Hola to all! We made it back safely and have enjoyed sleeping in late, and showing pictures and our goodies to our family and friends. Tonight we looked at pictures at Youth Group and told some stories to the other teens. It was fun to relive the memories!
On Sunday, July 22 at 10:45am, we will be having our presentation at Portersville Bible Church, off the Portersville exit on 79S, or on Rt 488. It's the white church with the steeple. We will be sharing pictures, stories, a skit and a song or two from our trip in Mexico. We would LOVE it if you were able to make it!!!!
For the PBC Missions Team,
Abby <><

Photos

Am still uploading photos, and would love to have more people add some trip summary blog entries, if you are willing/able. Thanks to everyone (members, parents, supporters) for all your contributions to our trip.

http://s149.photobucket.com/albums/s72/pbcyg/MexicoCityTrip/?start=all

We made it!

After a late night up of playing Dutch Blitz and watching How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, the 10 girls staying with the Nevin's got up early and waited for the rest of the group to arrive. When they did we ate breakfast, took some last minute group pictures and loaded up the car. Then we had a debriefing meeting about the trip. After that it was off to the airport, we all made it through check it with a little trouble of bags being too heavy but nothing too major. Then we found a little snack too eat and boarded our plane. Once we got to Chicago with only enough time to go through security, find our luggage, go through customs and run to our gate to board our final plane! It was a little crazy but good cause we only had an hour and one minute left till we would be home! Our plane landed in Pittsburgh and we found our parents in baggage claim and then waited for our luggage. That was a little confusing because other group members were pulling off others luggage without them knowing but i guess that happens with our group size. So we are all now safely at home and happy to have some time to ourselves although the trip was great and i will miss the Nevin family.

Jennifer

The last day is here....today (Sunday) we said goodbye to our Mexican brothers and sisters in Christ, friendships that were made in a very short time. We said goodbye to the church that has welcomed us so wonderfully. We enjoyed another ride from Antonio, our Mexican van driver, someone who will be hard to forget. We FINALLY got to watch "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days", and spent time playing Dutch Blitz with Susan, who hasn't got to sit down and rest the whole time we've been here.
It's been a great trip...a really great trip. The testimonies that were given today during church by our kids proved it. They shared how God has really shown them that His love is communicated in more ways than talking. It's with a smile, a hug, a giggle, a few mangled Spanglish words, a game of soccer, a bouncy ball, a painted face, a balloon animal, a joke here and there. God has also taught this team that it's been easy to share the gospel with perfect strangers who don't speak our language, but it's not going to be as easy when we get home and talk to those we love and live around. We are so thankful for Bryan and Susan and for the ministry they have here. They allowed 20 crazy people to crash and mix up their world for 10 days! And let me tell you, it's been a ton of crazy days!
It was hard to say goodbye today. Listening to the testimonies of our team and of the Mexicans really touched my heart. Their hearts were molded and changed while we were here. My love for the Spanish culture is continuing to grow, making it so hard to leave. God has called us to either go or to send. No one is called to do nothing. I am soooo thankful that I was called to go and that God was able to use me here, even for a short time. I am also sooo thankful that you were called to send. We wouldn't have been here if it wasn't for so many supportive and loving parents, great friends and families, hard working youth workers and a great God who wanted to use us in our weaknesses.
I loved being an encouragement to the Nevins. We definately added stress and confusion to their lives, but I think we also were a great help to them in the midst of that confusion. A couple of prayer requests are:
1. Safety for travel tomorrow, getting there on time and through customs smoothly
2. For the Bible Church of Texcoco, that they will grow in their faith and in their numbers
3. For the Mexican ninos (children) who accepted Christ and for those who had the seed planted
4. For permenately changed hearts of the team who traveled with us

