Mission Juarez 2009

Video summary of trip

2009-05-05T07:04:00.003-06:00

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

2009-05-01T00:04:00.003-06:00

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

2009-04-28T14:46:00.002-06:00

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

2009-04-17T14:02:00.002-06:00

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

2009-04-09T17:05:00.007-06:00

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

2009-04-09T09:47:00.007-06:00

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

2009-04-08T17:42:00.005-06:00

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

2009-04-02T14:13:00.005-06:00

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.

Pictures from Arrival through Day 1 at Children's Home

2009-04-01T14:50:00.014-06:00

I wanted to circle back and post some pictures from our trip to Juarez last week. I'll post a few every day in chronological order of our trip. Today, I'll start with our arrival in El Paso on March 23 and our first day at the Children's Home. If you missed the details of what happened on those days, you should go back and read my posts that covered those days. Here are the pictures with a short description below the pictures.

Arrival at El Paso and our bus for the week.

The House of Cornealius Dining Room

A picture of the missionaries who work at HOC. I'll only describe the larger photos as the others are too small to see. Mark and Candi are in the middle; on their right is John (outreach coordinator), top right Andy and Kathy (Andy drove our bus); bottom right, Faith the office manager; bottom middle, Hannah who invented Yum-Yum Chicken and worked in the kitchen (she also had me laughing at the airport when leaving because she labeled everything in my sack lunch as Yum-Yum Chicken - carrots, cookies, PB&J sandwich, etc.); bottom left, Jose Luis and Christina who run IMF Mexico; top left, Georgia who started the HOC. Note you can see a bit bigger version of this by clicking on the picture.

The border fence as we approach El Paso on Monday

Setting up at Children's Home

Obed reciting Psalm 23 - this was amazing! I think he's 3 or 4 years old.

Children from the home, a few of our kids, and a few colonia kids pose for a picture.

This is Samuel - our local church has been financially helping him as he was very sick (had food alergies to dairy and wheat that weren't initially understood).

Karen B eating lunch with a few women from the colonia near the Children's Home.

Some of the houses that we could see from the Children's Home (in the nearby colonia). You can see this house is made of palets and plywood. This winter, temperatures dipped below 20 degrees.

Lorna talking about the resurrection eggs (with Maria translating behind her)

Cara holding Jose's baby sister (I had a picture of Jose back when I talked about Day 1 at the Children's home) with sister Luz looking on.

Craft time - that's Sarah B helping in the middle with Jose just below her

Wind warriors - the wind was blowing so much sand that it was very hard for the ladies to meet outside. Here Tami and Karen try to shield the women from the sand. They eventually went on the bus.

Worshipping and singing together. I was blessed by Luis (with glasses) and Channing coming up to help me with a song.

"Making melodies in my heart" was a fun song for everyone that Pastor Mike taught us. I think the kids asked us to do this song like 4 times on this day. The kids kept saying "otra vez".

Cara jumped in and helped with another song (I left my lyrics for Spanish songs on the bus so she stepped up to help with a song I couldn't remember the words to).

Sisters Melissa and Amanda working to keep the floor clean - the craft was to make a "shaker" that had rice inside a paper towel roll. However they were coming apart. Everyone pitched in to keep the floor clean.

Maria, one of our translators, praying with one of the woman from the colonia.

We stopped at a nice "scenic stop" and got a team picture. Note you can see a bit bigger version of this by clicking on the picture.

Friday part 2 and Saturday departure

2009-03-29T22:44:00.003-06:00

We got back to the HOC, had dinner at about 8:30 PM (very late given we were scheduled to have dinner at 7:30 PM) and then had a de-briefing meeting at 9:30 PM. First we said goodby to several people - Jose Luis and his family had come to have dinner with us and say goodbye. We prayed for him and then we said goodbye to Elvita and prayed for her. Saying goodbye to her brought tears to my eyes. She was a lovely grandmother type lady who had a heart for the Lord and her Mexican people. I'll miss Elvita.

During the meeting, we had our "angels and mortals" reveal. I don't think I've mentioned angels and mortals before so here's what it was: we each were secretly assigned to be someones angel. Our job was to write notes of encouragement or give someone a small gift (like candy or a soda). My angel was Jessica and she guessed me. Just after breakfast, I had put a Skittles candy bag into an envelope and left if for Jessica. She came in and saw me near the box we used for the letters and immediately said "you're my angel". I told her I wasn't and could prove it with a handwritting sample. I asked her to wait a minute and I got Jerimiah to write "This is a sample of my handwriting." When I showed it to her she seemed convinced it wasn't my writing but during the de-brief she guess it was me. My angel was Justin who had wrote several encouraging notes and left me an M&M's; Cameron's angel was Russell and he also got several encouraging notes from him.

After the angel reveal, we talked about things to look out for as we return home. They included:
Seeing the materialism of our culture will likely be difficult for a bit. Candi talked about how difficult it was for her to go to a grocery store after returning from her first short-term mission trip into Juarez.

The risk of us being critical about our local church - after such a rich experience, we're at risk to return home and be critical of our church.
Don't try to get people to complete understand what we just went through - it's nearly impossible to explain what we've lived for the last week. Candi mentioned that most of the people we'll talk to had a "normal week". While we had a week we'll never forget, people back home went on with a normal week. No amount of words or sharing pictures can make someone understand all that we experienced.
There were a few of us that didn't come with our spouses. Candi's advice was that spouses who didn't come need to be very understanding.
It could take 3 days to a few weeks to get back to "normal". It's often very difficult for someone to transition from a week like we had to the normal grind.

It was a lot of great information and much of it resonated with me as I had experienced much of it when I returned from Vanuatu back in 1993. We wrapped up the meeting at about 11 PM. I was still trying to burn DVD's as I wanted to be sure Karen had them not only as a backup but so she could have her photos as she returned to Boise and Cameron and I went on to Dallas for the weekend. Something appears to be wrong with my DVD burning software as it gave me a blue screen several times. About this time, Josh B arrived from Michigan with Shannah. Josh is Mike and Karen's son who is working for New Tribes Missions and Shannah is Mark and Candi's daughter. I think she's going to school not far from Josh but I wasn't clear about that. Anyway, it was good to see Josh - he has a HUGE heart for the Lord and serving Him.

I also needed to get us packed and our room that we stayed in cleaned up. There were a few people that talked about staying up all night since we had to get up around 4 AM to leave for the airport to catch our flights. I was going to stay up but when I finished getting all packed , it was 2:30 and I decided getting a bit of sleep was a better option than staying up all night.

We all loaded onto the bus at around 4:55 AM and headed off to the airport. We said our goodbye's to Mark and Candi as well as the junior staff that was returning home and headed through security. Since Cameron and I were going to Dallas, most of the rest of the team had their gate in the other concourse so we said goodbye to our team and headed to our gate.

