mexico in a nutshell

What a whirlwind adventure I just took part in. And it's still going! On July 2nd 20 of us headed to El Paso, Texas to eventually go to Juarez, Mexico to build a home. We got delayed in Dallas, which didn't surprise me all that much since it's happened to me everytime I've been at the Dallas airport. But the host families from Zion waited for us and eventually came and picked us all up. So there are many stories to tell from the week...it really was an exciting adventure. Let me just highlight a few things...
...Dan passed out at the communion rail.
...Walmart was soooo packed it took forever to get our "goods"
...Mike put out a very dangerous fire during the fireworks display
...we crossed the border super easy, I think there were only four cars at the border and we were three of them.
...we stayed in the same church from last year and got to work with Andy again
...we had a large "gated community" to work in where they also had lots of pigs
...we took a long five hour ciesta (didn't know what to do with ourselves)
...we poured the cement slab without the mixer falling over
...we got up at 5am to work on Tuesday and 6:30 every other day
...we got the walls up and roof on tuesday morning
...we grilled some hotdogs on our Walmart grill
...we got the black board and some chicken wire up tuesday afternoon
...Wednesday morning we got the remaining chicken wire done and some stuff inside and the roof
...we went back for lunch and found out someone stole our grill
...donde es el barbeque pit?
...we theorized about who stole the grill and how we were going to get it back for about three hours.
...we stuccoed the outside wednesday afternoon and worked on drywall
...we shoved 20 people's luggage and sleeping stuff in a small room for the church people because they had services.
...Thursday we finished the outside of the house
...we went to an orphanage and played with lots of kids
...we dedicated the house and gave Magdelena lots of presents
...Greg and Michael made our own bbq pit out of chicken wire and 2 by 4's.
...we went to Peter Piper Pizza
...some people got a little sick
...the power at the church went out
...the power for the whole city of Juarez went out
...killed a few cockroaches and crickets
...I got to drive in Mexico!
...lives were changed by the awesome power of God!
...lives of Magdelena and Abraham and also of our group.
...we went back to El Paso...flew out on Saturday
...got delayed in Dallas once again
...Greg and I got picked up by Tom and Tami and the boys...we went to their house and got our van and drove to Wisconsin.
...we arrived home at 2:30am
...we were at Brookfield Lutheran this morning for Asher's baptism...(since we are some of his sponsors)
...had lunch at Jen's sister's house
...we went out for dinner with my parents, sister and bro-in-law, two cousins and an aunt and uncle
...had a great time laughing during the car ride home
...had a little DQ
...we plan on driving back to St. Louis after an early lunch tomorrow!
So there you have it in a nutshell. It truly was an awesome trip. Everyone got along really well and we didn't have to leave any one in Mexico. God is so good and truly blessed this Mission Outreach Event! Thanks be to God for His great love for us and for the people of Mexico. It was great serving with them and for them.