Mexico recap

On Thursday March 21st we begin our Mexico adventure. We headed down to Ensenada with 100+ others from our church, PCC, (50 high school students and 50+ adults and a few children). We planned on meeting everyone in So Cal at a church to spend Friday night and caravan into Mexico on Sat morning. We decided to leave Thursday afternoon and stop over in Santa Barbara to break up the trip. Josie is such a good traveler and it was an easy drive to SB. We listened to some stories on CD for her and when she was playing on her own Eric and I listened to This American Life podcasts. She also had her Leap Frog iPad. Josie received a little pre-Mexico pampering at Gram's Spa. She relaxed in the bath which is always a treat since we don't have a bath tub. She asked Gram to do her nails and she wanted green. Of course Gram being the hip gram that she is she had green nail polish.  Karen, Luke, & Katie came to Gram & Papa's for dinner and the girls had so much fun playing together.

 

After a hard night sleeping on the floor in a church on Friday night we all made it safe and sound into Mexico. I'd been hearing about the amazing taco stands since Eric came back from the trip last year. On the way to the camp we were staying at we stopped at the favored taco stand. Thus began the daily ritual of eating tacos before heading back to camp. That took the place of dinner for some of us. The food at camp was not that great. Everything else about the camp made up for the food.

 The high school seniors and some leaders arrived at camp on Friday to set up all the tents. When we arrived we just had to unload the vans and get set up.

 Our tents were set up in a circle pretty close to the flush toilets/porta poties. No running water but we brought our own. The seniors also dug a big spit pit for brushing teeth. There were 2 or 3 other church groups there as well with their own circle of tents right next to ours which meant for long lines at the toilets first thing in the morning and last thing at night.

 We were a little embarrassed because we had a pretty big tent that we borrowed. We brought our air mattress and Eric even made a table for Josie that came apart for easy transport. Since we drove our own vehicle we had the luxury of bringing a few extra things. Katie gave the beads to Josie as an early Easter gift. There were quite a few times that Josie made good use of her table and beads.We were so glad to have the big tent.

 On Sunday we went to Pastor Carlos' church which was our "site" for the week. It's a cute little church with an active youth group. They spent most of the week helping us with the "construction" and other projects. Many of them spoke English. Of the 100+ in our group we were split into about 5 different sites for the week. Our focus was building a fence for the church to keep the stray dogs out of the court yard area thus keeping out the dog poop and doing sports ministry at a local orphanage. Pastor Carlos in top left picture and well as in the middle where he's being prayed over by our prayer team and where's he's playing with Josie in the dirt. Bottom row left is the interpretive dancers with green skirts who danced during the worship singing.

 This is camp at night during chapel. Josie on Eric's shoulder and Glory (4yrs old) on her dad's shoulders). Glory's dad Sid is the tennis director at our church community center and he brought his two girls, Glory and 8yr old Tea, and two high school boys. Josie and Glory had fun playing together.

 It was pretty cold at night so Josie was bundled up. Under her jammies she had on long underwear. Over her jammies she wore a sweatshirt or fleece and hat. She slept in her sleeping bag with a down comforter on top. The first night I had the comforter on top of me but she ended up inside my sleeping bad in the middle of the night which didn't make for a good night sleep for me. She slept great every night because she was so tired after a long day with no naps and late to bed and early to rise.

 

The basic schedule for the day was: 6:30 wake-up with loud music blaring over the loud speakers. I was usually up before that and beat the rush to the toilets. 7:00 breakfast. 8:00-9:00 chapel. Josie and I stayed for the first 30 min of singing and then went back to the tent since she's too wiggly to sit through the speaker. We usually left around 9:30 for our site. With water pick up along the way we'd get to the church around 10. After our day we headed to the showers with a taco stand near by and then back to camp before dinner at 7:00. Evening chapel from 8:00-9:00. Our PCC group would then gather around inside our circle of tents with our lawn chairs and spend about 30 min. giving "shout outs" to cool things we saw each other do that day. If someone went out of their way to serve another or just anything you appreciated about something someone did. The next 30 min (9:30-10) was for sharing about a God moment for the day, how you experienced God or saw God work. Josie was usually asleep by then so I'd leave her sleeping and join everyone for that last hour. It was so encouraging to hear all the experiences. 10:30 was quiet time and I think everyone stuck to that especially since we had the 6:30 wake up. I did bring ear plugs which were useful. Since all the tents were so close together I could hear snoring coming from another tent when it was wasn't coming from my own tent. :-)

Eric was in charge of construction at our site. He does such a good job showing the students what to do and including them. 

 Amy, our site nurse, has been coming on the trip for 5 or so years. (We brought 3 nurses and a doctor along so each site had a medical person except for one site that was a very small group). Amy loves making jewelry so brought all her stuff along and it was a big hit with our little kids, our high schoolers, the youth group from the church, and with our adults. We had quite a big of down time so jewelry was made. Josie also had fun playing in the dirt with her dinosaurs and blocks of wood. Glory played with her and so did the students.

Typical face all week. It was nice to be able to take a few showers in town.

 Half our days were spent at the orphanage. Josie loved the trampoline and the little girls loved chasing her around.

 They had a soccer field as well as basketball courts.

 Sid brought his portable nets and tennis racquets and some of his tennis players were on the trip and helped teach the kids.

 Painting parts of the church.

One afternoon Eric, Josie and I went to another site that needed help from Eric. Josie saw some of the teens painting and she really wanted to paint. They graciously handed her a paint brush and she loved it. She was a little pooped out after awhile. When we got back in the truck I asked her if she has fun and she said "it was just like I've always dreamed about."

 Josie and Glory taking a snack break. Bottom pic is the prayer team doing their goofy pose.

 On Thursday after our last day of "working" at the church we went to a feeding site. It was off the beaten path where migrant farmers live and whenever this women receives donations she opens her home to kids to come and eat. We brought stuff to make sandwiches and passed them out. I brought nail polish and stickers and hair bands and ribbons (thanks Aunt Gaylynne for the ideas) which were all popular. We also had some crafts for them to do. At the beginning the Mexican teens sang some songs and had the kids singing along.

 Out the back door of the house.

 Our site group went down to the coast for our last evening and had a bite to eat and took showers in a resort-type area. We watched the sunset and then headed back to camp. The tennis kids actually had matches set up against a local tennis club.

Thursday evening we packed up the vans and after chapel we all (all the other church groups as well) slept on the floor in the dining hall so we could get an early start and make it across the border without too much traffic. Our group was headed to spend the day at Coronado Beach near San Diego and then stay over night at a church in Chino a couple hours north and then drive the rest of the way home on Saturday. The three of us decided to skip the beach and head straight home. It took us 14 hours. We were home by 10:30. Again Josie did great in the car for such a long ride. She did nap once for awhile and then fell asleep for the last couple hours of the trip. We feel so blessed for being able to experience all that went on in Mexico and all the Glory goes to God.