Cameron and I got to our gate and I started a movie for him to watch - he hadn't seen any TV in a week and we had a good two hours to wait before our flight. Shortly after arriving, Lorna came with Channing and Charise. Lorna and I talked about a lot of things - about the week in Mexico, how she and Justin met, how Carlotta and I met, and many other things. What was really cool is that she really likes to listen to Chuck Missler - I told her about how I became a Christian and that my friend Rich Stones had given me Christian music tapes along with a series by Chuck about messianic prophesy. It was fun to talk to her.

It was time for Cameron and I to get on our airplane and head to Dallas. As our plane took off, we got one last look at Juarez. We could see the sign on the mountain that read "La Biblia es verdad; leela" - the Bible is true, read it. Indeed we believe the Bible is true and I believe it had a big impact on the people of Juarez this last week. I know our team will never forget this week and I'm guessing that more than a few of us are thinking about when we'll go back to Juarez.

While the trip is done, I really haven't posted many pictures of the trip. Over the next several days, I'll post a some pictures. While I know I can't get you to totally understand what God did through us in Juarez, I think pictures will help a bit so please stop back over the coming week to see some of the pictures. (NOTE: I'm flying back to Boise tomorrow and won't be posting anything until Tuesday at the earliest).

Gloria a Dios!

Friday: Last day in Mexico at the Girls' Refuge

2009-03-29T21:34:00.003-06:00

I had a late night on Thursday trying to get a few things done so I decided to "sleep in" on Friday morning. Cameron and I got up around 7 AM and had a normal crazy morning. Our chapel time ran late (by about 20 minutes) which always makes our mornings busy to get everything ready to go. I was trying to pull everything together for printing pictures today in Mexico. We wanted to be on the bus and on our way by 10:30 but we were late (a bad sign that usually means we'll be back to Fabens late).

We headed for the border and our usually crossing point which we sailed through - five straight days of no issues getting into Mexico. Today was a little unusual though. There's a button on the wall that you push and if it comes up red, that means they will search your bus. We hadn't been asked to do that in our four previous crossings but today we were told to push the button. Mark asked Elvita to do it as when they've been asked in the past, she always got a green light. Today was no different. Once we were past the "Aduana" (the name of the guards at the border), we let out a loud cheer.

Today the drive to the Casa de Refugio Para Jovencitas (House of Refuge for Young Girls) took us a different route. We headed east staying close to the border and then went south (all of the other visits took us west). This was interesting because we saw a different part of Juarez and it looked like this is were much of the U.S. manufacturing is. However, what I also noticed is that many of the large buildings had no cars in them. We had heard that there had been 20,000 jobs lost in just a couple of months.

We arrived at the Casa de Refugio Para Jovencitas and unloaded the bus. We met the director Maricruz. She told us a bit about the home, that she had been sick in bed recently, and other details. I found a YouTube video about the home that though much of the text is in Spanish, I think you'll get the picture of this ministry. Here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d18E3_GjSXs.

We got a tour of the facility and then the girls all came down to lunch. The girls all looked to be between 15-17 years old. The sisterhood (Cara, Melissa, Christina, Amanda, etc) all sat down at different tables and engaged with the girls. Despite the language barriers, they looked to be having a great time. Cameron, Philip, Phil, and I passed out lunch (today being sloppy joes) with help from others. After lunch, I went to a room on the other side of their dining room to set up the printers and get ready to get the photos of all the girls printed for one of the crafts they'd do.

Karen H took pictures and with Vern and Jerimiah's help running cards back and forth, we got our two printers busy printing pictures. The process worked great and in about an hour and a half, we got all the pictures taken and printed. The room where I was doing the printing had a window so I could peak in to see how things were going. The girls were getting into making their picture frames. I heard afterwards, Russell was also enjoying this as he drew a picture on a napkin. Somehow through the process, our team was asked to sign the back of the girls' picture frames.

Cameron also made a friend - one of the girl's 2 or 3 year old son named Luis lives in the home with her. He and Philip were playing with him and having a great time. When I saw them, Cameron was giving him a horsey-back ride and everyone was laughing and having fun.

After I finished printing, I went to the dining room where everyone was still gathered. Tami had just finished her message and had asked if any of the girls wanted to receive Jesus as their Savior. I didn't count at the time but looking at the pictures I've seen, it looks like between 11 and 13 girls came forward - GLORIA A DIOS! While we didn't try to keep a count, from what I remember, that means somewhere around 25 people accepted Christ during our time in Juarez. What a blessing indeed it was for so many people to come to Christ!

From there, we went upstairs to a large living room area where we introduced ourselves to the team and each family group shared a verse with the girls. All of them were very powerful verses and I'm certain Spirit-led. For Cameron and I, we shared 1 John 3 verses 1 and 3 (I skipped 2 to save time and because the points I wanted to make were in 1 and 3). I read them in Spanish and here's what they are in English: "See how great a love the Father has lavished on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure". I told the girls that everyone one of us have things we have done wrong but when we have Christ, we are made pure again. I hope that was an encouragement to them.

After we were done, several of the girls gave testimonies. Every one of them brought tears to our eyes. Most of them had a common theme: mother and father separate, mother remarries and the new husband begins to abuse the girl. In many cases, the girl tells her mother who doesn't believe her or asks her daughter why is she trying to destroy her happiness. I can't in a few sentences get across to you just how sad these stories were, especially when several of them talked about the abuse starting when they were only 5 years old. It's hard for me to hold back the tears now as I think about them.

But each one also talked about how finding God's love has brought them new hope. One of the girls talked about how she has forgiven her mother and how much love she has for her mother now. We later heard on the bus ride back that she made her picture frame as a gift to her mom and it expressed the deep love that she had for her. It was a very emotional time. However, we were running late and we had to end the testimony time. Our team prayed for the girls; Cameron and I had four of the girls with us and we prayed for them. After we finished, it was time to leave.

Just before leaving, many people on our team gave a donation to the girls home for a knitted scarf. One of the things the girls are taught is how to knit and they sell the scarfs for a donation as a way to raise money. It was a tearful goodbye (especially for our teenage girls on our team) and we left.

We crossed the border into downtown El Paso; I can now see why we entered the U.S. via the crossing in Santa Teresa (in New Mexico) as the line crossing into El Paso was a long wait. As usual, we had to get off the bus to enter the U.S. through the U.S. Customs office. The officer asked me if I bought anything and I told him we were part of a Christian mission that had visited a girls home and we didn't stop anywhere else. Karen B was behind me and I later learned that the officer gave her a hard time questioning why we'd go into Juarez with all the dangers there (which by the way we saw no dangers and heard that they had gone 5 nights in a row without a murder).

I'll talk about the rest of Friday night and our early Saturday departure in my next post.

Another real time request

2009-03-29T12:38:00.002-06:00

Our team has now left El Paso. Most everyone returned to Boise though I know the Justin, Lorna and their family are in or on their way to California. Cameron and I are in Arlington, Texas visiting my sisters here. However, Cameron woke up this morning throwing up. He has thrown up probably 7 times now and isn't feeling well at all. I'm not sure what's wrong but please pray for Cameron. We're returning to Boise tomorrow. I'll also try to get another post up today with details on our visit to the girls home on Friday.

