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