Off to Vicente Guerrero

No more resting.

By resting, it meant working. We had Pastor’s birthday party on Monday night, we’ve been working on getting our newsletter ready to go to the printer (by the way, thanks to Brett Hallonquist at www.atomicdl.com for donating his amazing talents to us), church on Thursday night, and then youth group last night.

Youth group turned out to be really fun. We had a bunch of kids show up and we played musical chairs (who knew how fun that could be?) and then had white elephant gifts for everykid who showed up. Then we had three good gifts (candy with 20 pesos), mixed in with the random gifts.

After we had them open them up, we asked the three kids if they wanted to trade their gift for something else. Luckily only one wanted to exchange. Alejandro gave up his candy and 20 pesos and we had him open up another gift. It was a big bag of cookies and 100 pesos.

I told the parable that Jesus taught us, about the worker who finds a treasure in the field, buries it, and then sells EVERYTHING he has and buys the field, and therefore buys the treasure.

Why? Because he knew how great the treasure is.

It’s really an easy decision if you understand how great the treasure is that is offered to us.

That is the greatest gift of the season. And it’s not just for when we die. The Kingdom of Heaven is here.

As we prepare to go and serve the people of Vicente Guerrero, we go with the knowledge of this gift. We are excited to learn about how the operation of Foundation For His Ministry is helping to serve the people. (check them out at www.ffhm.org) We will be working along side a group from Seattle’s Bethany Community Church (our home church) and doing whatever it is that we can do to humbly serve and learn more about the Kingdom of Heaven and how it is alive and at work.

Pray for us in these ways:

• That we would get to know our group from the US
• That we would learn about the ministry
• That we would eat well (we hear the food ain’t so great)
• That we would encounter God in a new way, in this new context.

Blessings to you this Holiday Season!

Mission Trip to Constitucion!

6am Thanksgiving Morning:

Gathered at the church for our Mission Trip to Ciudad Constitucion. We loaded up into a van full of people…but there wasn’t enough room for everyone. So we offered to drive.

11:30pm Same night.

Stopped at a gas station closed to Rosalia. Slept in our car.

5:30am Next morning

Woke up to the sun rising over the Gulf of California. Continued driving.

8am Scouted our camping spot for the way home.

12noon. Friday.

Arrived in Constitution

Ate lunch that was waiting for us.

Looked at the church.

Tried to find a camping spot.

Didn’t like it.

Went back to the home of Pastor Antonio and his wife Christine.

Set up camp.

6am Saturday

Woke up and went to the outhouse.

Started working on the church.

6pm Saturday

Church service. Chad played guitar. Served hot dogs after.

9am Sunday

Back to work for the next few days…

 

Lunch was bought for the next day.

This is Pastor Antonio.

Progress. We ended up building the wall up this high all around the circumference. And cemented it in.

Thursday Morning. We said goodbye.

This was the sunrise and the tarp where Erin and Chad slept.

 

This was the beach where we slept along the way.

We were greeted with a warm welcome back at the church and a breakfast of fried chicken.