Thursday: Shoe day at the colonia

2009-03-29T07:27:00.003-06:00

Today we returned to the colonia. Justin put a lot of thought into how to logistically pull it off. The Iglesia Mi Dios es Real has two buildings. As you look from the front of the property, the church is on the left and the other building is about 25 feet to the right. In order to keep kids busy, Justin decided to have several carnival-style game areas. One in front of the church and one area behind the building on the right. On the bus ride to the colonia, he gave team assignments for lunch servers, working the games, the shoe distribution that would be inside the church, and "security". The plans he created worked great.

When we arrived in the colonia, we again split up into our teams and went house to house. Our team (the same as on Wednesday) headed in the same direction as we had yesterday but the first thing we did was to put our remaining stakes out. At the first few houses we stopped at, people either knew about our Club de Biblia or had actually come yesterday. We got to one house and an older man came out. I was talking to the kids in the house next door so didn't hear what happened but the man invited the team in to his house. This is a great honor to be invited into their home. I saw several of our team going in and Cameron came over to me and asked if he could. The house was small and we didn't want to overwhelm him with the whole team going in but I noticed that every family on our team had at least someone going in so I told Cameron yes.

Sarah B, Jeremiah, and I talked to the kids that were outside. We learned that one of them was Jesus and he actually attends the church. He lived in a house across the street while the boy he was playing with, Jose, lived next to the older man's house. The team stayed inside visiting with the older man for probably 15 minutes while Sarah, Jeremiah, and I talked with Jesus and Jose. When the team came out, Jose and Jesus (pronounced hey-ZUS) went with us to continue going door to door. Jesus even helped us taking our flier to several people as we invited them to the church.

There was a little neighborhood grocery store. We had stopped in yesterday and the person working their said he would invite his customers to come to the church so we wanted to stop again. Cameron had wanted some jalapeno potato chips so we got them and I got some other little Mexican cookies (they were a chocolate cookie with marshmallows on top). I shared those with everyone, especially Jose and Jesus. Neither of them begged or seemed to expect it which I thought was interesting.

We left the store and kept going house to house. The wind was blowing and kicking up dust; we'd have to deal with this all afternoon. The blowing dust really is miserable. After we had walked for a bit, I realized Cameron didn't have his backpack so along with Jesus and Jose, we headed back to the store to retrieve it. Having Jesus and Jose along was fun and allowed us to really bond with them. Jesus would hang around me for much of the day and kept asking me "Donde esta su hijo?" (where is your son). We retrieved his backpack and caught up with the team.

As we caught up, Lorna was talking with a woman and her daughter. The daughter saw us coming and got excited telling her mother she saw gringos - not something they see very often in their colonia. Lorna talked to them and invited them to the church. From there we returned to the church as it was getting time to serve lunch. There was already a line of children waiting for it to be served. The tradition here is to put the young children in the front of the line so they get fed first. I was high fiving and talking to kids in the line, seeing many of the same kids from yesterday. As we began serving, several of us were helping the little kids to carry their dish. I did this for a bit and then went over to the front gate area to help with "security". Kent was there. The process was to give everyone a name tag and a number written on their hand. This number would be used in distributing shoes.

Vern was around the front area too. He had attracted a bunch of kids with a trick he was doing with them. He'd squeeze their wrist to get the blood out and just after he lets go, he pretends to pull a needle and thread from the center of their hand. As the blood flows back to their hand, it feels like someone pulling something from your hand. The kids thought it was really cool and everyone one wanted Vern to do it to them too - it was fun to watch.

I noticed that the trouble we had yesterday with some of the kids being rough and starting fights didn't exist today. I really think there was a heavenly protection that we had inside the fence of the church. We had also prayed for peace today and God heard answered our prayers.

After a short stint at the front gate, Justin asked me to man one of the carnival games in the back - the ring toss. It was next to the fishing pond and both games had a long line of kids. It was a great time for me to interact with the kids. One little boy named Jose who was about 5 years old kept coming through to do the ring toss. Every time he "won", I'd let him punch my hand and I would exaggerate how he hurt me. He busted up laughing every time.

My knee was bugging me and I was having a hard time bending over to pick up the rings. I was really blessed by a boy named Alexis - without me even asking, he came over and basically took over running the game. I had noticed that Alexis was acting up a a bit (nothing bad) so it was an incredible blessing to me when he helped. And he helped me for over 90 minutes so it was great. I asked Lorna to let him step to the front of the fish pond game and asked to give him a good prize. I told him this was for him for helping me with the game.

One of the challenges was the wind blowing the sand. It was interesting for me to see the kids act like it was just a part of live - they dealt with it. I think if there were U.S. kids at a park and something like this happened, they'd all go home. But these kids seemed to just want to have fun with us no matter how much sand was being kicked up.

I didn't get a chance to work in the church distributing shoes but heard later from others who did, including Cameron (my son). He told me he remembered one boy in particular who was wearing shoes that didn't have any soles. Cameron told me his feet were all cut up and looked rough. He said the smile on the boys face after he got his new shoes were great. Others had similar stories to this. Inside the church, after someone got their shoes, they'd go over to an area where the number on their hand would be cleaned off and they'd share the gospel with them. Distributing the shoes was hard work - the "aroma" from some feet was very difficult but the smiles and blessings of seeing people get new shoes was amazing.

It took about 2 1/2 or 3 hours to get everyone new shoes. The final count of people who showed up was around 360. When we finished, we sent everyone on their way and gathered in the church for a time of prayer with Pastor Martin, his family, Jose Luis (Mexican leader for IFM), and our team. We first prayed from Pastor Martin (you'd say this Mar-TEEN), his family and the work they have in the colonia. After that we prayed for the city of Juarez. We had gifts for our hosts which Sunny presented to them. We loaded the bus and headed back to the border.

The kitchen staff at IFM had made sack dinners for the Mexican border guards. We hoped to have the opportunity to either be inspected or just pull over and give them the dinners and Spanish New Testaments that we had for them. We were not asked to pull over but Andy (our bus driver) pulled over to the side. One of our interpretors asked if we could talk to the commander. It was some of the same guards as the previous night and they were very happy to see us. They were really blessed by our stopping again and giving them dinners. We also passed out the New Testaments. They needed another one; I had one and gave it to Cameron who took it to guard. Given the guard has a heavy duty automatic weapon slung over his shoulder, this took a lot of courage for Cameron to do. No other team has been able to minister to the military police so this encouraged us all. We told them we would be praying for them.

As we've had to do every night, we got off the bus to go through U.S. Customs, which we've done each day through Santa Teresa, New Mexico (here's a link to their website map so you can see it: http://www.nmborder.com/maps.html). After sailing through that, we got on the bus and arrived back to Fabens for another late dinner.