It's really late, and I should be going! We'll be back in the US in less than 24 hours! See you soon!
~ Abby

hello from jen and amy

today we went to church, but before we did that we made 48 sandwiches for our picnic lunch. for church we had a praise service, 3 different times of testimony, one for praise God for anything, second for how God worked in your life recently, and third how a bible verse has influenced your life. our group sang how great thou art in spanish and then light the fire and you are holy in english in front of the church. afterwards we took a group picture with the congregation and then ate interesting rice and milk pudding and jicama(the equilvant of potatoe wedges) with chili powder and lime juice...very interesting to say the least. eventually we all changed and loaded into four vehicles, because people from the congregation joined us on our trip to the pyramids. we ate our 48 sandwiches in the pyramid parking lot along with chips, grapes, apples, oreos, and pop. we were all praying that the sun would go away because for once while we were here it was really hot. and it did. it rained. but not until after we got back from the pyramids and we were loaded back in. the pyramids were amazing! we got to climb about 250 steps to get to the top. while we were up there we watched the rain come in from 3 different directions. when we all found each other again, we went in the cars and went and ate in a restaurant that was in a cave. the food was interesting, but the ambience was awesome. there were candles lit everywhere and alot of us girls got our pictures taken together. eventually we all got back in the cars and headed home. now we all have to pack(which im done with and have extra room) so we can all eat together at 8:30am and then all leave the nevins at 11 am so we can get through the airport and make our plane on time. pray that we make the connecting flight in chicago because we have 2 hours to get our baggage, go through customs, check our baggage back in, and make it all to the plane in time.
signing out,
jen and amy

Mexico Trip 7/15/07

The missions trip is finally coming to a close, and I have to say that these ten days have just been awesome. I've had a good time with the VBS and the other activities. The Nevins have just been great while we've been invading their home, and they've just been so helpful!! I've had such a great time getting to know Susan, Bryan, Josh, Caleb, and Abby. It has just been such a great experience and I have learned that the world is a lot bigger than you think it is because you usually don't focus on anything except your town; you don't look at the big picture. So, this has just been a jammin' experience for me!! I've also had an awesome time getting to know the other people who came on the trip, such as, Matt, Jodi, Brooke, Cory, and others. I think that it is just so awesome that even with the language barrier God still managed to shine through us and speak to these kids hearts; it has been a tough and crazy week, but i've had a great time (although I now have an unhealthy obsession for playing futbol in the street)!!! :-P I can't wait to tell you all about what we did and just how much i've learned!!!

Adios,
Cheyenne

Mexico 7-14-07

Our trip is coming to end with just a couple days left here in Mexico. We've had an amazing trip, and met many new friends here. I'm excited to keep in touch with them through e-mail and phone calls. I think we're all hoping to see them grow as Christians, and I really do think they can. The kids learned a lot from the stories and lessons at the VBS. They had a great time with the games and activities also. I'll be praying to see many of the parents at the church tomorrow with them. Brian will be showing pictures from the VBS, so I'm hoping that will bring them into the church if nothing else. Hope all is well in PA. May God bless, and please pray for our service tomorrow that we will have an outstanding number of people. I really want to see the church full tomorrow. It would be a great blessing for us all. ---------Matt

Mexico

This week has been absolutely amazing. We had an awesome turnout for VBS. It was really cool to see all the kids keep coming and bringing their friends every day. I think that we all improved our Spanish by communicating with the kids. If nothing else everyone knows how to say "No hablo espanol!" Today, we spent the entire day playing volleyball, basketball, and soccer. It was a lot of fun, but everyone is exhausted. We are all looking forward to going to the pyramids tomorrow. I can't believe that we are coming home in 2 days. Time flies when you are having fun!

Jodi

It's Cheyenne

Hey, ya'll I just thought I'd blog about VBS today. It was the last day of VBS today and it seemed to go quite quickly, although it was still crazy. We guestimated on having about 150 kids at our group today. Then at 12:00 the parents came for the closing program and stuff. The day was normal except at 12:00 when all the parents were there we did the "chicken skit" again because about half the kids hadn't seen it and we were hoping it would affect the parents also. So, everything went well with the presentation, and i'd just like to say thanks to all who prayed. This week has been awesome, and i'm just hoping and praying that we've planted the seed in these children's hearts and that they will see that God and his son Jesus the Christ is the only way to true life and happiness. I was told that at our group 25-30 kids got saved throughout this week (Matt was guestimating) and that around 12 kids got saved at the other group, which was just awesome to hear!!! That's about it for VBS, but again I would just like to ask anyone who is reading this blog to pray that we have planted the seed in these kid's hearts and that they will see that they will not live a fully satisfying life without placing their whole lives in God's hands and accepting Jesus Christ as their savior. That's all for now!

