You have concrete WHERE?? - by everyone

Hola Diary-

What a relaxing day in Cancun.  We didn't faint from dehydration, and that was nice.  Today we built a church in a very impoverished neighborhood. John and Austin conquered their fear of heights on a rather shaky scaffolding.  Drenched in sweat, we all persevered through the lifting and shoveling of concrete. We really switched up the lunchtime cuisine by enjoying pb&j or turkey sandwiches...as opposed to pb&j or turkey sandwiches.  Allie surprised us all with her relentless determination to lift entirely too heavy buckets of concrete (for the average girl).  La di dah there was some other really awesome stuff too, we love Jesus a lot and all his people too.  Let's all drink Tang (our new fave Mexican beverage) and be merry.


"Party and pray"

Adios

Monday Pics

Unfortunately 

Day 2 - Sean Hollowood

Day Two in Mexico.
We started the day off the devotions that back two back called "He is Before all Things and in Him all things Hold Together." Today we discussed EPIC moments in once life, we talked about how Miriam brought along a tambourine as she left Egypt.  When they crossed the Red Sea Miriam took out her tambourine and lead the people in song. A tambourine??? out of every thing that you could grab to take with she grabs a musical instrument in her rush to leave slavery?  Its all about being ready to praise God when those EPIC moments come our way.

After our devotions we went down to a church called Vida Life where they had the service in both spanish and english.  It was one of the most amazing church services.  Hearing people singing in both spanish and english praising the Lord was life changing.  

We spent the afternoon at the B2B house where 3 widows brought their 18 children over for pizza, vacation bible school, and swimming.  At VBS it was a huge afternoon as Lizy (Mexican B2B staff) shared the gospel with the kids during story time.  It was a blessing to be a part of the life change in these children.  We all also learned that the language barrier really isn't an issue when you pour love out onto a child and are willing to engage with them.  We had a blast and while there were over 30 people in one pool (probably not legal in the states), it was amazing to see the kids smile and enjoy the afternoon.

After some great worship and debrief time we are now settling in to a rousing game of mafia...
 

Sunday Pics

Great First Day

Estamos en Cancun!  Truth is, I don't have a clue if this is grammatically correct Spanish.  This is one of many examples of pathetic, yet courageous attempts at the Spanish language that several of us have already committed.  Though we, at times, hung our heads in embarrassment, all attempts have already proven beneficial with the friends we've made!  Right off the bus (superb flight experience), we were put to work. Mission #1: Babysitting.  A pool full of kids greeted us and immediately extracted the playful side of each of our hearts!  These kids belonged to a beloved widow that was recovering from surgery performed on the previous day.  None of these kids knew a bit of English, which led the way for Luci's poor Spanish explanation of the game Marco Polo.  Once we realized that none of these kids were catching on from this explanation, we ditched it and tossed footballs in the water.  This simple game gave a such a humble thrill to these kids!  Not long after, and feeling the drag of the morning's early rise, we all got dressed and went off to the next mission. Dinner tonight took place at a government operated Children's home, where we celebrated two birthdays with cake, balloons, tacos, watermelon, and energetic worship songs!  It was the perfect night to get us in the swing of mission work and illustrate to us what it means to serve.

It's 9:45 pm, and we're all exhausted, but already feel so much of the Lord's touch in each of us as we go to bed in Cancun.  And it's only the first day!

Tomorrow we're off to Mexican church in the morning, I'm sure there will be quite the blog post about that experience for you all to enjoy.

Luci Carl

A Thankful Return by Sara Lance

     Now that the exhaustion finally has been offset, I've finally had time to reflect on the amazing experience I had in Cancun. The first thing I began to feel upon my return, was thankfulness for my family. Listening to the comical dinner conversations on Saturday night made me appreciate my family and all they do to support everyone in it. I found myself fully appreciating a "bed making lesson" from my grandma, and had I not visited Cancun, I don't know what I would have been thinking about. Not only do I appreciate my family, but my house and church. I know I am extremely blessed in that I have more than just a "roof over my head." We are extremely blessed to have a church with huge spaces to worship and learn about our God.
     After being in an environment such as Cancun where it was easy to hear, see, and feel God in almost every situation by being outside of our comfort zones, it is often difficult to come back to our homes, where we live in a secure bubble. The bubble we live in, however, is full of distractions, which we were free of down in Cancun. Coming back home has made me value the importance of "quiet time," where I can become more familiar with the voice of God and the whispers of the Holy Spirit. In Cancun, it was strange for someone not to notice God's work in every moment of the day. Back home, however, it is easier to ignore the effects of all the distractions in our lives, and consequently overlook God's work that still remains in every moment of the day. It is when I am quiet and studying His word where I notice how  perfectly He intertwines things in my life so I may become closer to him. Overall, this trip has taught me how to see, hear, and feel God at home, and to be thankful for everything I have, including trials and tests. 

And then we came home...

Well, mission trips are always an adventure.  We had one of those days where for the most part we had to be flexible and to trust God with our every step.  Because of terrible weather in Philly, we had quite an experience.  

 I wanted to share with you a few ways we saw God show up and increase our faith in the midst of an uncontrollable situation.  I had flown into Philly on a separate flight because I was booked separately (long story).  I was waiting for our team at our next gate when we got the news the flight to CVG had been canceled.  Apparently with the storms last night many planes couldn't get in, and so they were thinning out the outbound flights to accommodate.  The team had just arrived in Philly and began to pray.  I called the 1-800 number for US Airways as they were praying.  There were 3 seats to Dayton and 2 seats to Louisville open, but I just felt like we shouldn't split our team up.  The next thing I know, the woman on the other end sounded startled and said, "wait a minute, I see around 20 seats open on a flight to Indy at 8:55".  So I asked her to book as many as possible on that plane and we would deal with the 3 or 4 possibly left behind (much easier than the 23 we had with us).  At the end of the call she had gotten every one of us on the plane saying "ok, I just booked the last person in the last seat available"!  At that point I began thanking God for having gone before us.  In what reality would there be 23 seats open on a flight in 2012 when all the airlines are cutting back their schedules and budgets?  In God's reality for sure. 

Of course, then we went through the pain of waiting and our flight continuing to get delayed.  I asked the gate agent what the issue was and he said it was that we didn't have a crew to fly us.  They were looking for a crew but every flight was fighting for the crews available and we hadn't won a battle yet.  At that, our group circled up and began to pray for a crew.  Not 2 minutes later, I saw the agent pick up the phone and nod.  He then announced "we have a crew!"  God truly answers prayers.  Unfortunately for us, we didn't pray specifically enough because we should have prayed "God, please send us a crew that is already in the airport!!!" :)  Instead, we got the crew coming from Portland, Maine and we had to wait for the thunderstorm to pass there before they could take off to come get us.  As providence would have it, they had enough hours left to get to Philly and get us to Indy, where most of us got home right around 6am!  Long day!  But it was an amazing day of building faith in a God that really does care about the details of our lives.  

Our kids handled it with amazing grace and patience.  Between card games, conversations, and a little bit of "ninja", we were all able to stay busy and enjoy each other's company for a few more hours.  Thank you to the parents who came to Indy to get us at 3am.  Today has been a day of reflection for me as I have been thinking a ton on how we can and must trust God with our every step and He will be faithful and give us peace in the midst of chaos!  

I will write more about the trip as a whole as I've had time to process :)  Next Saturday we leave (again at 4:30 in the morning...I need to do a better job scheduling flights lol) with our college students for another week down in Cancun.  Stay tuned to the blog for more amazing stories and experiences!!! 

Amy