M E X I C O.

5 days in Mexicali, Mexico.

 Claire is a gymnast. she is so petite, grew up as a MK in Mexico, and is so sweet. 

 introducing our mode of transportation, this gem of a van properly named - Esteban. 

 the vans are locked and loaded. 

 Kelsey filling our water Igloos. 

 getting our gear ready for our first day of service. 

 Katelyn and Eric. It was HOT in mexico. sweating already and this was at 8am. 

 "tent city" everyone sleeps within 3ft of eachother. 

the buildings were in pretty bad condition so we spent most of the day scraping off paint. 

now, everytime I see paint chipping off a building I want to scrape it off. 

 getting creative. 

the school's field

the walls before we got started. 

 ta-dahh! 

 Jason and Christa. Jason is the one that reminds me of D SO MUCH. 

its kind of eerie how similar they are!

 sharing about Jesus. 

my friend Sean is our school mascot and came down to mexico to play his role in putting some smiles on kids faces. they LOVED it. 

 finished walls!

 nice and clean.

 please notice the state my hands are in. ewwwww

 and to end...we ate the best tacos I have ever had. It may have been my hunger. or the fact that I knew I was in mexico where they know how to make tacos. either way, it was the best way to end the trip. we all sat around and affirmed one another (my team of 7) of qualities we saw in eachother this week and just shared really encouraging words. It was awesome. 

and here is a bit of what I wrote in an email to my family earlier today...explaining our trip..

alright lets see..so about 300 APU people were down in Mexicali on a total of about 25 teams. There were a couple orphanage teams, a mens prison, a womens prison, womens shelter, about 10 medical teams that did clinics, and my team which focused on community service in which we painted a really run down middle school. 5 days full of scraping paint in the 80degree weather, meeting new people, trying to communicate with kids when we dont speak the same language, sleeping in a tent, trying to not get dehydrated, working with some really cool fellow peers of mine, and just spending time doing the Lord's work! It was awesome. 

Every morning we woke up at 630am to get a quick breakfast at 7, head to a leaders meeting, have chapel at 8am then head to our site. The speaker for the week was a man named Luke Everett. Get this - he's about 80 percent deaf, maybe more, but can speak perfectly well (crazy) and is a missionary down in Ensenada Mexico. He basically finds Mexican kinds who are deaf and frustrated because they dont have a language, brings them to his families ranch/camp, teaches them to sign and introduces them to Jesus. His ministry is awesome and he had an incredible testimony to tell. He spoke on God's provision when you are in His will...and how pumped he is to one day see Jesus in heaven and smile at all the people that have passed on this earth to be with Jesus. Really really cool and inspiring. 

well..back to our service project. We painted 4 building at this really really run down middle school. It's crazy, something like that would NEVER fly in the states. or at least where we are from. But to these kids, thats school. 4 really crappy buildings with paint chipping off everywhere, one basketball hoop, 2 posts as a soccer goal and a playground that bumps right up to a dump yard. We had the help of a lot of other teams throughout the week...they would come in shifts of about 30 people to help us get this project done and we got the whole thing painted and cleaned! But what was cool about it...was that through painting and scraping and all that we did...these kids took notice. On our second day there all of the kids were at school, about 100...and the principal actually decided to cancel class so we could run a short VBS with them. My friend Lauren shared her testimony in spanish...and we prayed over all their hearts that they would know JEsus. The main guy of mexico outreach, his name is Israel, he said nothing like that has ever happened...stopping school to learn about Jesus. so cool.