Real time update

2009-03-27T09:41:00.003-06:00

I'm obviously behind and haven't told you about what happened yesterday at the colonia (the day we passed out shoes) - I'll give a more complete update when I have time as we are now preparing to depart for the girls home. Please be in prayer as we head there. The team is literally exhausted and we'll only have an impact throught he strength of the Lord today.

Thanks for your ongoing prayers!

Wednesday: Day 1 at the colonia

2009-03-27T09:31:00.002-06:00

I woke up early again today at around 5:30. I haven’t been able to get on the wireless but I’m also behind keeping the Word version of the blog updated. I decided to get up and work on it. We also have several wooden stakes that we plan to put into the ground around the colonia to “stake it” for God. Mark (our host in Fabens) asked me to take one and put a bible verse on it that I think is significant. I decided on 1 John 3:1 which says “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called Children of God and such we are”. I wrote it on the stake in Spanish. During chapel this morning, this was one of the verses that Mark talked about and that was a real encouragement to me that I had picked that verse. Chapel ran a bit late so we needed to get moving as I wanted to try to connect to the wireless again (which didn’t work) and I had several things I needed to get done.

My job this morning is called the “overseer” – this job is to basically make sure all of our supplies get on the bus. I was a bit stressed about that but it all went very smoothly and we got everything on it that we needed to. We headed off to the colonia. We had another easy border crossing (three down, two to go).

Upon arriving at the colonia, the first thing we did was to put our first stake in the ground at the entrance to it. While driving into our host church, a church called La Iglacia Mi Dios es Real (The Church My God is Real), we passed a lot of different houses. The homes were interesting. Mexicans typically start with using pallets to frame their house. If they can afford it, they’ll put up tar paper to block the wind. When they can, they’ll next put a layer of cinder blocks on the outside. We saw some very meager homes – some that we’d be embarrassed to have as a kid’s playhouse. However, one thing we learned later was that this colonia has developed a lot since the last time he took a team in - the houses are in better shape. As we would learn, their spiritual shape has not improved.

Once we arrived at the church, we broke into three groups and started going door to door to invite people to our Bible Club where we’d serve lunch, sing songs, and play games. I was in group 1 with Justin and Lorna and their kids and Laura and Sarah. We stopped at probably 20-25 homes and probably only a quarter of them had anyone home. I really wasn’t expecting many people to show up but we probably had somewhere between 250-275 people show up.

The time here (and my perspective of it) might be a bit different from some other team members. I bounced around between several activities. After lunch, I again led a few songs of worship. I saw several pre-teen boys and early teens that seemed pretty uninterested in what we were doing. I’m really not sure if was a bit of a “macho” attitude that seems to exist with a lot of the males or something else.

After that, I went to the front of the church (a dirt area) where lots of the younger kids where hanging around. I started to see some aggressive behavior from a few boys so my antenna were up. I talked to several of these boys trying to understand why they were acting the way they were. I think part of it is just a cultural thing but as we’d learn later, many of the boys in the colonia are products of broken families. Of the boys that have fathers, many of them are abusive. I just felt like there was a lot of anger.

I had seen Phil in the street trying to talk to several boys that were standing around the edges and looked to me to be causing trouble. He called me over and asked my help in talking to a young man (I’d guess 14-15 years old) named José Jesus. Phil told me that he talked through the wordless Bible with him several times but that his heart was very hard. As we talked to him, we asked him why he would be happy with having a corazon negro (black heart) and he really could only shrug his shoulders. I asked him if he died today, does he know where he would go. He said yes, he’d go “abajo”, meaning down below. I asked him why and he couldn’t answer. I wish that I really could have been able to speak better Spanish to ask more probing questions to understand what really is going on in his life.

Kent called me over to ask for my help with some ministry time he had started with a few men. When I joined him, he was finishing up the wordless book (without a translator). I was able to bring Jose Luis (our Mexican ministry host) to help translate. I asked the men if any of them wanted to receive Christ as their savior and two of the 7 men said yes. Kent asked if I would pray for them and we led the men in asking Christ to be their savior. That was the high point of my day.

Cameron asked me if he could go play soccer. I told him he could – I knew Phil and Vern were about 20 yards up the street playing and watching over the game. However, Cameron came to me about 10 minutes later visibly upset. He told me that a really bad fight broke out. Cameron has never seen a fight and it was very upsetting to him. I tried to help him understand that it wasn’t as serious as he thought but it was still upsetting to him.

I went up to check out what was going on and the soccer game was going as if nothing had happened. I looked back toward the church and there was a group of boys and girls yelling at each other. I couldn’t understand what they were saying but it seemed pretty clear that they were taunting each other and calling each other names. I went over and talked to them; I can’t explain well what was going on but there was just a real heavy darkness that I felt. On the bus home, I heard a lot of stories especially from the women who had their ministry time inside the church about what a great day they had. As I told them, it felt to me like there was a spiritual battle on the street in front of the church. In hindsight, it seems to me that the church really was a sanctuary while the battle was in the streets.

Pastor Martin shared the story of how he came to minister at the church we were at. Much of the story was hard to understand as the translation wasn't too clear but I was so impressed that a man who has almost nothing (he and his family are very poor) still has his eyes totally on God. And as he said, "Though I have almost nothing, I have everything in Christ".

At the end of the day, we got on the bus to head back to HOC in Fabens. We stopped briefly at the Children’s Home (the bus was across the street) to drop off something that we had forgotten on Tuesday. Several of the children and Lupe came out and were excited to see the bus. We opened our windows, waved and were yelling to them Hola!

We continued to the border and were pulled over by the Mexican border patrol to be searched for weapons. We all got off the bus and were asked to stand in a straight line. As the guards got to the end of the line where I was, I noticed that Elvia slipped the guard a Spanish-language tract. I watched him open and look at it. I looked at Elvia and saw her looking down at the ground and not at the guard. I looked back at the guard and he took of his military cap and put the tract in it. I told Elvia what he had done and I could see she was excited (she is an evangelist at heart).

We were told we could get back on the bus and most of us did though Candi and a couple of others stayed behind. Candi saw the commander coming toward her with a couple of his men in tow. She was actually a bit nervous thinking he was going to be upset for our team giving the tract to the one soldier. He asked Candi if she had a New Testament which she had someone from the bus pass one to her. She then asked if his men wanted one too and she got three more to give to them. Candi then told him that we were praying for them and the job that they do and he said they do it for our protection. Afterwards, we learned that this was a first – no other team had the opportunity to minister to the Mexican military.

We got back to the HOC, had dinner, and then I again helped to get pictures printed out for the next day. It was a very late night and I was the one that actually locked up the dining room as I was the last one out.

Tuesday, Day 2 at the Children's home, part 2

2009-03-27T09:29:00.003-06:00

This post will continue with what I saw on our second day at the Children's Home. If you haven't read part 1, you should read that first. (Also note, I have had no time to proof read these post so please forgive any grammar errors).

Around the other side of the Children’s Home, Mike started some AWANA games. There were probably between 25-30 kids playing games. The enthusiasm in which they played was a glimpse into their culture. Boys were aggressively diving into the middle to grab the pin (which is how you win a game) and knees were banging into heads as they dove in. Close by, Phil, Kent and others were playing the carnival games.

