Mexico - Journal Entry #5

Wednesday October 8, 2008
Today I got out of bed around 6:15am. I had kitchen duty with Deone and Kerry, who made it to the kitchen before I did and waited until I got there to start. Breakfast consisted of egg burritos, cereal & fruit. We decided to add a little bit of ham and bacon. Kerry did the cooking while I shredded the cheese and Deone prepared the scrambled eggs for the burritos. Breakfast was delicious and we were complimented on our cooking.
After breakfast Lisa, Nicole and I came back to the dorm to journal. My brother Jeff joined us and we ended up talking until it was time for the woman's meeting. What an amazing morning! There were more women today than on Monday, plus a lot more children. Cindy had prepared a lot of pancakes before everyone arrived but had to continue making them to get everyone fed. She did an awesome job. After the women ate, we sent the children outside with Lisa, Nicole, Jeff, Ted and Noel. Pam showed the women some exercises they could do to improve their health, while Lisa had the children entertained outside with chalk, coloring books and crayons, hoola hoops & jump ropes. Today was warmer than the previous two days, so it was a bit of a challenge to have the children outside in the sun. I helped Lisa for a little while before heading back inside to take photos of the women making their bead necklaces. I was able to help the women tie the necklaces. Thankfully God gave me strength to the them because my hand was still sore from the day before. After the craft, Pam got up and spoke from Matthew 6:19 about not storing up treasures on earth. She told a personal story to tie into the Bible teaching. Once Pam was finished Deb got up and gave her testimony. She gave an invitation for the women to accept Jesus into their lives. Five women accepted Jesus this day. Praise the Lord!!! There was a time of prayer for women who had prayer requests. It was an amazing morning to see God at work. After the meeting was over we had all the women head outside for a group photo.
Now we had to eat lunch and prepare for the children to come. Boy, did they come. Since the van broke down on Monday, a couple of the men drove the 3 vans and 2 trucks to the Colonia to get the children. We had close to 200 children for VBS. Rachel, our translator, tried to get the children to settle down, but to no avail. Finally, Pastor Nachos, came and he was able to settle them down. Lisa started the lesson on prayer with Gail & Tracy performing a skit about prayer. It was interesting to perform, because we had to pause to let the translators interpret in Spanish what we just said in English. After the lesson we had a craft for the children. They were making cross & bead necklaces to help them remember the "Our Father" prayer. As we were handing out the necklaces it became very chaotic. I had a headache and was not very patient with the children. After five minutes of the chaos, I had to leave. I came back to the dorm and rested. Later in the afternoon I came back to the commodore to help put together the dispensia bags . We put together 210 bags. Once the bags were completed, we headed back to the dorm. Lisa, Nicole & I started taking about an author we liked to read. Some of the guys, Jim, Ted, Jeff & Garry all stopped by the room to talk. It made our room a community room. It was a wonderful time of fellowship.
Later in the evening, Jim Dean gave the evening devotion using Ephesians 2:8-9 & Matthew 5:16 as his references. He encouraged us not only to be servants in Mexico but back in our church and community in Buffalo.