Friday, June 17, 2005

   Mission Trip
Hey everyone! Sorry it took so long to get this going. This week has been busy. But, anyway, I thought I'd share some stuff from our mission trip with you all... Here goes:

We left Fri June 3 from Denver, flew to Houston, and finally to Oaxaca on a really tiny plane (Continental Expressjet.... yeah, really tiny....) We got to Oaxaca pretty late. It was dark when we landed. (It was so cool to see the lights of the cities and the stars at the same time from the plane!!!) Some people from the church picked us up at the airport and took us to the hostel. It was really cool. Kind of a mix between outdoor and indoor--you couldn't really tell which was which sometimes!

The Sat after we arrived, we went sight-seeing and shopping. First, we went to Monte Alban.
It’s a site on top of a mountain with a bunch of ancient civilization pyramid ruins. Very cool! Later we went shopping in some markets around Oaxaca. Oh! And we got to se an old Catholic cathedral. So beautiful and ornate! Sun. was basically spent at church in fellowship. We sang a lot, gave some testimonies, and the sermon was given in Spanish and English. Later, we had a nice meal provided by the ladies from the church.

Mon, we started work, which continued till Fri. Each day, we drove out to Zaachila (the town where the church is at) on a bus. They had us do various things, like haul bricks, dig the foundation for the church’s fourth wall and the fence/wall around it, haul and sift sand, mix and haul concrete and mortar. Yeah, it was hard work in Mexico’s heat, but it was a lot of fun. By the end of the week, the wall/fence thing was finished, and the foundation for the 4th wall was done, too. The Mexicans will continue to build the 4th wall.

We just did construction in the mornings and early afternoon. Afterwards, we got changed from our work clothes and ran a sort of Vacation Bible School. Mon and Tues, we worked at an orphanage doing crafts, songs, Bible stories and games. The kids really liked the song, “Gloria a Dios” and the LOVED playing games. One little girl taught Courtney and me to play kickball baseball. It was amusing, because we had no idea what she was saying. ^^ It was hard for some people to leave on Tues. I’m pretty sure at least one person from our group is going to go back to Oaxaca after high school, she loved the work she was doing so much!

Wed-Fri we ran VBS at the church for the neighborhood kids of Zaachila. I only did VBS on Wed—then they had me do construction all day Thurs and Fri. It was about the same as the orphanage, though I think the kids at the church behaved better. ^^ On Fri, we got to hand out Operation Christmas Child gifts. Our church is a big supporter of Operation Christmas Child, so it was really cool to actually see the presents being handed out. The kid’s faces were so amazing.

Sat, we got to do some more sightseeing. We went up to Mitla to see the petrified waterfalls. Yeah, *petrified* waterfalls! So cool! We did some more shopping there, too.

Sun was spent at church again. From about 12-4:30. Really cool. Our pastor gave the sermon while a lady from the church translated. We gave more testimonies and sang a lot. Afterwards, we ate lunch at the church and said our good-byes. Yeah, that was kinda hard. ::sniff:: We got back to the hostel, did some final shopping, and got packed up. It was an early morning Mon, as we left at 5:30am to be at the airport, ready to go at 7:55. We got home safely at about 9:30pm.

Well, I guess that’s all I’ll write for today.
Thank you, God, for allowing this trip to happen and allowing it to go so well.
Thank you all for your prayers!

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