Video summary of trip

I had mentioned last time that we were going to have our team share with our church about our trip. We did that Sunday night. I think its really difficult to take an experience like we had in Juarez and share that with others so they really understand what happened or more importantly to feel what we felt - its just not something you can do. I think each of us on the team was impacted in a very deep way that words can't describe.

As part of the presentation, I created a 13 minute video summary of our trip. This video took a lot of time to create - I was up until 2 AM several nights working on it. I've watched this video several times now and every time I see it, my eyes fill with tears. Anyway, without more words that don't sufficiently express all God did, here's the video.

Short video summary

I've been working on a video we'll show to the church Sunday night - I got it to a point tonight that I'm happy with it. I watched it and my eyes filled with tears as it ended. I wish there was some way to really communicate what God did on this trip. He was amazing!

We'll here is a short video summary of our trip. As we returned to our base after our last trip into Juarez, Mark took the microphone in the bus and summarized what he thought of the week. Here is that video:

Presentation to church body on May 5

Our team will be presenting to the church body at Ustick Baptist Church this Sunday night, May 5th after the congregational meeting/dessert social. Almost all of the team was at my house on Saturday night (we didn't think we could have a dinner party with 28 people!) for a planning meeting. We are all looking forward to sharing what God did during our time in Juarez.

Also, I just saw a note from the Pryor's - please pray for them as they continue to minister in Juarez despite the Swine Flu scare.

More to come

I have not been able to create web videos to post here yet but promise to start working on it in the next few days. I just set Cate up with a PC to do video editing too so as soon as Pinnacle arrives, I'll get her to help. So check back for videos in the coming days.

The men (and boys) from the team will be talking at Saturday's (April 18th) Men's Breakfast at Ustick Baptist Church. Cameron and I shared with our growth group but looking forward to telling others the amazing things God has done!

Blessings - Calvin

Casa de Refugio Para Jovencitas Pictures

On Friday, we made our last trip into Juarez to visit the Casa de Refugio Para Jovencitas. This was probably the most emotional day for all of us as the stories told were heart wrenching. If you want to read about it, you can see my blog posts: Casa de Refugio. Here are the pictures (and as I've said before, if you want to see a bigger version, just click on the picture - just be sure to click the "back" button to return to the blog):

The team from Boise with the IFM staff just before getting on the bus for our last day in Juarez.

Maricruz runs the Casa de Refugio; she told us about the ministry and herself.



Some of our team, on the left side of the table, getting to know the girls.

Everyone busy working on the craft.

Tami shared a message from her heart and these are the girls that responded to her call to accept Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Given Spanish New Testaments to the new sisters in Christ.

Karen again took pictures of the girls. This is a picture Cameron took.

After we gave the girls prints of their pictures, many were embarrassed by their picture.

Though they were always ready to pose for a picture.

Cameron was always making new friends. Today it was Luis who was the son of one of the girls in the home. Luis is four years old - if I remember, his mom is 15.

We all went to an upstairs room where we first introduced our team and then several girls shared their testimonies.

Several girls did an interpretive dance. It spoke to the life on the streets they were leaving and relying on God.

The girl on the right is sharing her story. It was a heart wrenching story. She talked about losing her child because of her issues and how much she wanted her baby back.

Carrying each others burdens...

One last picture.

I have some videos as well - next I'm going to try to pull a few short clips and put them on the blog so check back in the next few days for that. Happy Resurrection Day to everyone!

Thursday: Day 2 at the Colonia

Now for some pictures from our second day at the colonia. This day was very different for me than the first day. I spent much of the first day out in the street where it seemed like a battle; there were lots of angry boys (9-15 years old) who seemed set on being disruptive and causing problems. But on the second day, some of these same boys were inside the church property helping us with the carnival games outside as the rest of the team was fitting people with shoes.

As with my previous picture posts, you can click on any of these to get a bigger image but be sure to use the "Back" button to come back to the blog post.

This is the sign that most of Juarez can see - it says "The Bible is the truth - read it". We learned that different churches in Juarez each have a letter that they maintain. I'll never forget as Cameron and I were flying out of El Paso, this was the last thing we saw in Juarez.

As with the first day in the colonia, we had three teams that were sent out around the colonia to invite people to the church where we'd serve lunch and distribute shoes.

Here Russell, Sarah and Elvia are about to talk to someone coming from their home. You'll also notice that they are standing outside the gate - in Juarez, you don't go to someone's door. The boundry of their fence is where you "knock" by getting a rock and banging on their fence.

Each team had stakes with a Bible verse they had selected. We put our stakes around the outside of the colonia to symbolically claim the colonia for Christ.

As our team was going house to house, we were invited into an elderly man's home. As I mentioned in my recap of this day, I didn't go into the house but several on our team did. Cameron took a few pictures inside.

This is the man, Laura and our translator. While the team was inside, a few of us were outside talking to a couple of young boys who then joined us going around the colonia.

