~Mexico Missions Trip - Day 6~

Thursday morning!  That extra hour of sleep was wonderful!  We snacked a little in our room, and then met for our normal prayer time.  The whole group met for a testimony time... then we enjoyed a nice brunch.  After brunch, we headed out to downtown El Paso.  We were one street away from the boarder here, so there were many Mexican's.  We handed out hundreds of John and Romans... mostly Spanish but a few English.

Downtown El Paso

Our group of about a dozen walking up the sidewalk giving away John and Romans.  There was another group of the same size on the other side of the road.  We also had groups on street corners.

More Downtown

Afterwards while waiting for everyone to get back.  I had so much fun with these CrAZieS.

After we were done, half the group wanted to do some souvenir shopping.  Previous years they spent 3 hours here... I enjoyed the 1 hour trip, and the kids enjoyed my finds :-)

Painted in the Mission Building

We were all so tired Thursday night but we didn't want to go to bed.  I was ready to go home but I wasn't ready to leave... if that makes any sense!   We signed t-shirts and played four on a couch til midnight.

This is the back of the t-shirt

The sign out front

The mission building.  The downstairs was full of meeting areas (dinning, kitchen, ping pong, lounge) and the upstairs was split into rooms.  One dorm room for girls and one for guys along with several private rooms of different sizes. 

The bus garage and print shop to the left of the mission building.

We actually had rain!  and a double rainbow!

Our whole group... 12 that traveled down for the week, four that were volunteers working for a few weeks, and two that are on staff.

I think it was a great first time mission trip for Jordan... I look forward to many more trips with each of my children!  Jared is already talking about when he can go.

~Mexico Missions Trip - Day 5~

Wednesday was a whole new day!  Soon after a fabulous breakfast, we headed into Mexico.  We worked with one church to do two programs in one day.

My group leader today... he was better with English, but communication wasn't very smooth.  We walked down this steep hill to invite the people living in this section.  This gully area was surrounded by nice houses and paved roads.

From the bottom looking up.  These people obviously didn't have vehicles. Can you imagine climbing out this way every day?  I would hate to see this in the rain!

Our park area today was a walled in area.  We hung tarps... they won't come if there isn't any shade.

The afternoon service was much smaller than the evening services had been.  Our hardest meeting physically. I drank a lot of water!  (All our water was brought in). Thankful there were bathrooms on the bus!  There wasn't much shade but it really didn't feel too hot.

I told this little sweetie that I liked her pink hat (in Spanish).  We said a lot to each other after that but neither understood what the other was saying.  I'm still praying she heard and understood the gospel and received Jesus as her Savior. (a side note... why, when adults bend down for photos with kids, do the kids have to bend down too ☺)

Our own hometown girl got to do the chalk drawing today.  We enjoyed watching her work.

During the afternoon program, Jordan managed to guard the doorway (keep the Americans from blocking the way) and to hand out more John & Romans on the street corners.  He jumped in wherever he could.

Several of us got to enjoy a Mexican Coca-Cola.  No high fructose corn syrup and a hint of lime.  I don't drink soda enough to know there was a difference, but the soda drinkers were really impressed.  These little glass bottles were less than 50 cents.

After the puppet portion of the program, the stage is removed and torn down.  

They wrap it all in a tarp so it is ready to transport to the bus and to be used again.  I appreciated the organization of the team.

After the first program, we went to the church for a late lunch (2 pm).  Really tasty burritos... All our food was brought in with us.  I had a bit of an issue with my blood sugar crashing.  I went way too long between meals and wasn't eating my normal foods.  Thankfully, someone had a bunch of mints... with real sugar.  I don't normally eat white sugar, but this was no time to argue.  I was slow and a little dizzy the rest of the day, but bounced back fairly quickly.  After that, I packed plenty of snacks.

After lunch, we went to the Mexican Market!  I did not take any photos inside...oops!  I was expecting a market like the outdoor markets I experienced in Hungary/Romania, but this market was more like the one in the Bahamas. There were not very many vendors... the markets was closed for several years because of the unrest in the area.  I'll share my purchases later.  Not a huge fan of having to barter though!!!

After shopping... Deidre, Shantel and Erin

The guys waiting at the market for the girls to finish shopping.