Children were playing with balloons like they were treasured toys, again just a sign of the poverty that a toy that is seemingly worthless to us in the U.S. was treasured by the Mexican children. We played games until it was time for lunch.

Lunch today was “Yum Yum Chicken” – shredded chicken mixed in cheese, green chilies, mushroom soup, and cream of chicken soup over tortilla chips. It was very tasty! I noticed Jose eating today and he seemed upset. He apparently wasn’t happy with what he was given to eat and I saw that he had a bit of tantrum. I guess whether you are poor or rich, children are still children but it was sad to see a boy who probably gets very little to eat behaving the way he was.

After lunch, we had a time of sharing and singing. I had a great time with the kids leading several of the songs we did in Spanish. I think we got them a little excited and I was asked to do one more song to “calm them down”. I decided to do the song Agnus Dei in Spanish – I hadn’t done this song with any of our team before but it is a fantastic song and the words are pretty easy. All of the kids seemed to know the words and it was a great way to end the worship time. Elvia, one of our translators and a very sweet older lady (with a huge heart for reaching her Mexican people for Christ) was very moved by the song and that was encouraging to me (especially when others on the team had a puzzled look when I started the song).

I also can’t forget to mention a fun song that Mike lead – it was called “Making melodies in my heart”. It was great for the little kids because each time you sing it, you add some physical thing you have to do while singing. For example, you start with “arms out, thumbs up” and as we sang it, we’d do a “dance” left and right with our thumbs. The next time we’d do “arms out, thumbs up, elbows in” and sing again. Then we’d add “knees bent” until we’d end it with tongue out which of course had everyone making noise but the kids (and I think our team) had a great time with it.

We then moved into smaller groups. Tami had the idea of doing a very nice tea party with some of the ladies in the home. While I wasn’t a part of that, it sounded like it was a total blessing as Lupe and her family never have time for themselves with so much to do for the children. A bit of an inside joke has been that the women’s ministry time has been taking a long time so the rest of us have needed to keep their children (and in a few rare cases their husbands) busy while the women’s ministry time is happening. On Tuesday, we took the kids back over to the games and played with them more.

I was playing with a few children when a couple of the junior staffers (David and Jeremiah) mentioned to me that there was an elderly man out on the street and could I come talk to him with them. While my Spanish isn’t great, I know enough to have a basic conversation and everyone has caught on to that. My initially feeling was that I really just wanted to play with the kids but I decided to get some water for the man and go see what I could do. We talked with him for a few minutes and he told us about his wife who needed medicine but he was running out and didn’t have money for more. We told him that we just didn’t have money to give him. He told us more about his situation – his home being very run down and not having food for him and his wife. We asked Maria, one of our translators, to help us as it was hard for me to understand some of what he was saying. The man, whose name is Paulo, told us again about his wife and their needs.

After a bit of time, Jeremiah asked Paulo if he knew Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Paulo told us that he has been telling his wife that they need the Lord but that he himself had not ever accepted Jesus. So Jeremiah when through the “Libro sin palabras” – a felt book that is several colored pages where each page allows us to share the Good News with them (we have versus for each colored page).

When Jeremiah finished (with Maria helping translate for us), I told Paulo that we can’t offer him much to help with his need for money but we could offer him the hope of eternal life that we have in Christ. I then asked him if he wanted to have that hope and become a Christian. Paulo said yes. I could see he was touched as his eyes filled with tears. We prayed with him a prayer of salvation and welcomed him as “uno hermano en Cristo” – a brother in Christ. Even now as I type these words, my eyes are welling up with tears at the thought of the hope Paulo now has in Christ.

We told the colonia families that our time with them was done and we said goodbye. We all went into the home and had a wonderful time with the family. First, the kids made frames were and given their pictures I had printed on Monday night. It was a blessing to them and it was a blessing to me to see their joy. We then prayed for them “Mexican style”. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before. Mexican style prayer is when one person starts and ends the prayer time but everyone prays at the same time, out loud. It sounds very different (because it is) but I actually really liked it. After giving the adults a number of gifts, it was time for us to leave. As we were about to go, I remembered that Cameron and I had brought the game “Operation” with us to play and leave with them. We never took it off the bus but I asked Cameron to get it. He presented it to Lupe who was very happy to receive it. I was very moved by all that had happened and in our two short visits, the children had stolen our hearts. It was a very special time and I’m not sure anything we’ll do the rest of the week will be as special as our time with this wonderful family.

We got on the bus and returned to Fabens. During our ride, we all shared about the special things we had seen the Lord do on Tuesday – it was a great ride home (though we seem to be eating dinner later and later each night). I had some things to do to prepare ourselves for the next day’s ministry at the colonia La Campansita and got to bed late.

Another quick update

2009-03-26T07:59:00.002-06:00

I wanted to at least tell you that there have been several decisions made to follow Christ. I personally was a part of 3 men accepting Christ - it was so sweet and I'm looking forward to seeing two of them again today. As I'm able to get things "on paper", I'll give more details. Along with the two men yesterday, there were 5 others that accepted Christ at the colonia yesterday. Please pray that the Holy Spirit would open their hearts to hear the Good News.

Tuesday, Day 2 at the Children's home part 1

2009-03-26T07:50:00.004-06:00

Our God is Awesome!

For what ever reason, the Lord is waking me up every morning at around 5:45 (which is almost 2 hours earlier than I normally get up) but that is just fine as there’s a lot going on and having a bit of quiet time in the morning is great. We’re leaving for the Mexico a bit earlier today as the trip on Monday took longer than Candi thought so there won’t be as much time after breakfast.

In Chapel this morning, Mark talked about how Jesus is the light of men and that we have that same light in us to share with others today. We had a sweet time of praying together and closed.

After chapel and breakfast, we have job assignments – our job this morning was to clean the men’s bathroom. Cameron wasn’t very pleased with that but it was a great opportunity to teach him that serving some times means cleaning toilets.

We had another uneventful border crossing today, praise God! We’ve been warned to not expect them all to be this easy but the team is hoping to “break the record” with five easy crossings.

Today, we went through the downtown area of Juarez – it seemed to save a bit of time in getting to the Children’s Home. I got lots of video of it; it was interesting to see things like Subway, Burger King, and Peter Piper Pizza.

We arrived, unloaded the bus, and set up the canopies. Then the games began! The team set up a couple of carnival games (ring toss, bean bag toss, etc.) while Mike with some help set up an AWANA games square. He did it in a little dirt patch but it was a big hit with the kids. The family kids came out and the others from the colonia started to arrive.

I noticed Jose (had a picture of him in my previous post) and his family coming and saw that the stroller his mom was pushing had a broken wheel. I asked her to let me look at it and could see that a plastic piece that attaches the wheel to the frame was broken. I asked several of the men if the had Crazy glue and no one did but Vern offered to look at it with me. We found a couple of cable ties and did the best we could to hold it together. We'll probably never know if it held or not but I pray it does.

