Left the mission this morning at 9:00 am – stopped in town for coffee (took us an hour to say good bye to our favourite coffee shop!), then headed north.  Had  a brief scare about 95 km south of Ensenada when the engine light came on in the lead van and it began to spew steam from under the hood.  We were blessed to pull over by a roadside stand with refreshing cold drinks, a helpful fellow with fluent English, and after a moment of prayer, the part we needed for the patch job to the radiator hose showed up too!  It was an answer to prayer for George...

Our last day at the...

Each afternoon, a few from our group have been going into nearby communities...

Story #1:  In the Nut House is a bakery.  In the bakery real butter is a treasure.  It is a privilege to be assigned to work in the Nut House since there is a great deal of work and it takes careful attention to detail and a conscientious, committed worker.  Kudos to the girls on our team who have all earned a time in the Nut House!  One day in the Nut House, a particularly gifted food studies teacher on our team was assigned the task of making the Brittle (vanilla with macadamia nuts).  She was told she must NOT mess it up for it was the only recipe in the whole place that used real butter, then given some rather sketchy instructions as to how to proceed and left alone with the butter.  We’ll skip all the details, but at some point, a good pot of brittle went bad, the girls were sent out side to dig a hole in the ground with any tool they could find, the contents of the pot were dumped in the ground and covered with dirt so that the Nut House manager was none the wiser when she returned.  I think that evening...

Have you ever had one of those moments where the whole world around you blurs away and the thing you’re doing or the person you’re with satiates every sense so that you are fully engaged?  It is in moments like that that I feel fully alive, and also where I most often feel that I have caught a glimpse of heaven.  For me, this usually hits me when I’m surrounded by great beauty – such as a perfect rainbow or sunset, but this time was different.  Last night’s visit to a nearby migrant workers’ camp was peppered with glimpses of heaven!  The view driving in was one of extreme poverty - row upon row of small rectangular stalls constructed of sheets of corrugated metal served as homes to approximately 1200 Mexicans.  Strips of fabric covered the doorways, and the sandy ground served as the floor.  Hundreds of children ran out to greet us as we crawled down the lane in our convoy of vans.  Many of our new amigos clung to the wheel wells and hung from the bumpers, while others circled the vans, huge smiles plastered...

Tuesday meant full work shifts for everyone all morning and afternoon.  Workers are assembled after “sala” (chapel) in the morning and after lunch break in the afternoon to divvy up the job list.  Then smaller groups set out to complete their given tasks over the next 2-3 hours. There are many coveted jobs on the list each day, and a few that are less desirable.  Something like the surprise bag at the dollar store – we all want to buy it to find out what is in it, trusting that there will be something good inside, even if it’s not all great. The meeting to assign jobs is filled with anticipation and hope.  Everyone looks forward to getting a chance to work in the preschool with the beautiful 3-5 year old Mexican children, or in the Nut House baking macadamia nut cookies, no one minds being chosen for a job they know they are good at, and everyone is a good sport and works hard when they get a job that’s less exciting.  So far, our team has worked on cleaning bathrooms, building speed bumps, orchard maintenance,...

Monday was orientation day.  The morning was spent touring the mission campus and learning the history of the mission, hearing from some of the staff members, sampling macadamia nuts in the famous “Nut House”.  The ministry here is phenomenal – the outreach to surrounding communities, the care of the orphans (85 or so), the stories shared with/of hundreds of volunteers and sponsors who come and miracles that occur.  Everything is grounded in prayer – the ministry started from a prayer group in California just over 50 years ago; the campus is built around a central prayer room open for use 24/7; and each and every day at the mission begins with corporate prayer in the "”sala”.  In the afternoon , we learned the rules and expectations for our time at the orphanage and the outreach visits to the migrant workers’ camps.  The clothing expectations are slightly more rigid than at home, and the younger girls on the team were delighted to hear one of the younger fellows on another team encourage the whole group with our...

We arrived at the orphanage late Sunday night – just before 10:00 pm, tired, sore and slightly grumpy, to find that there were no rooms available for us.  Our host, Uriel, was very gracious and quickly found us very suitable rooms in the Bible Institute just across the soccer pitch from the guest house.  I would have accepted a straw mat in the bathtub to sleep in at that point, I was so exhausted.  Still, it was unsettling to arrive at our destination by way of what seemed like a long journey, and find that there was nowhere to stay.  I had begun to feel a little perturbed and maybe even put out, when Nancy turned to me, with the glow of an exciting, new adventure shining in her eyes, and said with a giggle, “No room at the inn!”  I lay in my bunk that night laughing at myself as I compared our journey to that of Mary and Joseph’s walk to Bethlehem.  We didn’t have to walk, in fact someone served us snacks and brought us pillows and blankets as we flew through the sky.  Not one of us was nine months pregnant,...

We are off!  As I write this I am sitting on the airplane bound for San Diego.  Boarding flights in Edmonton and Vancouver went ridiculously smooth!  Payton and Nancy broke the rules by trying to bring in a pair of craft scissors and a lip gloss outside of it’s little Ziploc baggie, but the friendly security officials must have been impressed with their warm smiles and angelic faces, as they let us move on without hassle. 

Inconspicuous we are not – fifteen banana yellow t-shirts moving through the facilities en masse.  However,...

 So here are the work assignments we've heard the team members are doing on Tuesday:

Dawn will be sent to the nut house... the macadamia nut house kitchen that is to help out.

Bradley is digging speed bumps with a gentleman from LA,  George and Kim are doing kitchen work with a lady from LA, and the others are working in the garden and/or orchard. 

Later this afternoon, some of the team will be going and doing child evangelism.

Robin is going to be doing work in the dental clinic today as well.

The pace for the team is pretty busy.   Meals are 10-15 minutes, no real time for breaks and no siestas.  The team is feeling pretty tired. But they're looking forward to the week ahead.

Thanks for reading!  We'll keep the blog updated as we get more text messages from the team, and they'll hopefully get a chance to do some blogging themselves.

Mike

We've had lots of people asking about how the Mexico team is doing and keeping an eye on the blog.  We managed to get ahold of George via text messaging and have an update for everyone!

Everyone on the team is doing fine.  The trip went well, they never got lost, and they got to Costco in Ensenada in time (for food and some supplies I believe).   After that they went on to Vicente Guerrera and got there fairly late, but without any problems.

Yesterday they had orientation, a short work assignment doing some cleaning bathrooms, doing weeding and some garbage pickup.   No one is sick, but people are missing Tim Hortons!  They have no internet access where they are staying so will try to get into town to the INternet Cafe when they can based on their work schedule.  Then they may be able to do some skyping to family.  

The weather is quite cool in the am and sunnny in the pm.  

We got the texts right before they were being assigned their work assignments for today  so hopefully we'll hear...

Thank you all for the wonderful send off on Sunday!  So many kind wishes and blessings shared… and generous donations dropped off this week – we feel so privileged to represent you at the orphanage!

Our flight to San Diego via Vancouver leaves very early Sunday morning and we expect to arrive at the Mission in our vans after supper that same day.  It will be a long day of travelling, especially since we are all so eager to get there and dig in.  The anticipation is killing us!

We are thrilled to pack along several large bags of treats, toys, sports equipment, and craft supplies that you have sent with us – perhaps the weight of your generosity will be killing us by the time we get there!

We will be thinking of you all “building your house of faith” as we are traversing this continent.  We hope to share some stories throughout this week so that you can catch some glimpses of what lies beyond the door of your house.  What will this giant God of ours look like in this unfamiliar place?  How...