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So I know you may be thinking I’m unfaithful in my effort to blog every Monday, BUT I was in Mexico last week and didn’t have internet… so I wrote some on the trip and will try to recap my thoughts and the events.

Sunday, August 3rd:
Today is our first day in Mexico, well second if you count yesterday. Yesterday we got up at 1:30 am (Sadly I was unable to fall asleep before this point) and started driving south at 3 am.

Our family got a van to ourselves, so we’re on a road trip and it feels familiar except for the part about getting up at 1:30. I didn’t get to sleep in the car because… Well… I have a hard time sleeping in cars, I gave it a good effort!!
I am grateful my kids were sleeping, until I hear Rob on the radio, “TJ you okay?” Penny wakes up and begins to angrily cry”. And TJ replies “yes I’m fine” and at that moment in my emotional state and haven’t having slept for 24 hours I also begin to cry, and do so for the next 20 minutes, I realize this isn’t going to be a breeze for me and even though God has called me to be a missionary for life doesn’t mean 1 week mission trips to Mexico won’t effect me, they will and no matter where I’m going or what I’m doing I need to be ready for God to work on my heart and change me.
We arrived into Mexico around 10 am, and we’re pretty ecstatic because it’s the first time bringing our girls to another country. I managed to get an hour or 2 of naps in during TJ’s driving… Thank the good Lord!!

The moment we arrived to the town we would be staying in… We ate tacos!!

I was quite ecstatic about going to bed last night, and slept amazing until 4 am when the rooster right outside our window decided it would be a good time to “caca-doodle-doo”. TJ and I sat up slightly, looked at each other with our squinted faces, and TJ said “why does the chicken think that the sun is coming up??! The Sun is not coming up!!” I followed him with “someone please get a bat and hit that stupid chicken!!” And we wondered why the chicken was confused for the next couple hours. By Gods grace the girls slept through it all and I even managed to fall asleep after each caca-doodle-doo.
So… With that I am looking forward to the week and what God is going to say to each and every person, I look forward to getting to know people better and am grateful for this opportunity. I’m looking forward to learning more in the kitchen about how to operate without clean water as this what we’ll be doing in Africa.

Today:

While in Mexico, each morning was quiet time for 30 min.  Someone watched our kids (Bless them!) while we got to read our bible, pray AND read “Spiritual Discernment and The Mind of Christ” which was the book given to all the Mexico “goers”.  It was awesome to have an allotted time to seek God and sit down with him… I LOVED it!  I had some questions for God and so it was a good time to ask him some things that have been on my heart and mind.  God definitely gave me some answers through his word and directed me to some different places in the Bible to confirm his truths to me.  He showed me scriptures that in different times in my life directed me, encouraged me and validated how the Holy Spirt works.  He was reminding me of his faithfulness and his peace.  I don’t want to share more details right now because I’m not done asking God and seeking him in different areas.

So… after the quiet times our group of 24 dispersed to different places, part of the group was helping a family put stairs on their house, and the other group of us (including TJ because his injured limbs) went to a vacation Bible School and helped with games which we were coming up with ourselves.

We did a couple outreaches.  We went to a men’s recovery home, played volleyball with them and brought them dinner… God moved there and blessed us and them.

We went to a little church, where no one spoke English, so we couldn’t really communicate, but Rob managed to preach a little, with the help of 3 semi translators from our group, God was good to bless them and us.  We also brought this group dinner, bean, rice and cheese burritos, which I’m pretty sure were the best bean burritos I’ve ever had!!

It was at this little church where Ava and Penny found little friends, and held their hands the whole time, it was the sweetest thing, and also was hard for me because even though there was this connection with the family, I couldn’t speak their language nor invest in them long term.  It caused me to look forward to Africa even more and getting to actually learn the language there and invest in people’s lives.

Rather than writing a bunch more, I’m just going to put pictures up and they will tell their own story.  🙂