I'll continue this when I can as it's almost time for chapel. It's now Thursday morning and we will be heading back to the colonia. I'll give more details when I can get internet access again but please be praying for us today. There were a group of young boys (10-12 years old) that started a couple of fights yesterday. These boys probably come from bad family situations (single mom's who may be involved in prostitution, abuse fathers, etc) and their anger and hopelessness was obvious. Pray that as we go back today that the Holy Spirit would open their hearts to hear the Gospel.

Monday, Day 1 at the Children's home

2009-03-26T07:43:00.003-06:00

Sorry for the delay in posting something – the wireless internet at the House of Cornelius (HoC) isn't working so I haven’t been able to keep you updated although I’ve kept my thoughts current off line. Faith the office manager is graciously letting me use her PC to get a few updates in.

We started the week with a morning devotional in the chapel at 8 AM. We prayed together and then had a great breakfast of egg burritos and Starbucks pastries (they have ten boxes of them in their freezer!).

With our anticipation high we got on the bus around 10:30 AM and left about 15 minutes later to head to Mexico. The HoC in Fabens is about 30 miles from El Paso and we crossed into Juarez at about 10:30 AM (not a typo – they are not on daylight savings time so we lost gained an hour as we crossed. I immediately could see that we were going to sail through as the female border agent that came over to check us out had a big smile on her face. That was a big praise because Candi and Mark had told us that we did not have the right approval from the appropriate Mexican government official to enter.

The drive to the children’s home seemed like it took another hour. The poverty we could see everywhere was obvious. The nicest of houses I saw were not very good. And there is sand everywhere (which would be an issue later in the day). We also saw several military checkpoints and troops driving around making their presence obvious (which by the way has had a very positive affect as last Thursday was the first day in two years that there was not a murder in Juarez).

We arrived at the children’s home and while modest, it was very nice compared to others I had seen along the way. We unloaded the bus and set up a couple of canopies (which don’t do squat to protect you from blowing sand!). The children in the home came out after about 10 minutes, seemly leaving us alone so we could set things up outside. The first few minutes reminded me of a dance in junior high where the first interactions seem a bit forced or uncomfortable but that really lasted about two minutes. We were asked to come inside the house, which is actually two building. The building we went in was a single open room and looked like it was where they prepared their meals. Through an interpreter, Lupe who I can only describe as an angel told us the story of the children’s home. She and her husband had begun visiting a Mexican women’s prison. They gained the trust of the prisoner by visiting them regularly and bringing them meals. In Mexico, if you don’t have someone to care for your children, they come with you to prison. Many of the women asked Lupe and her husband to take their children. And so they began their ministry.

Lupe’s husband died of cancer but she and her children felt that the Lord was calling them to continue the ministry and they moved from Mexico City to Juarez. Juarez is known as the armpit of Mexico to the Mexican people but Lupe felt this is where she needed to be. She also told us that her home wasn’t an orphanage but a family. This was very important to her – she wanted the kids to be part of a family.

Lupe continually thanked us for our support of her family (Ustick Baptist Church had helped support them) and all that we had done. As I listened to her, I was amazed with her humility. I felt like we had done nothing yet Lupe continually thanked us for what we had done. I told her afterwards that she was like an angel to these children and that she is the hands and feet of God. While there are a few kids that she provides daycare to, her family is very large – I think 13 kids.

After Lupe told us her story, each child stood up and introduced themselves, telling us their name and age, what they wanted to be when they grow up and their favorite foods. Pizza, hamburgers, vegetables, burritos, and meat were all popular choices for the kids. One four year old boy named Obed said all of Salmos (Psalms) 23 from memory – it was a precious moment. I played and talked to him during our day and he is a sweet boy. A 2 year old girl then got up and said all 66 books of the Bible from memory. She needed a couple of helps but she was amazing too.

Around this time, women and children from the surrounding “colonias” started to come. Word had spread that we were there and they were coming hoping for a meal. Karen H took pictures of all the children (which I have on my laptop because Karen needs to free up her memory cards for her camera).

Next, it was time for lunch. More women and children came. The food line was outside and a lot of meals were served – I’d guess that there were around 15 women that came along with a lot of kids. I noticed that many of the woman liked jalapeños so I put a bunch on a plate and served them to the women.

It was interesting that no men came. We were told that would probably be the case for a couple of reasons: they are either working or trying to find work or they are too proud to ask for help. A few men came and stayed a good distance away but none came to join us or eat with us.

As we were finishing lunch, the winds began to kick up. I’d guess that the wind was blowing up to 40 or 50 mph and when it blew, it picked up the sand and it was literally a sand storm. Really, it was miserable. I had a serious eye infection last year that has already compromised my vision and I was worried that conditions like these could cause my eye problems to flare.

The women were meeting together outside while a couple of men tried to hold up a blanket and shield them from the sand. That didn’t work too well so all of the women went on our bus to talk and pray together.

Meanwhile, the kids were inside. Lorna told them the resurrection egg story and we sang some songs with them. I was really blessed at one point when Cara stepped in and led the kids in a song. I’m the designated worship leader but when we decided to sing, my paper with the words to the songs in Spanish weren’t with me. So Cara jumping in with her smile and enthusiasm was fantastic. Mike also jumped in and did a fun song that he had done while on a mission trip in Africa. It had all the kids yelling “otra vez” (another time).

We packed up the bus and headed back to Fabens. At the border crossing, one of the U.S. border guards shared with us his drug sniffing dog. He did a little demonstration for us and pulled Cameron into it was which cool for him. For the rest of the ride, people came forward on the bus to share a special moment where they saw God at work during the day. It was a very special day and I didn’t think it could get much better …. but Tuesday was still coming and little did I know what was in store.

After dinner, Karen H asked me to help with getting pictures printed of all the kids. A craft for tomorrow is that the kids will decorate a 4X6 picture frame and get a picture of them. Mark and Candi have a couple of HP printers that I brought several ink cartridges for printing. It took some time and troubleshooting but we got the printer to finally work and printed all of the pictures.

There was one picture that broke my heart – it was a picture of Jose. Jose looked to be four years old and had come from the colonia with his mother and 3 month old baby sister. He was very dirty and I remembered him from earlier in the day.

He had asked me for a drink and I got him a cup of water. He drank it down in literally 5 seconds and asked me for another. He drank that one down just as fast. I couldn’t help but wonder when he had his last drink of water. Well, looking at the pictures of Jose to find one to print broke my heart. You can see how dirty he was and despite just eating lunch, the look in his eyes is one of hopelessness. It was heartbreaking to me.

After getting all the pictures printed, I went to bed with lots of anticipation for what the Lord would do on Tuesday.... and he did a lot!

