Today we arrived back in Michigan. We have had a loooooooooooong couple of days. Last night We arrived at our hotel in California, we were supposed to have twelve rooms, but when we got there they said they only had six for us. So we had to have eight people in each room and all of us took a shower in an hour and a half. We went to the airport at 5 a.m., we arrived safely at the hotel at 5 p.m., we are all excited to shower, swim and eat pizza and sleep. See you tomorrow at noon.
Love,
Charly, Cheyenne, Emily
Good Afternoon! I seem to have a SLOOOOOW connection, so I will keep this short in order to make sure that I don´t lose it!!
Pray lots today as our building team is working feverishly to get the house done!! We have collected a bit of money and hope to buy the kids beds today.
All the teams are at their sites for the last time as we speak. They will be leaving and saying goodbye in just a couple hours.
We have had a GREAT, GODFILLED time here in Mexico. We will cross the boarder again sometime late tonight.
We love you and miss you.
Love,
316 Octane Team 2007!!
P.P.S. Your families LOVED your comments!!! Keep writing.
Sorry for the typos. Two reasons.
1. SLOW internet connections usually (Although this one seems good) So I don´t want to take the time to fix it and lose everything like yesterday.
2. Different keystrokes in Mexico…explain that one!! I keep having to ask the guy next to me where to find the keys because they are not even labeled correctly!!!
Love you all!
Amy
Good evening all!!!!
I have only received an update from one team so far today, so I will tell you what I know, add that teams and wait for updates from the teams to tell you more!
The building team is feeling MUCH better today! They are still a bit behind schedule and over budget, but we are getting there! They have an awesome , AWESOME; AWESOME house started. The have most of the first story done and are working on the loft, roof, windows, and doors. They are doing a great job. God has been good. The speaker at camp gave them $200 cash today to help with cost and we found 7, yes, SEVEN additional guys to help out with the building tomorrow! Wait until you see the pictures!!!
Equipo Santa Ana is on their way to a 2 plus hour service at their site and everyone else is on their way home for the evening, (Except the building team who tends to work over 10 hours a day!!)
Everyone must be praying awfully hard as we have little to no sicknesses on our team. Everyone seems well hydrated and devoid of a sunburn!!!!!
We can hardly believe that we are nearing hte end of our trip!
Thanks to GGG who gave all the crosses! We are excited to give them to our pastors and to give them to other churches to give them out there as well!!!!
Hopefully we will have more to tell you tomorrow!!!!!
In His Grip,
Love,
All of us here in Mexico!!!
Ok, Here´s what I had yesterday:
Building Team:
The team is doing ok, they finished yesterday really behind schedule and stressed out about finishing. They are also waaaaaaaay over budget!!! The rest of us, however, are REALLY excited and impressed by all the hard work theyare doing!!!!
Team Encendido (Jason, Emily G., Christina, Reyna, Natalie, Hollie, Chet, CJ, Sydney, Jake, Chris, Dan) says…
Our team is having a blast. We are ministering to over 30 kids at Jesus Salva. The kids are great and we´re building relationships fast along with VBS, we play soccer and volleyball, we make necklaces with the girls or just sit around and talk. We are loving every minute of it! 
We love and miss everyone at home.
Team asi asi seis (Scott, Andrea S., John H, Michelle F, Sarah J, and Megan) say:
We went to our site today. Our church is called fuents de vida, which means fountain of life. It is a very large and wealthy church, they have many members and lots of technology. They are planning on eventually building a church five times larger than the current one. We attended part of the Easter service and then were invitd to go help with the children´s ministry. They had about 25 kids. We sang with them, performed one of our skits, made a craft, colored and played with them. After church, Jorge and his wife Alexandra, the church representatives invited us over for lunch. THey made us chgicken with mole sause. We sat and visited withthem. Jorge works on his English while scott worked on his Spanish. Jorge and Alexandra were very hospitable and generous and have a great sense of humor!! We´re excited for th week!
Team Equipo Santa Ana (Sarah C, Sam B, Emily K, Charlie, Kevin, Les, Dale, Drew, Andres W, Mike C) says:
We arrived at our site and were welcomed by all the kids. They were all very excited to see us. We all enjoyed spionning, playing futbol, and futbase, coloring, crafts, and laughing with them. Even though we don´t speak the same language, we were still able to communicate and connect with them. We know we are going to have a great time with them this week and we are gonig to miss them when we leave. Dale says to shovel the snow for us before we get back so we won´t have to!! We miss youall and will be glad to see you when we get back (and take a shower!)
Team Biftec (Marissa, Laura, Paul, Nick, Julie, Taylor, Cheyenne, Kathy, Kelly, Michele M. )
We find ourselves at an amazingly passionate church that is inspiring all of us. Imagine a 3 hour church service with a 40 minute sermon. No drive through communion here! Makes us reevaluat the wayin which we worship. Our kids, well, are adorable and mostly male. We will just term them high energy. We play, learn, and craft in a stone gazebo outside and enjoy the respados. We can´t wait to get back to the kids.
Team Biftec ( says:
Hey all, I spent 30 minutes or more typing you all messages and whatnot yesterday…only to loose our internet connetction and not be able to get it back. SO….I am trying RIGHT now!!!
We are printing off all the comments we have so far to read to the group! We will do so again tomorrow!!
Happy Easter!!!!
While we were in San Diego, I could not find a computer, but in Mexico, no problem!!!! We have had a great trip so far.
In San Diego, we went to the beach, rode a roller coaster, swam at the hotel, saw some seals, and played in the tidal pools. We had a great time!! Lots of kids saw thier families and friends while in Cali.
This is our second day actually IN Mexico, but our first ministry day. Yesterday, we arrived at camp around 10 AM. Everyone pitched in to set up our tents and did a great job. There are many more people at camp this year than last year, which makes for a great week. We then had lunch at Costco. Yes, they have those here in Mexico!!!
We visited the building site, where we realized that we were ignorant Americans to think that 53 people would 1. fit in the yard of the family and 2. that it would take 53 people to tear down what they had. The building team had it done before we even got there!!!! We did run into a couple problems. The family is planning on living there while we do work, which means we could not tear down the whole house, so the team had to quickly redo all their plans to accomodate the family. Then it took our guys over 5 hours to get all the wood that they needed! Many of our VBS adults helped out with these problems! Props to Chet, Dale, and Les for all their help.
Our translators have been doing a great job as well.
The teams will have updates written tonight for me to add to this blog tomorrow. Becky, Matt, and I have visited all the sites today and all is going well. Kelly´s team (Biftec) is at their old site and going strong. Dale´s team (Equipo Santa Ana) is also at their old site and doing well. The young adult team (Asi Asi Seis) is at an awesome beautiful church with many kids and Chet´s team (Escondido) is at St. Peter´s old site, which also has a great church. I will leave it up to them to tell you more in their updates tomorrow.
We will attempt uploading pics tomorrow. We love and miss you all!
He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!
Yiipppeeee! We leave TODAY! Our travelers will start leaving at noon today. Those traveling at noon will be flying into San Diego to pick up our vehicles…then driving to Sana Ana to pick the rest of us up this evening. We also have about 6 flying out tomorrow evening b/c they had to work! Pray for all as we travel!!
Our passports seem to have arrived for the most part - Praise God!!
We have all our money in the bank!! Thank you to everyone who worked so hard!
Keep checking the website for updates and please leave comments! If you have any problems with the site, email Jeff at Jeff [at] houghten [dot] com.
Thanks all! In His Grip,
Amy