~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.  

~Mexico Missions Trip - Day 2~

Sunday morning we woke up bright and early to enjoy a cinnamon roll breakfast.  I soon found out why they feed you so well... they torture you with lack of sleep and cold showers :-0

Anyway, Sunday morning we attended a local church.  We arrived back at the mission for lunch... a wonderful turkey dinner.  Our church spend the afternoon putting tracts in with the bracelets and crosses we brought down.  Kiersten and I had been helping make them for a few months.

Our evening church service was in Mexico.

This church reminded me of some of the churches I saw in Romania when I was a teen.  The big difference is Mexico has a lot of stray dogs... in Romania there were chickens everywhere.

The church members were in front to the right.  They set up the empty side for their 60+ visitors.  We helped this church canvas the area Monday and Tuesday... reaching probably 700 people.  I can't wait to hear a year from now how many of these seats are filled by their own members!!!

The Pastor and his wife.  I don't think they spoke a word of English.

What a crowd... I know this church was encouraged!

The Pastor and family

This was the first day I experienced crossing back into the USA.  On a fast night at the border we only had to wait an hour.

We were not allowed to take pictures at the border but it looked like a long row of toll booths.  The buses have to be in the far right lane.  Everything in the bus and everyone had to be checked.  The people walked through a building with guards and x-ray machines.  The bus had to be driven through an x-ray machine as well.  Traffic is slow on the bridge but the problem comes if there is a bus ahead of you... especially if it has luggage.  Everything has to be unloaded from those buses!  We had a great week of border crossings!  Maybe it had something to do with praying every night as we neared the bridge :-)

~Mexico Missions Trip - Day 1~

Jordan and I had the opportunity to go on a missions trip last week with ten other members of our church.  What a great time we had... we both would go back in a minute!

We left our house Saturday, August 2... at 12:45 am!  Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep that night.  We had a 3 hour drive to the airport, a 3 hour flight,a short layover and a 2 hour flight ending in El Paso, Texas.

We got some breakfast at the airport.

Waiting for our first flight... not even a hint of sunlight yet

My first flight seat mates... now the sun is shinning!

We met a young man, Raule, who was traveling alone.  We promised his Spanish speaking mom that we would make sure he was taken care of for both flights and the layover.  He was a very nice young man... and now he knows how much Jesus loves him!

Look at the air moving over the wing!

My 2nd flights seat mates!

We were greeted at the airport by Hector (the man that runs the trips in Mexico) and two of our former church members who are now missionaries with BPS El Paso.  We spent many, many hours in this bus!

We stopped for an early lunch at El Taco Tote!  Yumm-o!  The first real food we had today.

We were the first group to arrive at the Mission.  We got unpacked, took a nap and went exploring.  We got to catch up with 4 of our young people who were working down there (some for 3 and some for 5 weeks)...

... we also got in a game of Catch Phrase.

All 60+ people arrived for a delicious supper and we headed out for "the Mountain" in El Paso.

My young man has a heart to serve, so glad we got to share this week together!  It was a joy to see him jump in wherever he could.

From the viewpoint, we could see El Paso, the Border and Juarez.

The straight line of lights is the border... The big red "X" is in Mexico.  The six major boarder crossing each have a letter from the word "Mexico."  

The first day, while extremely long, was a great day.

One of the buses broke down on the way home that night.  We were very thankful!  It was only a few miles away and it was easily towed back the next day.  It could have broken down in Mexico... leaving half the group stranded for hours (late at night) and it would have been a real challenge to get the bus towed across the border!!!  Bro. Jarvis said, in his very casual, trusting God way... "You know it's going to be a great week when Satan is already starting to attack."

~Baby Love~

I've spent the spring/summer working on a sweet little baby blanket.  I haven't had much down time without school work, but I managed to get it done just after baby was born.

I found the free pattern here.

Kiersten and I got the chance to deliver it and meet the sweet little bundle of joy named Olivia.

~VBS~

One of our favorite weeks of the year is in July!  The kids all love VBS.  Jordan and Jared always enjoyed going, but they say they enjoy working in it more :-)

Kiersten with her friend Jonathan playing outside

Our theme was dinosaurs

There were activities outside while the kids were waiting to begin

Jared helped with the puppets again this year

Jordan did most of the MC ing

We all brought pennies for the offering

The boys won the offering and got to smash a pie in Deidre's face :-(

Gregg and I got to do some projects around the house and go out to eat several times.  This was Kiersten's first year, so all our kids were at church!