Update from Cate and Carlotta

2009-03-24T14:02:00.003-06:00

This is Caitlyn. I talked to Dad this morning (Tuesday) and he asked me to update you about what is going on. He said that they are having internet connection problems plus they are super busy. He said once the connection problem is fixed, he will update as soon as he can. So far, everything is going smoothly. They had their first day at the orphanage yesterday and are going back today (actually they are there right now). They have had no problems crossing the border so far. Dad will update you with more details later...

A few words from Carlotta.........
Yesterday Karen H. took pictures of all the children and the pictures were printed last night so that they could be taken to the children today. The team sang songs with the kids, played games and Lorna used the Resurrection Eggs to share the gospel message. Calvin said it was a very good day other than very strong winds that blew lots of dust and dirt around.

The team will be making picture frames with the kids today so that each child has their picture and a nice frame to display it in. They fed the children at the home yesterday as well as many other children that came from nearby when they heard food was being served.

The team is very thankful for your faithful prayers. Please continue to cover the team in prayer as they continue to share God's love and his message of hope with the people they come in contact with.

What we've waited for

2009-03-23T07:17:00.002-06:00

It's Monday morning, the sun is just up and it looks like its going to be a beautiful day. And its the day we've waited for. I'm in the dining room listening to worship songs and it's hard not to feel emotional.

Today we'll go to the Proteccion Integral de Juarez. Pray that we have no issues getting over the border today, for our safety and that we can touch the hearts of the people we met today.

Arrived in El Paso

2009-03-22T17:38:00.002-06:00

Praise God we all made it to El Paso. Our flights were all on time and other than a little bit of turbulence that upset a few bellies, everyone is great though tired.

Mark Pryor spotted me as we were headed to baggage claim and introduced himself. We gathered all of our luggage and got on a bus to head to Fabens, TX. As we were heading southeast toward Fabens, we could see Juarez off in the distance. On a mountain side, is a message that all of Juarez can see as well as much of El Paso. It said: " La Biblia es la verdad. Leela" - the Bible is the truth, read it.

As we drove along the way, Mark and Candi talked about many different things. They said that the area we were in (south of I-10 as we drove) is called the border area. They said a long time ago, Juarez and El Paso were one city. As the U.S. and Mexico agreed on the border, it was split in two often times splitting families that had to decide on what side they would live. El Paso is 85% hispanic (wow! I had no idea) and its legacy with Juarez makes it very unique. The border area is neither a U.S. or Mexican culture but it's a culture that is very unique.

One of the things Candi said was to "let go of any expectations you have". Really at the heart of what she's saying is that we all need to not come with our agenda of what we want to do but be open to the God's plan. Mark also talked about how excited he was that we are here. Our trip was "on again/off again" because of the high level of violence and that fact that we are here has Mark excite beacuse he knows our team has really sought the Lord or as he put it, "Done business with God". I've very excited to see what He has in mind this week.

We've spent the afternoon at the House of Cornelius (our home base for the week) in some training. One of the things we were asked to do is pick an adjective that describes what we want from the week. Here's what everyone came up with (grouped by families since there are some common first names): Transformed Tami and Carefree Kent; Touch-hearts Vern and Caring Karen; Watchful Mike, Commissioned Cara ("adopted" by Mike and Karen this week),
Contentment Karen; Phlexible Phil, Joyful Jan, Awesome Amanda, Marvelous Melissa, Fearless Jessica (Christina wasn't feeling well so hasn't done this yet - please pray for her); Empathetic Russell, Courageous Emma, and Surrendered Sara; Lyrical Laura, and Superman Sarah; Compassionate Calvin and Courageous Cameron; Shinning Sunny; Amazed Annie; Less Lorna, Cheerful Channing, Trustin’ Justin, and Caring Charise; Expectant Mark and Anticipating Candi.

We're taking a break now, will eat dinner soon and then will do some planning for our first day tomorrow at the orphanage. I'll try to give another update later and maybe share a few pictures.

All ready now...

2009-03-21T23:53:00.002-06:00

It's just about midnight and I just finished pulling everything together. It was a very busy day with the last minute preparations. In about 5 hours, we'll head off to the airport and be on our way. If you're reading this now, please pray for the team: our safety while traveling on Sunday and for our arrival to meet the IFM team in Fabens. I for one am expecting mighty things from God this next week!

Luck, coincidence, or God?

2009-03-21T00:17:00.004-06:00

Since my decision to go to Juarez with my son was rather recent, I didn't have time to do any sort of fund raising to pay for our expenses. And in fact, I gave Lorna (part of our leadership team) a check at church on Sunday for Cameron and I. We didn't have a specific amount that we had to pay but I thought I had been generous with what I gave.

After I gave Lorna the check, I had this sense that I needed to give more - that what I gave wasn't so generous after all. In my experience, this is how God talks to me - a sense or feeling to do something that I hadn't planned on doing. Our team had gone up to get prayed for during the second service and when I came back to my seat, I tried to talk to my wife Carlotta about this sense I had to give more. But the worship had started and it wasn't a good time to talk it through so she said to do what ever I thought was right. So I wrote another check and gave it to Lorna.

When we got home from church, I told Carlotta that I now felt like I maybe gave too much. There was no way I could call Lorna and ask her to rip up the second check, so I let it go.

Fast forward to today; I got an email from a friend telling me that a check was coming in the mail from a settlement for a civil action we were a part of (long story - we had money stolen from us by an escrow company after selling real estate). How much is the check for? It's $10 more than the checks I gave to Lorna at church on Sunday! All I can say is "wow"! Isn't that just like our God? You can never out give him. And obviously, I don't think this was luck or a coincidence.

What an encouragement as we getting ready to leave in just over 30 hours. Thank you God!

Why am I going?

2009-03-18T16:28:00.000-06:00

The question that I know I'll get from some is "why are you going to Juarez?". After all, it seems to be a violent place and the risks are so high. There's a bit of a back story here, so let me tell you about it.

"The Back Story"

I was privileged to be part of a team that was sent to New Zealand, Australia, and the island of Tanna in the Vanuatu's back in 1993. While I really enjoyed my three months in New Zealand (I LOVED the people of New Zealand and especially the family I got to live with for a month in Auckland), the highlight of the trip was the month in Tanna. If you've never heard of Tanna, you can read about it on this Wikipedia page. I was excited a couple of years ago because they did a season of Survivor in Vanuatu.

How can I describe Tanna and even begin to have you understand it? Tanna is a series of "custom" villages (custom meaning that they held on to old traditions). It really is like stepping back in time hundreds of years. Where we were, there was no running water, no electricity, and people lived in grass huts. They were by far the "poorest" people I've ever met. But what changed my world view was the deep sense of joy and happiness the people of Tanna had. They had almost no possesions yet their joy was unmistakable. And the joy that I was able to share together with many of the people was our love for Christ. And even when we visited some of the "cult" villages (see John Frum cargo cult on Wikipedia), they welcomed us and allowed us to share with them about our faith in Jesus Christ (as opposed to their waiting for the return of John Frum). I learned that you truly can find joy and peace in having nothing and sharing in that joy with other Christians is like experiencing a bit of heaven.

