I looove you Jennay'

Today, I woke up and there was no power! Shay stole all the hot water before anyone could get in. So, Matt and Hans were stinky. Then, we all ate breakfast and the power came back on! Woohoo. Next, we had quiet time and small groups. Today we went to Pastor Victor's church and hand mixed concrete, bringing buckets of sand and gravel from outside to the inside, then pouring them into a mixer , then hand carried the buckets of cement to the roof. We're pretty sure we made a new record for the fastest cement pour at the church! An aforementioned (in the last post) young blond male says the neighborhood smelled like poop. However, Pastor Victor's story was really inspiring. He came from a background of drugs, alcohol, and stealing. When he went to rob a woman's purse, he was infuriated to find only one thing in that purse- a Christian book. At first he threw it on the ground, but eventually he read it and was touched by God, completely turning his life around.

This is Matt speaking right now. I was stationed on the roof of the the church. We had a three man crew consisting of Lucas, Nick, and myself. One person would hoist the buckets to the roof, then someone would carry and poor the buckets where they were needed, and the third person would toss the buckets down to Amy and Sierra. We never went down until there wasn't enough room on the roof for all of us and the buckets. We kinda had a break working the tosser station, but other than that we didn't really take any breaks. Once I finally had to get down I went and kicked a soccer ball with some of the kids that were with us.


This is Annie! Caty, Meg, Hannah T., and I were on cement duty. There were a lot of difficulties with the cement mixer, so we often had to mix the sand, rocks, cement mix, and water together by hand which was quite a hassle. Then, we filled up buckets with the concrete and Chris or Erick lifted them up to the boys to bring to the roof. It was actually extremely fun even though we were lifting heavy concrete in the heat for three whole hours. Oddly enough, my headache, which has been constant for the last five months from my concussion, went away almost completely for those three hours! Of course it came back, but it was incredible that it even went away for a minute. 


Back to Matt and Annie!!! During the time we were working, there was 3 women kneeling at the alter of the church. They were praying for us almost the entire time we worked. To be honest we have no idea what they were saying at all, but God heard and that was enough. He worked soooooo many miracles during this time from Annies headache going away, to Amy's back pain disappearing, to Sierras knee not bothering her, and Lauren not feeling any pain either. He was with us all as we worked, and let me tell you IT WAS SOME HARD WORK. Once we had finished and washed all of our tools and such, we took a prayer walk for about a mile. We didn't talk to each other, we were simply praying to god for all the people in the village, and for whatever was on our hearts. In Shay's case, not to be chopped to death by some random guy walking behind him with a machete :). 


At the end of the prayer walk was a woman named Gloria's house. We had met her earlier and seeing her at her home, and hearing her story there was truly amazing. She had nothing and now she had a home with a roof and a kitchen on the way! She was very nice and so were her kids. One of which, Ansoni, had become friends with Matt on the first day. At the end of the day, we finished with some delicious chicken fajitas, an extra long worship, and a great devotional from Amy.


From Matt-
Mom and Dad guess what, I apparently brought some poison ivy with me from the states to Mexico! Haha its fine we've got plenty of Benadryl with us. also how is George, cause you guys have to deal with him so HA. I love you guys a ton and hope your all getting on fine without me. Give a shout out to SEan and Shannon for me, and of course Malaney. Love you guys. :)
From Annie-
Hi Mom and Dad!! I miss you both. And I REALLY miss the cats... By the way, my shoes are 98% concrete so I think they're dead. Have a good week and I'll see you friday!

Adios amigos!