Tuesday, August 16, 2011
We were blessed with a little slower morning as we prepared for a busy afternoon. Some of the team went to Home Depot for supplies while the rest of us stayed back at the Ministry House to organize gifts donated for the kids and the ministry and just have time to chill and have conversation with the other team members. We drove to Capilla Cavalario Chihuahua to work. Donna, Heidi, Amanda and I spent some time in the church nursery cleaning the toys and baby items. The rest began painting a room added by a team of men from our church on a trip in March. We broke for lunch at Enrizo's, a really cute little Mexican restaurant for a wonderful meal. They normally eat their big meal mid day and then lightly in the evening. We definitely followed that custom today! Afterwards we returned to the church to finish painting the room. We were happy to not only complete the walls, but were able to paint the concrete floor as well. That paint was very strong so Dan instructed us to just paint for 10-15 minutes and then get fresh air while someone gave us a break. It did make us all a little woozy but we enjoyed the time fellowshipping (and praying when we had a break and nothing to occupy us...that was really special to see people just spontaneously forming groups and lifting the ministry in prayer).
We returned to the Ministry House to eat paninis prepared in the Cafe 1040 (the little cafe which is attached to the church and is a ministry of it.) We had a bit of time to clean off some of the paint before the men left for a Bible Study at the church. The women were joined at the Ministry House by some of the ladies in the ministry. They treated us to some delicious desserts and we had time to fellowship with them and here some of their struggles and victories. This was a really special night for me. I loved getting to know these ladies and learnin more about them so that I can pray more effectively for them. I feel joined to them as sisters of the heart. Praise God for these ladies who are sold our to God and His will.
Yesterday I went to bed emotionally drained and today I was physically tired but both days were spiritually refreshing.
Wednesday:
Today we were out early and went to the LightShine community (about 20 minutes from the Ministry House). I was part of the team that stayed at the LightShine building to paint. The ministry had been able to obtain the building which had been a carpentry shop and were converting it into the first church in the Tarahumara community. We spent the morning scraping off the old paint and painting the outside a bright yellow (so that it would be a light to the community). It was wonderful to see some of the Tarahumara children in LightShine joining us and helping with the painting. They loved being a part. Several of the people in the community stopped to watch us work and ask questions. Happily, Heather was with us and could explain that this would a church soon. It made me really happy to be part of this. Sunday worship in m own church is such an important part of my life; I am happy to be a part of bringing that to these people.
Inside, two of our men were working to build a partition at the entrance and a storage closet. The rest of the men went to the home of the man who will be leading services at the Tarahumara church. He has elected to give us a nice home to move nearer the community and live in a small one room house very similar to the Tarahumara. It has a separate small kitchen and the men were laying concrete blocks and making another room so they would have a separate bedroom next to the kitchen. Again, I felt humbled by what these people have given up for the cause of Christ. As we worked we watched a Tarahumara women in the house next to us outside scrubbing her clothes by hand and hanging them on branches of trees to dry. I was saddened by how many times I have grumbled about having to take my laundry down steps to our basement laundry room to dump them in the washing machine and press a button!
We all gathered back at the LightShine building for a lunch of burritos and waited for our sponsored children to arrive. Daniela was getting less shy of me and came to me quickly. We all got on a bus to be taken to a water park. It was a ride of about 20 minutes and we had a chance to give our kids our gifts. I had a pink shirt for Daniela and an Etch a Sketch. She played with it for a little while and then put it away. I was struggling to think of something we could do together when I thought of tic tac toe and thought I would have to teach he how to play. But as soon as I made my first mark she smiled and took the pencil and made her mark. We spent the rest of the trip happily playing the game, laughing whoever won the game!
We were all expecting a simple pool and playground and were surprised to be taken to a very nice area with several waist deep pools with water slides and a kiddie area with smaller slides and spraying water. Daniela at first wanted to stay in the kiddie area even nervous about trusting a swim ring to hold her up. But Chad convinced her to go down the slide with me while he waited at the bottom to catch her. Soon she was going down over and over with others and then even by herself! She finally decided to try the swim ring and clutched my hand and wouldn't let go at first. By the end of the day she was more confident and even decided to go down the enclosed tube, first with Chad and then bravely went by herself. However, she must have slowed down inside the tube and was pushed out by two other boys coming down quickly. This scared her and she cried and clung to Chad for a while. Soon after that it was time to go and I was sad that she was left with that experience. However, she did have a really good time and I loved having this time with her.
