Upcoming Events . . . click for info
Day 1 – Monday, April 5, 2010 Exciting first day for all of us meeting up in Harlingen and Brownsville and coming across the border with Mary and Claudia. Oh not until we had the necessary trip to Walmart and a stop for lunch at WhataBurger. We are at Iglesia Bautista El Divino Salvador where we will be staying the entire trip. Everyone has settled in and we are helping with childcare and activities this afternoon for the children of the ladies who are attending a conference hosted by El Divino. 
In the coming days we will be partnering with El Divino in doing outreach locally in area mission churches. Each morning our team will be doing some construction and painting at Hogares and then each later afternoon we will be involved with a VBS at Al Alto. We are all excited to be here and to be involved in this ministry. Please pray for us as we get to know each other, as we work together, as we get to know our Mexican brothers and sisters. 
Please pray that we will be salt and light and be participants in sharing the gospel and our lives in this coming week. More information and pictures coming soon. Thanks for sending us, thanks for praying and thanks for your love and support. Thank you Lord – Gracias Señor!
Day 2 - Tuesday, April 6, 2010 Well today's plans changed before the day even started. We did not start construction but took the morning to make sure we were ready for VBS and to check out the construction site to see what indeed it is we are up to at Hogares. This proved to be a better plan - construction will continue onto Friday which will be good for us. All our team members performed well and we worked together very positively. Our VBS was focused on Minnesota where we are from and we made fish, played baseball and ate jello. You can't get more Minnesotan than that. 44 boys and girls attended today and we gave out 97 jello cups. .JPG)
How many runs were scored in baseball "Solo Sabe Dios!" (Only God knows) The Bible story included creation and the idea that God created one world (un mundo) and that he wanted to be one with us and wanted all people to care for and love each other as one. The gospel was presented - we have not heard yet about decisions. Pray for us on this. The adults also had a study. Here is a quote from today by CVO that is worth posting; "Kae is a real trooper!" .JPG)
We thank God again for a good day and plan to hit the construction in the morning and focus on Sweden tomorrow at VBS as we talk about lighthouses and Jesus being the Light of the World!
Day 3 - Wednesday, April 7, 2010 Busy fun day today with everyone getting very involved and most of us getting quite tired.
.JPG)
We got started by going to Hogares a mission church of El Divino Salvador to paint the just completed Sunday School classrooms as one project.
Our second project is to build railing up the steps to the top of the new building where a second story of classrooms will be built eventually.
_1.JPG)
_1.JPG)
It was noted in the painting that Maria was probably the best one...
.JPG)
As always some people work and some just talk with their hands.
Well construction lasted until 2:15 when we all cleaned up (not at all) and headed over to Al Alto for day 2 of VBS.
VBS went very well. Annelie shared about being from Sweden and taught the adult class. The craft was the lighthouses and games were varied. It is hard to snow ski in Mexico and we are saving Soccer for Mexico day.
Day 4 - Thursday, April 8, 2010 The start each day is feeling earlier and earlier but we were off by 8:30 and jumped right into more construction, laughter, and converstation. Two of the guys doing construction with us are just a little bit crazy (Pedro and Guillermo for those who might know them). Well today David Burgette (Pastor Ruben and Silvia's son) joined us. He is a blast as well.
Staining and finishing the doors went well. And we made good progress on the stair railing to no where!
The 3 amigos are finishing the outside of the building with stucco.
Today was our last day of VBS and we had 60 kids and 40 or so adults. Our focus was on Mexico and we learned about Christ's salvation for us, the craft was maracas and the games were futbol (soccer) related. It was a great blessing to see Annelie share her faith with Erika and to have Erika pray to receive Christ into her life. The total number of kids making decisions is close to 20. As Claudia said it, "It's hard to tell with kids because many of them raise their hands and may have done so before." Either way 20 kids saying they want a relationship with Christ. There were also 3 adults (4 including Erika) who chose to follow Jesus this week. At the end othe time we cut up Watermellon and enjoyed it with Mexican chile powder on it.
Day 5 - Friday, April 9, 2010 What a joy to finish our painting project, the staining and finishing or the doors and all the details on the railings. Just as we finished it started to rain. We were then invited to the pastor's family's home for a quick bite. It was very good - quick is a relative term. We loved the hospitality out of the rain and the tasty comida. We only had construction today so it was good to get back to El Divino and clean up and rest up before being honored by another meal put on by El Divino. Again the food was out of this world. If we come back a tad chunky remember we were good guests and ate what we were served.
CLICK HERE FOR ALL THE PICTURES FROM THE WEEK
Day 6 - Saturday, April 10, 2010 A good but low key day. We visited some mission churches, shopped for a short time and went to lunch at Silvia and Ruben's home. They are such gracious hosts. Thanks to God. The event for today was a youth meeting that was scheduled for 5 pm and got started before 6. The singing was great, we went around and shared our high and low for the week. Being from Minnesota we explained that we would need to call it our low and "not so bad" for the week. Minnesotans if you have not noticed often talk in negative terms. "The weather isn't so bad!" "I'm not doing too bad." "I have nothing to complain about." etc. Ron shared about the trip to Haiti and the need to love God, love our neighbor and be ready! It was a good meeting overall. Thanks to God. We are looking forward to Sunday and worshiping together.