Jesus was one of those boys who joined us and was a sweet boy. He and Cameron hung out together for a lot of the day.

Vern and I prayed for this young girl who had some kind of problem with her eye.

Lunch time

Amanda fitting shoes

Leah's parents lead the ministry in Fabens, Texas and here is helping with the shoes.

Karen took many of the pictures I have on the blog and always had a smile on her face, not just when she had her picture taken. I in fact remember watching her as she took pictures and she was smiling behind the camera as she would take pictures. I'm glad I got to know her a bit more on this trip.

After the colonia people were sent home, we prayed for the colonia and Juarez.

Sunny past out gifts to Pastor Martin and his family.

I'll post the pictures from our Friday visit to the girls' home either later today or tomorrow. I also noticed that Lorna posted more pictures on her blog so you might want to look at those too. Here's a link to her blog: http://mitsonwebalbum.shutterfly.com/juarez

Wednesday: Day 1 at the Colonia photos

Ok - I'm a few days late getting the next set of pictures up so let's get going! If you want to see a larger version of any of these pictures, just click on them.

A view of Juarez and El Paso; this was taken from the Mexican side as we headed to the colonia.

Check out the house - as you can see, they get built in stages. Here they are adding cinder block to their home.

This is the line forming for lunch at the Igelsia Mi Dios es Real, which is where we were at the colonia.

This is Filipe and Cesar - I met these two boys at the beginning of the day and talked to them often on both Wednesday and Thursday.

That's me with a bunch of kids - notice how skinning the dog is.

Fernando (who I think is from the colonia) and Sarah serving up lunch.

The women's ministry inside the church.

These are the two men who accepted Christ after Kent held a Men's ministry time. Kent was done in about 20 minutes while the women went on for about 2 hours!

After we sent everyone home, we heard from Pastor Martin about his ministry in the colonia and we prayed for him.

This is Pastor Martin and his family.

Karen H pulled her camera out and snapped this shot of the Mexican Federales as they were searching us before crossing back into the U.S. This was the day that Elvia gave one of the guards a tract and it opened up doors for us to minister to the border guards.

Day 2 at Children's home pictures

Here are pictures for day 2 (Tuesday) at the Children's Home. If you want to see a larger version of any of these, just click on the picture. To return to the blog, you have to use your "back" button.

After breakfast on Tuesday morning, someone told Sarah that her husband Russell had been turned into a toad. We found Russell shortly after this. Alls well that ends well!

A picture of some homes as we were on the bus to the Children's home Tuesday morning.

Another home - notice the creative use of tires to hold what ever roofing material they had down.


Everyone wanted to see Samuel smile - Sarah was successful!

Karen H and I spent a lot of time on Monday night looking at the very sad pictures of Jose that I had previously posted about a week ago. She got a lot of pictures of him on Tuesday and he looked like a different boy. Here Kent is playing with the kids at the ring toss. Kent didn't think he would be great with the kids but he was. The kids saw him as a great big teddy bear!


Phil working the ring toss with Luz, Obed and Jose playing.


Pastor Mike (who used to be the AWANA missionary for southwest Idaho and eastern Oregon) had an AWANA games "square" that he had used on another missions trip to Africa. It worked great in Juarez and was a big hit with the kids.

Luis running, turning the corner and ready to dive for the pin. If I remember, they hit each other diving for it. They played AWANA games as vigourously as they play soccer.

A scramble for the pin (he who has the pin wins!).

Cameron and PJ blowing up balloons for the kids. It was amazing to see how much joy playing with these balloons brought. I also remember later in the day Lorna read some letters from kids back home talking about what they liked. Several mentioned that they liked playing their Wii and Nintendo DS - none of the Mexicans had ever heard of these. It was a lesson for Cameron about just how much we have.

Jose smiling - I hope he's smiling now!

Obed was a crazy boy with the balloons, always looking for someone to joust, swordfight or otherwise rough house with him. I miss Obed... he was a specially boy (the same boy who on Monday recited Psalm 23 from memory).

While we were keeping the kids entertained outside, the women had a luxourious tea party complete with really nice Starbucks cakes/muffins and elegant serving cups. Lupe (in the middle wearing yellow) and her daughters (Cesia in maroon and Eliam in blue) had a lovely time as they said they never have time just for themselves with so many children to take care of.

The sisterhood playing a game.

Another lunch served, another large crowd fed.

Cameron made a great friend in Jesus on Tuesday. They played together for much of the day. Cameron has already asked me if there's any way for us to get in touch with Jesus. His house is the one off to the left and is across the street from the Children's Home.

This is Paulo who I wrote about in my summary of Tuesday (day 2) at the Children's Home. I was very moved by him and was so happy that he prayed with us to accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. I'll never forget him.

Cameron and I had brought an Operation game with us to play with the kids. We never played it but at the end of the day, we remembered it was on the bus so we gave it to Lupe for all the kids to play.