We returned to the LightShine building where Daniela and her cousin Gisela were picked up and walked back to her house by a man and woman (I think Gisela's parents) and they were gone before I was able to talk to them.
Spending time with Daniela was awesome and wonderful to feel I was developing a relationship with her. She became so trusting of me, clutching tightly to my hand as she floated in the water, a picture of how we should hold tightly to God when our life becomes scary.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
Mission Trip Thoughts, Part 1
My eight week Sabbatical ended with a bang and what wonderful ending! For those who want to wade through all the words that follow, here is a summary of my first week off Sabbatical (or last week before going back to my secretarial job).
Saturday:
On August 13 a group of 20 of us left from BWI and headed to El Paso and from their drove to Chihuahua, Mexico for a week of ministry. It was a very different trip from others our church has participated in. For one thing, the majority of the group was women. Seven brave men accompanied thirteen of us ladies. We were met at the airport by Lisa, wife of the pastor of Capilla Calvario and Heather, wife of the head of the LightShine program. Ater a stop in New Mexico to pick up some packages that had been shipped ahead, we headed to the border and all received our visas with no problems. However, there was a problem with paperwork for one of the vans so it was decided that that van would return to El Paso to correct that problem and one van would continue to Chihuahua. Those of us who had been part of a mission trip before elected to return so that most of those new to Mexico would not miss the church service the next day in case we were not able to cross the border that night. Happily, we were able to correct the problem and cross the border two hours later, arriving at the Ministry House very tired but happy at 3:00 am. Since Mexico is two hours behind us, that meant that most of us had been awake for 24 hours! Beds were all ready for us so we all fell exhausted into bed, grateful for comfortable beds.
Sunday:
Unbelievably, I was up early and had time praying and reading my Bible before breakfast at the Ministry House and worship at Capillo Calvario. It was an awesome bilingual service and we were bathed with God's Spirit. Since I had been there eight months before and communicated with several people in the ministry there, it was wonderful reconnecting with them. Lots of hugs and smiles, even when words weren't understood!
The rest of the afternoon was spent eating subs and fellowshipping at the Ministry House and a meetng to prepare for the next day's activities. Then we packed back into the vans and headed to the church where we were put in groups, each with an interpretor and then got on a bus and headed into Chihuahua City. We each received a Love Bag and headed out to the walk the streets to bless whomever God put on our hearts. All we had to do was give them the bag and tell them that God told us to give this to them. We were able to give all ours out, pray with people, hear their broken hearts. One man tried to pay us! We had to tell him it was a gift that we just wanted him to have. We gathered back at the plaza to eat pizza and fellowship. It was sad to see little Tarahumara children brought to the city to beg and so hard to turn them down. We shared our pizza and gave out Love Bags but were cautioned not to give them money because that only kept them enslaved. The whole mission of LightShine is to free them through the gospel and have them learn to rely on the Lord and earn their way by selling items. In the evening the church led a time of worship in the plaza and several of us agreed to share our testimony. I was way out of my comfort zone but felt God wanted me to share and so a stood on the plaza behind a microphone and shared stories from my life (through an interpretor) with over a hundred strangers. God was good and saved me from an outbreak of hives! Then we headed back to the church for delicious fruit popsicles in the Cafe 1040.
I was amazed at how I felt so connected to these people who lived hundreds of miles from me, many spoke a different language and lived a very different lifestyle. But we had our identity in Christ and it was amazing! Sharing my testimony was scary but as I stood in front of them speaking, God just gave me an incredible love for the people of Chihuahua and I wanted them to know the truth so that they would have what I have...faith in the one true God and life forever with Him! That made it incredibly easy; I couldn't NOT do it.
