We arrived in Mexico on the first day, Sunday the 13th about 4 in the afternoon, which afforded us the ability to unpack, go and grab some dinner and just start to prepare ourselves for the week ahead. I can never stress enough how great the Calvary Chapel Training Center is for groups. They are always super clean, all of their rules makes sense (you would be surprised at some places crazy rules). This year they mixed up the food a bit, instead of just beans/eggs/tortillas for breakfast and beans/meat/tortillas for dinner, we had the usual for breakfast, but they definitely stepped up the dinner with things such as pasta, baked chicken, chicken wraps, etc. It was a nice change from the year before, which was great, but variety is nice.
Monday we headed out for our first day of ministry, and got all up to speed on where the Grace Children’s Home (their blog is in my list of blogs on the left) is at in terms of their construction projects, and their successes in achieving their vision. The vision of George and Stacey Palau (the couple that started and runs the home) is amazing. They have so much going on right now in their lives with the children’s home, they run a weekly Bible study for the neighborhood where they also pass out food bags, they are involved in their local church ministries, and the ongoing construction of their new building. And yet, they are also completely determined and focused on moving forward with their vision on building a senior citizen home, and an infant home, as well as creating a backup water and power system for the current home. The Mexican water/power system is unpredictable at best, and when they have 60 people to worry about, backups are a huge priority. They just amaze me in their ability to be completely engaged in their current projects, but to constantly be looking forward as well.
We were assigned a couple of manual labor projects, such as taking down and rebuilding a fence, leveling out a huge pile of dirt, and fixing a whole fleet of bikes that have been broken through use by 40 kids. :) The fences are really important, because down there if you don’t have a proper fence, anything and everything can and will be stolen. GCH had a neighbor who had about 6 cars stolen, including one that they cut in half and drove off with the front half in order to sell for scrap metal. So since GCH has so much construction going on, they are in possession of a lot of rebar, which is a hot commodity, so we set about fixing their fence first. So we split into two groups and one group worked on the fence, and the other joined the kids of the home and began to play.
We discovered one of the best ways of playing with kids, bring a dress up box!! It was an immense hit with the kids, they would spend over an hour just putting on different dresses, shoes, graduation gowns, helmets, badges, boas, and the list goes on. The boys of course figured out that if they wore a graduation gown unzipped and ran, they would billow out like capes. So we had about 6 caped crusaders running around at a time. The girls immediately put on the prom dresses, heels, and grabbed the fans and headed off to play pretend. And the little kids loved those little plastic high heels that cannot be comfortable, but kids always love. So each day we would pull out the dress up box in the morning, and then put it away when it was time for the first craft.
We did two crafts each day, and we spent a lot of time before the trip trying to figure out crafts that would not just simply junk up the home or the kids’ rooms. We wanted them to be fun to do but also useful so the kids made: tote bags (which they were able to use right away on our beach day), pillows with fleece pillow covers, wind chimes, they painted their own Frisbees, made frames, colored velvet treasure boxes, etc. I think they all went pretty well, and I believe several of us still have glitter somewhere on our person. Glitter just never goes away.
One of the biggest joys and testaments to the care and love put into GCH was the kids that were new there last year, and who had been scared, reserved, kept to themselves, didn’t speak to anyone – much less in English, who this year have really bloomed. They have become secure, they feel safe, and cared for, and you can tell, it is so readily apparent in the way they carry themselves not only among the other kids in the home, but with the visiting groups as well. And the leaps and bounds made in all of the kids abilities to speak English was amazing! Not only did it make it a lot easier on us of course, but also these kids will have such a greater opportunity in life if they are fluent in English, so this means a great great start for them at the children’s home.
Our youth also did a couple Bible lessons for the kids this year, which we had not done last year, so that made it fun just cause it was different. One of our youth, Michael, appeared as a shepherd looking for “Woolie” his lost sheep, and had the kids help him look, and then of course told the story of Jesus as our shepherd and how even though He has the 99, he still goes and finds the 1 missing. We also did the story of Jesus calming the seas in which the kids got to make storm noises and spray water on Jeff’s face as he was playing Jesus. And finally, we told the story of Jesus healing the blind man, and we blindfolded all of the kids and had them wander around “in the dark” for a few minutes (don’t worry, the environment was controlled, we didn’t just set them free. :) ) The kids seemed to remember the activities and the lessons connected to them…at least for the days we were there, who knows about the future?! Guess we will just have to trust God to take care of those memories. :)
There were all the same kids this year as there had been last year, which is actually a great thing because that means none of them had to go back to their previous living environments but have been able to truly settle in and feel secure in their time at the home. The kids of course are still, and will forever be dealing with what they have gone through, several of the kids would ask our youth where our parents were, if we still lived with them, and then would ask where theirs were. Heartbreaking of course, but I love that God has provided Grace Children’s Home and the Palau’s in which these kids will be able to see what true love is, real mercy, and what genuine compassion for others means.
