Friday

It seemed like as soon as I touched down in soggy Oregon, I caught the cruddy cold that has been going around! I pretty much slept all weekend (as much as my son would let me), and now finally feel energized enough to stay up past 8pm...

Friday dawn clear and crisp, just like every other day in Mexico. The mornings are chilly, so we wear sweatshirts to breakfast. Usually by 9:30 or so we take them off, and don't put them back on until the wind kicks up in the evening around 5pm.

All weeks the high scholars had been trying to "do" something to Joel, the youth pastor. He warned them that he's been a youth pastor for 8 years, it would take some serious tricking for him to get pulled in by a prank. This morning they tried hot sauce in his coffee, but he caught them doing "shifty eyes", so he knew something was up. He switched his coffee with Suzan's, and unfortunately she took a big sip. It's a good thing she is so good humored. Her face was so disgusted, I bet it was awful!

We drove out to the sight, and discussed James. All week we had been reading the whole book of James before breakfast (or during) and discussing it on the bus ride out to the sight. The bus ride took about a half an hour, so we got some good discussions in everyday.

Our teams split up again, and my team finally stopped at a house. This house was actually next to the only concrete road in the community. This road was paved because it goes directly to the dump, and dump trucks roar up and down it all day.

This house was one of the worst ones we have seen. Actually, it might have been OK if not for the overwhelmingly strong smell of urine coming from the ground. You could see where the outhouse had overflowed and was seeping down into the earth a good 8 feet down hill from the outhouse.

Our job was to tear down the walls of the house, and start building it back up again. It was the usual routine of demolition, then digging holes for the support poles, and finally building support for the laminate before nailing that up. Our team got a good portion of it done before we had to leave. There were lots of bugs there, and a bunch of black widows. The man said "Don't get bit, because you only have 20 minutes with these guys, and there isn't a hospital 20 minutes from here." Yikes!!

We gave the family the care package, and prayed for them. The man had tears in his eyes as he thanked us. It was really moving.

We ate lunch at the church, and passed around papers to get everybodys contact information. It seemed like we had just met these people, and now we had to say goodbye!

After lunch we headed up the the church were we would be doing the bible club. It was actually in the same community, only about 4 "bocks" or so away. This church actually had a women's shelter right next to it that was in the process of being built. It was almost finished, it needed a roof and some other finishing touches. Mixie said that they hoped to have it done in a year.

The womens shelter

The bible club went much as yesterday, and when we finished, the girls and little boys stayed inside to color, while some of the girls came outside to get their fingernails painted. The rest of the kids played with a parachute and balls. There were little foam balls going everywhere!

Once we had painted all the little girls fingernails that wanted them painted, the high school girls moved on to their next target...the guys. The total list of victims includes; Joel, Andrew, Mauricio, Gherardo, and Steven.

When the children started to go home, clutching the little cloth bags full of little prizes, we circled up and prayed over the group. I was crying, and I'm sure that I was not the only person there who shed a few tears. Right then, I would have packed up my family and moved them down there to live and help! I didn't want to leave these fabulous people, I wanted to do more!!

Our bus ride home was very loud and boisterous (much like every other bus ride that week, actually.) We sang veggie tail songs, and were generally silly.

When we got home, we were tired. We showered and ate dinner, and packed to go home. We needed to get up at 5am the next morning to catch our flight, and so most of us turned in early.

We had a great week, and we were glad to be going home.