Monday:
Today we had a meeting with Chris Nickerson, the head of the LightShine program to hear an update on LightShine. We met with him in what had been a carpentry shop right next to the building used for LightShine. It will be the Tarahumara church, the first Christian church in their community. After meeting with Chris and hearing his vision, we broke into smaller groups and each took a street in the Tarahumara community. We each had an interpretor with us in case we needed to speak with any of the people and stopped in front of houses and prayed for those who lived there. Donna and I walked over to the school and prayed for its opening in a week and all those children who would be attending. I saw a rough looking man leave one of the houss and felt compelled to go and pray for the family (or probably families) living in that small house, the size of my small living room. It is heart breaking to see the conditions they live in but over and over this week it was impressed on us that we are not anyone's savior and that our job is to pray and point them to the One Who is their Savior. It is not our job to improve their living conditions or "save" them from poverty but to lead them to the one who can save them eternally.
I saw Daniela briefly as she was on the street with a few coins obviously going to purchase something for her mother and gave her a hug and received a shy smile.
We left the community and had lunch at Pollo Feliz (happy chicken!) which was excellent even though it had a funny name. We returned to the LightShine building to get ready to lead the program. Before the program the kids are fed lunch and I was able to sit and be served by my Daniela. Not surprisingly, the other kids at my table were all boys! My lot in life! I loved it though and enjoyed teaching them the hand game in which everyone piles their hands on one another and each person pulls their hand out from the botton and moves it to the top quickly. Much laughter broke through the language barrier!
Our team had been put in charge of all the activities for this Monday. The kids went through each of four stations, devotions (an object lesson on sin using dirty water to show sin in our lives, vinegar which looks clean but tastes nasty to show hidden sin and then clean water to show that Jesus cleanses us from all sin); craft (zipper pull with colored beads symbolizing the steps of salvation), outside play (they learned the game of baseball with equipment donated by the Orioles) and a station where the kids hands were painted and imprinted on two banners, one that stayed at the Ministry House and one to take back to Open Bible. This is the station were I was assigned. I had a table with an activity for the kids to do while waiting to have their hands painted or after they finished. The kids enjoyed this preschool activity...even the older kids! They placed colored shaped wooden blocks matching to shapes on cards to make pictures. They worked diligently on this but I found myself having to use one of the few Spanish words I know repeatedly...comparte, comparte (share) as tried to gather the blocks for their own use only! Kids are the same in every language! It was neat to watch Sergio take the kids one by one to the hand washing station after painting and patiently explain to them as he washed the paint off that this was like God patiently works on us to remove the sin in our lives little by little.
The afternoon ended with more baseball with all the kids. They caught on to the game amazingly fast and it was hard for all of us to stop and say good-bye when it was time to return to the Ministry House. We found Rocio and Amanda busily at work making us a delicious supper of burritos. Wonderful ending to the day.
Saturday:
On August 13 a group of 20 of us left from BWI and headed to El Paso and from their drove to Chihuahua, Mexico for a week of ministry. It was a very different trip from others our church has participated in. For one thing, the majority of the group was women. Seven brave men accompanied thirteen of us ladies. We were met at the airport by Lisa, wife of the pastor of Capilla Calvario and Heather, wife of the head of the LightShine program. Ater a stop in New Mexico to pick up some packages that had been shipped ahead, we headed to the border and all received our visas with no problems. However, there was a problem with paperwork for one of the vans so it was decided that that van would return to El Paso to correct that problem and one van would continue to Chihuahua. Those of us who had been part of a mission trip before elected to return so that most of those new to Mexico would not miss the church service the next day in case we were not able to cross the border that night. Happily, we were able to correct the problem and cross the border two hours later, arriving at the Ministry House very tired but happy at 3:00 am. Since Mexico is two hours behind us, that meant that most of us had been awake for 24 hours! Beds were all ready for us so we all fell exhausted into bed, grateful for comfortable beds.
Sunday:
Unbelievably, I was up early and had time praying and reading my Bible before breakfast at the Ministry House and worship at Capillo Calvario. It was an awesome bilingual service and we were bathed with God's Spirit. Since I had been there eight months before and communicated with several people in the ministry there, it was wonderful reconnecting with them. Lots of hugs and smiles, even when words weren't understood!