We were able to attend the midweek service offered by Calvary Chapel and our group really enjoyed it. It was bilingual which of course made it quite nice for us. But was also a great experience seeing a church figure out how to serve a larger part of their congregation, which seemed to be quite a task for the pastor. He would start to get all revved up, but then have to interrupt his flow every couple of sentences to have it translated. But luckily his translator happened to be as animated and excited as the pastor, so it was enjoyable for everyone to watch. I personally really enjoyed the worship. That part was only in Spanish, but it was amazing hearing God be praised in another language, and I truly just enjoyed listening rather than worrying about how I was sounding or if I was getting the words right. We were also able to attend the Thurs. night Bible study that Stacey and George put on for their neighborhood. We helped watched the kids, and were just there was a support, but I loved the fact that our kids were ready to help out in the evening even though they had just spent the day running around after the kids. Our youth group truly is an amazing bunch of kids, and I love them! :)
Each day was filled with kid time, playing, crafts, bike riding, fence fixing, dirt spreading, piggy back riding, jungle gym climbing, dressing up, cleaning up, picking up (both items and children), and just a great sense of connection and unity. Our group also got to go to the beach each afternoon after we left the children’s home and just enjoyed playing in the waves for about 45 minutes each day. We did also get a beach day with the kids, and luckily this year, everyone wore their sunscreen so we had no serious sunburn issues. Then on Friday after we said goodbye to the kids, our group headed down to the Rosarito marketplace and did some bargaining and bought various items. We then enjoyed dinner at one of the local (and safe) restaurants, and enjoyed truly fresh and delicious Mexican cuisine, and it was hot! Hot! Hot! Definitely local salsa, none of the wimpy Americanized stuff. :)
And of course, much praise and kudos must go to Jeff who drove the 15-passenger van all around Mexico without one problem! There were at times some white knuckles on the steering wheel, but he did a great job, and even pulled a couple of moves that earned him cheers from our youth. They told him he was truly driving like he lived in Mexico, but then we realized, he was really just driving like a Californian. :) So three cheers for Jeff and his great driving skills!
Saturday we headed to the border, and the last two years it has taken us 3 hours each time to cross back into California, but this year…1 hour!!!! We were so happy, and as everyone had their passport, we crossed the border with no problems whatsoever. We arrived home safely Saturday night at about 7:30pm
We had an amazing time, and everyone was safe, no one got sick, and I think kids, both Mexican and American were blessed. I also think that our kids were able to stop for at least 5 days of their lives and just completely focus on people other than their immediate peer group or themselves. Which is something I think everyone needs to do, teenager or not. There was definitely thoughtful reflection at the end of each day about what they were doing and whom they were truly doing it for. I think Jeff’s lesson really wrapped up the week nicely as he talked about the unity of the church. We are all given gifts by God, and used in unity with other believers; we become functioning and fruitful members of the greater body of Christ and the church. Our kids did that; they were able to use their gifts in unity with each other in order to accomplish our mission and goal for ministry.
Monday we headed out for our first day of ministry, and got all up to speed on where the Grace Children’s Home (their blog is in my list of blogs on the left) is at in terms of their construction projects, and their successes in achieving their vision. The vision of George and Stacey Palau (the couple that started and runs the home) is amazing. They have so much going on right now in their lives with the children’s home, they run a weekly Bible study for the neighborhood where they also pass out food bags, they are involved in their local church ministries, and the ongoing construction of their new building. And yet, they are also completely determined and focused on moving forward with their vision on building a senior citizen home, and an infant home, as well as creating a backup water and power system for the current home. The Mexican water/power system is unpredictable at best, and when they have 60 people to worry about, backups are a huge priority. They just amaze me in their ability to be completely engaged in their current projects, but to constantly be looking forward as well.
We were assigned a couple of manual labor projects, such as taking down and rebuilding a fence, leveling out a huge pile of dirt, and fixing a whole fleet of bikes that have been broken through use by 40 kids. :) The fences are really important, because down there if you don’t have a proper fence, anything and everything can and will be stolen. GCH had a neighbor who had about 6 cars stolen, including one that they cut in half and drove off with the front half in order to sell for scrap metal. So since GCH has so much construction going on, they are in possession of a lot of rebar, which is a hot commodity, so we set about fixing their fence first. So we split into two groups and one group worked on the fence, and the other joined the kids of the home and began to play.
We discovered one of the best ways of playing with kids, bring a dress up box!! It was an immense hit with the kids, they would spend over an hour just putting on different dresses, shoes, graduation gowns, helmets, badges, boas, and the list goes on. The boys of course figured out that if they wore a graduation gown unzipped and ran, they would billow out like capes. So we had about 6 caped crusaders running around at a time. The girls immediately put on the prom dresses, heels, and grabbed the fans and headed off to play pretend. And the little kids loved those little plastic high heels that cannot be comfortable, but kids always love. So each day we would pull out the dress up box in the morning, and then put it away when it was time for the first craft.
We did two crafts each day, and we spent a lot of time before the trip trying to figure out crafts that would not just simply junk up the home or the kids’ rooms. We wanted them to be fun to do but also useful so the kids made: tote bags (which they were able to use right away on our beach day), pillows with fleece pillow covers, wind chimes, they painted their own Frisbees, made frames, colored velvet treasure boxes, etc. I think they all went pretty well, and I believe several of us still have glitter somewhere on our person. Glitter just never goes away.
