was tied up and
called a prisoner and gorilla. After leaving the church we stopped by
to see some old friends at a few of our old build sites and the met
with the rest of our team at Danny’s for dinner. Our pastor and his son
met us at camp for dinner and the bilingual candle light service. All
in all it was a great day. We’re looking forward to a great day
tomorrow but we’re sad that it is our last day. Mucho amor!
Rana’s day started off with encouragement in the market
from an evangelist that we had the opportunity to see preaching in the
streets, while singing and playing his guitar. Soon enough we were
singing and preaching with him. It turns out that he had spent time in Michigan and spoke English. Then we proceeded to our first site and did
our arts and crafts and dramas which the kids were super pumped about!
Unfortunately,we had to leave those ninos and go to the 2nd and
collected kids in the park, where we reached out to many different
people and saw God work in wonderful ways!
The end!!!
We had another spectacular day at our site. We
went through our lesson plan that taught the kids to believe in God.
After an intense game of soccer, we went to Danny’s Tacos and some of
us even tried some of the peppers. We then had a candlelight with the
whole camp. Pastor Ricardo and his family came and it was a very
touching experience. Chris would like to add a shout out to Claire
Haglund and thanking her for the shout out.
Hello all!
We are just getting ready to head out for our second to last day of ministry… Pray for us!
I
have seen all the compliments on my leadership in the blog, and I must
say… Thank you for your confidence! It is only by the grace and
goodness of God that I am able to be His hands and feet.
I must tell you, however, it is really the behind the scenes people that are making things go so smoothly while we are here.
Cindy
is checking money and keeping up with all that we need. She took care
of all hotel arrangements and the Mexican dinner…. And packed me! 
Cindy is updating the Facebook page multiple time each day.
Jeff
is the one actually making you all happy, though! Without him, there
would be no blog, very few updates and certainly no pictures!
Updates
have been amazingly easy for me this year, as my email works on my
phone. I simply email Jeff updates throughout the day. It is Jeff that
is receiving emails night and day. (seriously, even at 3 and 4 am
Michigan time!) He then takes the time to post them all. He is also the
one who asked for pictures. someone takes them on my phone and emails
them to him… Just completely randomness. He takes them, organizes
them and posts them!
It was also Jeff who got the update about
the earthquake online so fast…. So, please thank him!! He doesn’t get
to go on this trip and gets no compensation or anything for all that he
does! I am exceptionally thankful and know that you all are too!
So…. Thank you Jeff and Cindy for making our trip awesome and keeping our communication with home strong!!
Love,
Your team
Today was absolutely amazing. We began the day
investigating ways of incorporating some women’s ministry into our
second site (near the 07 & 08 build sites) which led us to a site
called Anna’s house which inspired our team by their brilliantly simple
methods of ministering.. We continued on to our usual morning church
where God answered our prayers and brought several kids who loved our
David and Goliath skit so much they want us to do it Wed night at their
service.. The highlight of the drama was a grandma who realized she was
standing with the Philistines and ran to the other side to be with the Israelites! From there we went to the old build sites with the plan of
an hour visit so the team could shower, however, we were so overwhelmed
by the number of new and old kids, we stayed much longer and are
greatful to have a second site to minister with! Thank you for your
prayers because they are clearly working… Oh, and the team did
eventually shower!
Hola Michiganders!
Our team, Ichthus, has been doing great so
far. Thanks to our pastor, today we had 25 kids at our site. He threw
an outdoor concert to try to bring in the kids from the neighborhood.
It was a lot of fun and we even played a song together, in English and
in Spanish. This brought us in 10 new kids. After, we did our drama
(David and Goliath) and our crafts which was a big success, especially
the stickers. When we were all done, we really bonded with the kids and
the pastor by sharing food and just having some quiet time making
bracelets and just talking. This made our relationship with the church
much stronger. We feel as the days go by that we are really helping the
church stretch to the community and leave a powerful impact in a child’s
life. Please keep us in your prayers.
We had a spectacular day. We started out by
going to Pastor Ricardo Garcia’s church and going through our VBS
program. We had a few more kids today because their mother’s were not
as afraid of the earthquake. We had a guest translator, Diana from
Burbank. She was really good at Spanish, but Chris insists that he’s
better and we don’t need one. We got to meet the pastor’s other son,
Ricardo. He speaks very good English also and was a huge help. After
that we went to the park and had a picnic with his whole family. Pastor
Ricardo just so happens to be a professional burrito maker and he
shared some of his scrumptious creations with us. After that, we
finally showered for the first time all week. We smell great!
This is Steve and I’m going to try and give you a build team update.
At this point, pretty much everyone is on the roof. Its pretty cool.
I almost got hit by a nail right now.