Coming home to the U.S. and our materialism was extremely difficult. I had a really hard time adjusting to life in the U.S. Over the years, I've lost those "feelings", but I've never forgotten the memory of how it impacted me. So when this trip with our church came up, it seemed like a great opportunity for my family (which I didn't have when I went to Tanna) to experience a piece of what I did.

When my wife Carlotta heard about this trip, she suggested what better way to spend our Spring break (last year we were able to go to Washington DC, Boston, and New York City getting our fill of U.S. history). After attending the informational meeting, we didn't have a clear vision of what we'd do on the trip and we aren't the kind of people who can just stand on a street corner and pass out a Bible tract. So we decided we weren't going to go.

But my son Cameron (who has a sensitive spirit that isn't common for 9 year old boys) told my wife that he really wanted to go to Juarez. After talking it through, we decided it would be a great "Father/Son" adventure. So the two of us decided to go. I have three personal goals for the trip:

I want Cameron to see that his view of the world (which has been limited to middle class America) is skewed. I want him to see the poverty in Juarez. I want him to understand how blessed he is, to be content with what ever he has, and have his heart break for others not as fortunate as we are.
I want to touch the hearts of the Mexican people we met. We can only give them a meal or two and some shoes that will wear out - but the hope they can have in Jesus Christ will last their whole lives.
As we minister in Juarez, I want to see God's hand move in a mighty way - so that Cameron would have no doubt that he just saw God work through our team.

So why Juarez?

So you might be thinking, "Nice story, but can't you go somewhere safer"? I was also concerned when I heard about the violence in Juarez. Believe me, I was very close to saying "we aren't going" and there's still a chance that when we get to Texas, we won't cross the border. I was able to talk with Mark Pryor on Saturday. Mark is hosting us at the Texas ministry base for IFM called "House of Cornelius" outside of El Paso. After talking to him, I understand that the violence has subsided a lot with the presense of more Federales and other troops. In addition, the violence has mostly been directed at the fighting cartels and not toward Americans. Believe me, I'll be on "high alert" but I feel comfortable knowing that things have calmed down. We'll also steer clear of downtown Juarez as most of what we'll be doing is on the outskirts of the city. And more than that, I'm trusting in God's plan for next week.

Until next time, please stop and say a prayer for the team.

Logistics, logistics, logistics...

2009-03-18T12:19:00.000-06:00

I'm in the middle of lots of logistics - mostly normal stuff for any trip but with a few extra details:

We have to bring our own bedding
Since we are going into Mexico and back to the U.S. each day, we needed to have the right documentation to get back and forth. My son's passport had been chewed up by our dog a couple of years ago and we didn't bother to get it replaced. Fortunately, that came last week and we are good here.
One of the things we want to do is take pictures of some of the Mexican people we minister to, especially the kids at the orphanage and the girls' home and then give them a printed photo. I just found out last night that I have the same HP Ink Cartridges that I use for my HP printer as the ministry team in Texas! So I'm gathering up all the cartridges I can to bring with me.
Gather up medicines and heath supplements - need to have stuff to address the potential of Montezuma's revenge, allergies, or other health issues that might arise while we are on the trip.
I'm the designated "worship leader" for the trip. I was going to bring a portable keyboard with me (I took it on a 6 month mission trip to the South Pacific many years ago and it worked great, even on the island of Tanna in the Vanuatu's) but we decided that since we don't have a bunch of "singers" coming on the trip, we'll just do impromptu singing. Still, I'd like to get some MP3's of Spanish worship songs so that not everything we do is acapella.

There's a lot to do and I'm going to try to take tomorrow afternoon and Friday off to be sure we are all ready so you could pray for all of the team and our preparations to leave Sunday morning.

Picture of the team

2009-03-17T14:52:00.002-06:00

As a quick follow-up, here's a picture of the team going to Juarez.

Top row: Pastor Mike, Amanda, Melissa, Calvin (me), Sarah B, Laura, Sarah, Tami, Justin and Lorna.

Middle row: Karen, Sunny, Jan, Christina, Phil, Annie, Russ, Cara, Kent, Karen and Vern.

Front row: Jessica, Philip, Cameron (my son), Channing, Emma, Charise, and Joe (not going but he wanted to be in the picture).

One other brief update in this post - we had much of the team and many additional volunteers at the church this weekend helping sort shoes. Karen (left side of the middle row) spearheaded the efforts to clean up a large number of donated shoes and to sort them by size and sex. I got this picture today of the shoes on four pallets getting shipped down to Texas. Over 1200 shoes were collected. Distributing the shoes and feeding people is a major part of our outreach to the people of Juarez.

More later...

What's this blog about?

2009-03-17T13:40:00.001-06:00

My name is Calvin. This blog will be my perspective on a Spring Break 2009 missions trip to Juarez, Mexico. I'm part of a team of 27 people being sent by my local church Ustick Baptist Church. I'll use this blog over the next few weeks to give updates on what is going on as we prepare to go (which we've been doing for several weeks now), as we are ministering in Juarez, and when we return home.

Let me start with some high level details that I sent out to Christians at my workplace when I asked for them to pray for our team. Here's what I said in that message:

My 9 year old son Cameron and I are leaving on a spring break short-term missions trip to Juarez, Mexico this next Sunday (March 22). We are going with our local church in Boise, ID as part of a family missions trip with a missions agency that has its home base on the U.S. side of the border (so going into Juarez only during the day). Border cities in Mexico and especially Juarez have been making news headlines for a while because of drug related violence but God seems to be setting the stage for some mighty things to happen while our team is there. The presence of the “Federales” has stemmed the violence between the warring drug cartels.

I’d ask for your prayers in a few specific areas:

Safety for our team – I’ve talked to the head of the missions organization near El Paso and with the presence of the Federales, things seem to be calm but our safety isn’t in the Federales but in our Great God.
As we feed the Mexican people we minister to as well as distribute over 1,000 pairs of shoes that have been collected, please pray that their hearts would be open to hear the good news of Jesus Christ. We can only give them a meal or two and shoes to wear. Christ is their true hope.
If you are led to pray daily for us, here’s our plan for the week:

Sunday, March 22: Arrive in El Paso and spend the afternoon training and preparing for going into Juarez on Monday
Monday, March 23: Spend the day at a children’s home (orphanage) outside of Juarez; we’ll feed them and spend the day with the children
Tuesday, March 24: Return to the children’s home for another day, again feeding them and spending time sharing Christ’s love
Wednesday, March 25: Day spent at a “colonia” (colonia is a large slum housing community – they have no running water and live in utter poverty). On this day we’ll serve lunch and hold a carnival for children.
Thursday, March 26: We’ll return to the colonia to feed them again and to pass out shoes to everyone
Friday, March 27: Visit a home for young women who’ve been rescued from bad situations; again we’ll feed them
Saturday, March 28: Team returns home (though my son and I will go to Dallas/Ft. Worth area to visit family there for the weekend).

I'll give more details and share some pictures of the team in the next post.

In Christ, Calvin