One of the biggest joys and testaments to the care and love put into GCH was the kids that were new there last year, and who had been scared, reserved, kept to themselves, didn’t speak to anyone – much less in English, who this year have really bloomed. They have become secure, they feel safe, and cared for, and you can tell, it is so readily apparent in the way they carry themselves not only among the other kids in the home, but with the visiting groups as well. And the leaps and bounds made in all of the kids abilities to speak English was amazing! Not only did it make it a lot easier on us of course, but also these kids will have such a greater opportunity in life if they are fluent in English, so this means a great great start for them at the children’s home.
Our youth also did a couple Bible lessons for the kids this year, which we had not done last year, so that made it fun just cause it was different. One of our youth, Michael, appeared as a shepherd looking for “Woolie” his lost sheep, and had the kids help him look, and then of course told the story of Jesus as our shepherd and how even though He has the 99, he still goes and finds the 1 missing. We also did the story of Jesus calming the seas in which the kids got to make storm noises and spray water on Jeff’s face as he was playing Jesus. And finally, we told the story of Jesus healing the blind man, and we blindfolded all of the kids and had them wander around “in the dark” for a few minutes (don’t worry, the environment was controlled, we didn’t just set them free. :) ) The kids seemed to remember the activities and the lessons connected to them…at least for the days we were there, who knows about the future?! Guess we will just have to trust God to take care of those memories. :)
There were all the same kids this year as there had been last year, which is actually a great thing because that means none of them had to go back to their previous living environments but have been able to truly settle in and feel secure in their time at the home. The kids of course are still, and will forever be dealing with what they have gone through, several of the kids would ask our youth where our parents were, if we still lived with them, and then would ask where theirs were. Heartbreaking of course, but I love that God has provided Grace Children’s Home and the Palau’s in which these kids will be able to see what true love is, real mercy, and what genuine compassion for others means.
We were able to attend the midweek service offered by Calvary Chapel and our group really enjoyed it. It was bilingual which of course made it quite nice for us. But was also a great experience seeing a church figure out how to serve a larger part of their congregation, which seemed to be quite a task for the pastor. He would start to get all revved up, but then have to interrupt his flow every couple of sentences to have it translated. But luckily his translator happened to be as animated and excited as the pastor, so it was enjoyable for everyone to watch. I personally really enjoyed the worship. That part was only in Spanish, but it was amazing hearing God be praised in another language, and I truly just enjoyed listening rather than worrying about how I was sounding or if I was getting the words right. We were also able to attend the Thurs. night Bible study that Stacey and George put on for their neighborhood. We helped watched the kids, and were just there was a support, but I loved the fact that our kids were ready to help out in the evening even though they had just spent the day running around after the kids. Our youth group truly is an amazing bunch of kids, and I love them! :)
Each day was filled with kid time, playing, crafts, bike riding, fence fixing, dirt spreading, piggy back riding, jungle gym climbing, dressing up, cleaning up, picking up (both items and children), and just a great sense of connection and unity. Our group also got to go to the beach each afternoon after we left the children’s home and just enjoyed playing in the waves for about 45 minutes each day. We did also get a beach day with the kids, and luckily this year, everyone wore their sunscreen so we had no serious sunburn issues. Then on Friday after we said goodbye to the kids, our group headed down to the Rosarito marketplace and did some bargaining and bought various items. We then enjoyed dinner at one of the local (and safe) restaurants, and enjoyed truly fresh and delicious Mexican cuisine, and it was hot! Hot! Hot! Definitely local salsa, none of the wimpy Americanized stuff. :)
And of course, much praise and kudos must go to Jeff who drove the 15-passenger van all around Mexico without one problem! There were at times some white knuckles on the steering wheel, but he did a great job, and even pulled a couple of moves that earned him cheers from our youth. They told him he was truly driving like he lived in Mexico, but then we realized, he was really just driving like a Californian. :) So three cheers for Jeff and his great driving skills!
Saturday we headed to the border, and the last two years it has taken us 3 hours each time to cross back into California, but this year…1 hour!!!! We were so happy, and as everyone had their passport, we crossed the border with no problems whatsoever. We arrived home safely Saturday night at about 7:30pm
We had an amazing time, and everyone was safe, no one got sick, and I think kids, both Mexican and American were blessed. I also think that our kids were able to stop for at least 5 days of their lives and just completely focus on people other than their immediate peer group or themselves. Which is something I think everyone needs to do, teenager or not. There was definitely thoughtful reflection at the end of each day about what they were doing and whom they were truly doing it for. I think Jeff’s lesson really wrapped up the week nicely as he talked about the unity of the church. We are all given gifts by God, and used in unity with other believers; we become functioning and fruitful members of the greater body of Christ and the church. Our kids did that; they were able to use their gifts in unity with each other in order to accomplish our mission and goal for ministry.
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2 comments:
reading that made me happy.
so glad i could bring sunshine into your life. :)
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