The progress the team is making is amazing. God is good. Tom and Dunbar from APU are assisting our team now and Charlie, who we built a
house for last year, joined this morning. We currently have the
trusses almost nailed, the windows in, and progress is rapid. The junior
team is also constructing a new temporary bano outhouse. Its a great
experience for everyone.
Dale is leading the team and spreading the word of God to the family in
broken but improving Spanish. His guidance is much appreciated.
Matt is working as hard as possible all the time as usual. We all wish we could have his energy.
Bob is keeping the team in good spirits as well as everyone at camp. His experience and humor are inspirational.
I’m doing my best to build a great and lasting relationship with the
family and the community. I’m also learning and assisting in every way
I can.
Well, its time to get back to work. God bless you all and please keep us in your prayers.
Here are some pictures from the building site today.
Wow!
Two more ministry days here in Mexico! Time sure flies when the ground shakes and the wind blows and God moves!!
Things
are settling down a bit. The ground is shaking less and less. The wind
has died down and a fun 12 hour virus that we passed around our camp
seems to be about gone! (Seriously, we are full of funness here at camp
this year! ) There was no common denominator such as food eaten or
amount of water taken in. The infirmary has decided that it was a short
flu virus that we brought from Michigan! Everyone is now back to 100%
and no one ever lost their upbeat attitude…. We just got excited when
someone who was not feeling well “got their puke on” because once that
happened, they felt better in a couple hours!
Trust me, there will be no shortage of stories after Mexicali 2010!
As
far as earthquake news, we are finding that the damage around us is
subtle, but definitely there, personal, and hard to contend with. We
have been invited into several peoples homes, as they want us to survey
the damage and tell them if we can help. (Don’t worry… Only adults
have gone in!)
We have been asked so far specifically for a
toilet, as one family’s bathroom was demolished and to fix concrete
walls, as one family’s house is very unsafe because their concrete walls are
leaning in and no longer cemented together! They are still living there
though, even though they fear for the safety of their children.
Others
are sleeping in tents because they do not trust the structure of their
houses. Buildings that had many glass windows are shattered!
We
have been very impressed with the city’s reaction and quick response.
Power was immediately shut off so that no one could get hurt by downed
power lines. All bridges and buildings were immediately closed until
they could be checked for structural soundness. The road we were
standing on is on the outskirts of the city, and even it had caution
tape and police stopping people from driving over the crack nearly
immediately! Today, they already had construction crews out fixing
those roads! We have seen many city workers hard at work restoring the
water lines! The speed of their response was absolutely astounding!
I
will have everyone do their updates here soon so that they have time to
write a bit more details than they did last night at bed time. I hope
you all loved the pictures!
The one was such a big hit, we thought we would send more!
The
teams are totally excited about all that they are doing… Kelly and I
made it to all the sites today and everyone was thrilled with their
ministry day! (Many of them were thrilled with the fact that they will
get to shower tonight!!!)
CJ is playing his song tonight to
open worship. We are totally excited! Anyway, that’s all from me…
More from the teams to come!!
In His Grip Always,
Amy and the 2010 Octane Team
Here are some wonderful pictures of our teams from this morning.
Team Rana
Team Esperanza
Team Ichthus
The build team is doing well we are right around where we wish to be. The earthquake just messed up the cement a little but the man were building the house for lays cement for a living so luckily God helped us there and he was able to make it all better. Today we got all the walls set up and we look to be doing well.
We were late getting to our site today because we needed to fill up on gas (apparently everyone else in Mexicali had to as well), so when we arrived we were discouraged to see most of the kids had left, but God came through and improved our day. Word spread that we were there and soon kids began showing up out of nowhere, about 20 kids and all and expecting more tomorrow. We had lots of fun bonding with the kids through crafts and dramas, ate an outstanding home cooked meal from the pastor’s wife, oh and don’t forget beat the Mexicans in futbol! Can’t wait to see what God has in store for tomorrow!
We all want to thank God for what He has done for us. We were all so blessed to be with everyone at the same time as the earthquake. Our team came out amazingly strong after the earthquake. As soon as the major after shocks were over we told ourselves that it was the right thing to still go back to the build site and keep with our ministry. Today was amazing, unfortunately we were a bit late to the site and no one was there. But with the grace of God a neighbor got a hold of them and the pastor showed up slightly after. Around 20 kids showed up and they were all so awesome and we look forward to spending time with them. All we ask is that you blog back and pray.
Welcome again to Team Rana!!
This morning our team was so fired up to visit our church and teach VBS. When we arrived not a single child was in sight. Luckily a few children came which we all gladly played with. The few number of kids did not slow our spirits down. We made a trip to an old build site filled with smiling children. Each and every child at this sight touched our hearts. The earthquake did not slow us down but only made us stronger and more excited to continue our mission to serve God and the people of Mexicali.