We had a church service after the market and then set up for another program outside.  The church blocked off a street for this meeting.  Cheyenne got do help with puppets tonight.

Jordan got to steady the easel for the chalk artist.

It was another late night but we were sad to say good-bye to Mexico.  This was our last time crossing the boarder.  We were all happy to hear we would be able to sleep in an extra hour Thursday morning!!!

~Mexico Missions Trip - Day 4~

Tuesday was the same schedule as Monday.  We spent the morning working on New Testaments.  We had an ambitious goal of 30 thousand for both mornings.  We "only" completed 29,528.

Just one of the many stacks of New Testaments

We got back from inviting people out a little earlier Tuesday night.  There were a bunch of people standing and a fellow America asked how we could get them to sit down.  I thought I could handle that job so I went over and sat down... they sat down with me.  That was easy :-)  I had been praying that God would allow me to do something that night.  I felt like I was just there and not accomplishing anything.  I am thankful God allowed me this short moment.  I sat there "chatting" with the children and a few of their mothers.  My Spanish is very limited.  I managed to ask their names and ages.  They were correcting my Spanish constantly... and laughing at me.  They were much better at learning English!  The program was soon starting so I moved out of the way.  This sweet little girl ran up to me and gave me this coloring page.  It was just the encouragement that I needed.  A friend pointed out the idea that the little girl must have given it to me because I look like Tinker Bell?!??!  

Boxes of John & Romans and tracts... we handed out hundreds of these!

We were very thankful for the beautiful weather!  It was hot outside but it was not humid like it is in the Northeast.  We also had good cloud cover in the heat of the day.

It was neat seeing people immediately start reading!

These two were my group leaders Monday and Tuesday.  The church we were helping had twelve leaders so our group of 60+ split into 12 groups.  In my group, there were five Americans who spoke very little Spanish with a leader that basically spoke no English.  Javier and his son Javier had a joy in their work.  I couldn't understand most of what they said, but you could see the joy in their faces.  

There wasn't much to be done during the program itself.  Jordan stayed out on the street and continued handing out John and Romans.

Hector gave the gospel each night.  I really enjoyed his visual...

... I am trying to figure it out to do it myself sometime!

Even with all the Americans loitering about, the people were very focused on the program.  I love the little girl in the almost center... she kept moving around to see.

~Mexico Missions Trip - Day 3~

We were anxious to get started Monday morning!  Our church group met at 7:15 every morning for a short devotional and prayer time before breakfast.  After breakfast we enjoyed a tour of the print shop.

Our tour guide, Mr Jarvis, has worked here for many years.  He has amazing stories of answered prayer.  He and his lovely wife are retiring from this aspect of the ministry but will still be traveling about and will probably still be a part of the busy summer ministry in Texas.

They make whole Bibles, New Testaments and John and Romans here.

We assemble John and Romans at our church... here we were putting together New Testaments.

Every lap around the table we made six New Testaments!

We had some quality control experts :-)  They made sure everything was correct and counted out neatly.  We worked on this several hours... glad for a break at lunch.

After lunch, we headed back into Mexico.

  We were on the bus A LOT!

Quote of the day "Don't feel sorry for them, have compassion on them. They will see the difference on your face."  That is so true!!!  Jesus always had compassion on the multitudes.

Monday night was the worst section of town.  You could barely call some of the piles of blocks a home.  Everyone, however, happily greeted us at their gate.  Their culture does not feel interrupted at our coming... and they joyfully come out for a meeting starting in less than a half hour.

From most places in Juarez, you can see this sign on the side of the mountain.  I am told it says,"The Bible is the truth, read it"

They made bricks in this area.  The above domes are where they are baked.

People stop what they are doing to take a John and Romans... they often stop right there and start reading.  Passengers have the buses stop to get a John and Romans given to them through the open bus windows.  Very few people turned one down.  The children especially enjoyed getting their own copy.

They estimated the group Monday night to have been over 400 people!  They said there were more men than usual.  Of course, the children were drawn in by the puppets and music.  The number of people was a huge surprise to me.  We had twelve groups knocking on doors for about 20 minutes.  Wow, what a turn out!!!

At the very end, we handed out the crosses and bracelets.

We packed up and left by sunset.  We had a bagged supper on the way back to the border... crossing back into the USA around 10 pm.  We crashed into bed after 11 pm.