The rest of the afternoon was spent eating subs and fellowshipping at the Ministry House and a meetng to prepare for the next day's activities. Then we packed back into the vans and headed to the church where we were put in groups, each with an interpretor and then got on a bus and headed into Chihuahua City. We each received a Love Bag and headed out to the walk the streets to bless whomever God put on our hearts. All we had to do was give them the bag and tell them that God told us to give this to them. We were able to give all ours out, pray with people, hear their broken hearts. One man tried to pay us! We had to tell him it was a gift that we just wanted him to have. We gathered back at the plaza to eat pizza and fellowship. It was sad to see little Tarahumara children brought to the city to beg and so hard to turn them down. We shared our pizza and gave out Love Bags but were cautioned not to give them money because that only kept them enslaved. The whole mission of LightShine is to free them through the gospel and have them learn to rely on the Lord and earn their way by selling items. In the evening the church led a time of worship in the plaza and several of us agreed to share our testimony. I was way out of my comfort zone but felt God wanted me to share and so a stood on the plaza behind a microphone and shared stories from my life (through an interpretor) with over a hundred strangers. God was good and saved me from an outbreak of hives! Then we headed back to the church for delicious fruit popsicles in the Cafe 1040.
I was amazed at how I felt so connected to these people who lived hundreds of miles from me, many spoke a different language and lived a very different lifestyle. But we had our identity in Christ and it was amazing! Sharing my testimony was scary but as I stood in front of them speaking, God just gave me an incredible love for the people of Chihuahua and I wanted them to know the truth so that they would have what I have...faith in the one true God and life forever with Him! That made it incredibly easy; I couldn't NOT do it.
Monday:
Today we had a meeting with Chris Nickerson, the head of the LightShine program to hear an update on LightShine. We met with him in what had been a carpentry shop right next to the building used for LightShine. It will be the Tarahumara church, the first Christian church in their community. After meeting with Chris and hearing his vision, we broke into smaller groups and each took a street in the Tarahumara community. We each had an interpretor with us in case we needed to speak with any of the people and stopped in front of houses and prayed for those who lived there. Donna and I walked over to the school and prayed for its opening in a week and all those children who would be attending. I saw a rough looking man leave one of the houss and felt compelled to go and pray for the family (or probably families) living in that small house, the size of my small living room. It is heart breaking to see the conditions they live in but over and over this week it was impressed on us that we are not anyone's savior and that our job is to pray and point them to the One Who is their Savior. It is not our job to improve their living conditions or "save" them from poverty but to lead them to the one who can save them eternally.
I saw Daniela briefly as she was on the street with a few coins obviously going to purchase something for her mother and gave her a hug and received a shy smile.
We left the community and had lunch at Pollo Feliz (happy chicken!) which was excellent even though it had a funny name. We returned to the LightShine building to get ready to lead the program. Before the program the kids are fed lunch and I was able to sit and be served by my Daniela. Not surprisingly, the other kids at my table were all boys! My lot in life! I loved it though and enjoyed teaching them the hand game in which everyone piles their hands on one another and each person pulls their hand out from the botton and moves it to the top quickly. Much laughter broke through the language barrier!
Our team had been put in charge of all the activities for this Monday. The kids went through each of four stations, devotions (an object lesson on sin using dirty water to show sin in our lives, vinegar which looks clean but tastes nasty to show hidden sin and then clean water to show that Jesus cleanses us from all sin); craft (zipper pull with colored beads symbolizing the steps of salvation), outside play (they learned the game of baseball with equipment donated by the Orioles) and a station where the kids hands were painted and imprinted on two banners, one that stayed at the Ministry House and one to take back to Open Bible. This is the station were I was assigned. I had a table with an activity for the kids to do while waiting to have their hands painted or after they finished. The kids enjoyed this preschool activity...even the older kids! They placed colored shaped wooden blocks matching to shapes on cards to make pictures. They worked diligently on this but I found myself having to use one of the few Spanish words I know repeatedly...comparte, comparte (share) as tried to gather the blocks for their own use only! Kids are the same in every language! It was neat to watch Sergio take the kids one by one to the hand washing station after painting and patiently explain to them as he washed the paint off that this was like God patiently works on us to remove the sin in our lives little by little.
The afternoon ended with more baseball with all the kids. They caught on to the game amazingly fast and it was hard for all of us to stop and say good-bye when it was time to return to the Ministry House. We found Rocio and Amanda busily at work making us a delicious supper of burritos. Wonderful ending to the day.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)