later,
Cheyenne

Hola it's Jessica

Okay,
So today....we had vbs. I helped with Rob's group instead of Abby's because Rob's had about 150 kids today. It was a neat experience. To be honest I think I actually picked up more Spanish talking to more kids. Some of the kids even asked us for our emails. You can tell that the kids look forward to bible school every single day they come. Tomorrow is when the kids parents come around 12 till 1. After VBS we went to the Nevin's house and had hotdogs, chips, and pop. Then, we went to the local area and picked up litter along the streets and on the soccer field. The field we cleaned will be where we will play our volleyball tornament tomorrow. After the litter was all picked up, we went to eat tacos. We ordered pork, beef, and chicken and made our own tacos. Most of us tried cactus and really liked it. I didn't try the cow tongue but some did and they seemed like they didn't like it. There was some other type of chicken, cheese, peppers, and onions altogether that was used for in the tacos..It goes good with PoRk. After that we went and played at a ..well what I guess we would call YMCA without the pool. Then we came home and everyone got showers. Everyone is looking forward to tomorrow and hoping that even some parents that don't have Jesus in their life will except him. Well that's all that happened today.
Love you all,
Jessie<3
P.S. I learned that the teens that room with me have to have chocolate or they go insane....lol I had M&M's and they were trying to steal them from ...lol...just asking for them and I dumped some on the bed and they all went insane. So after dinner we all decided to buy the whole chocolate store out lol. I think we left some ..but it was well worth the stop I hear.

Random Stuff

We're having an awesome time here. We're quite busy with VBS, although today seemed to go quite a bit faster than usual. Yesterday we were playing street futbol (soccer) and it was very funny. Before I actually played I was watching Matt, Dave, Rob, Christin, Cory, and a few other people I can't recall at this point in time play. It was so funny because when Matt, Dave, and Rob's team scored they would do a victory dance. It was so hilarious (I actually have it on tape, so if anyone wants to see just ask)!!!! :-) Today we played street soccer again (actually just me, Christin, Cory, Amy, and Aprille) with some Mexican kids who spoke english; it was so much fun!!! I won't go into great detail since Cory, Aprille, and Christin have already blogged about it, but I will tell you about my awesome goal. It was just by accident obviously because I can't play sports very well!!! Somebody just hit the ball into the air (we weren't using a basketball to play this time :-)) and I hit it with my head and it actually went into the goal!!!!!!!! I'm like oh my gosh how did that happen!!!! Bryan says hello to anybody who is reading this blog!!! (I don't think he was being serious *because he never is*, but whatever) Earlier today we were at the futbol field picking up trash, which was great fun and that was basically it for the day (besides dinner and lunch and stuff; i'm not gonna talk about VBS that much cause it was basically the same as usual!). Actually i'm told that in my group 7 kids got saved which is awesome and that they think like 5 got saved in Abby's group (I'll confirm with Bryan later). Again just pray that we will be able to communicate the love of God with this last day of VBS and that they will see that God and his son Jesus the Christ our savior is the only way to true life and happiness. Also pray that everything goes well with the presentation we're doing for the parents tomorrow!!

later,
Cheyenne

Holy Chocolate!!!

Hey guys! this is the official continuation of amys blog. So where were we? We bought a ton of chocolate at a little tiny corner store near our house that we are staying at. We bought like thirty different kinds. On the way home some mexican kids saw us passing by and we kinda waved hello and went on our way *we were wayyy to excited for chocolate to pay full attention to them* okay so we get to the house and run upstairs to try the chocolate *we started with this minty green chocolate that tasted like andes chocolates you get at olive garden or something* so we were upstairs and susan tells us that the mexicans we passed not to much earlier were at the door and wanted to play mexicano futbol *soccer* with us on the street. We were soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo excited to play soccer with mexicans we ran downstairs and met up with them immediately. For a goal christin and I *cory* ran and got 4 bricks and set them apart. We split up the teams verry unevenly. I *cory* was a team captian and so was amy. On my team was Jaun Christin myself Americano * i didnt spell that right* and wendy. oh and josh *susans kid*. on the other team was aprille *who is sitting here with me helping type this lovely blog* amy Cheyene Debra and Edgar. Oh and oscar * who is a jehova witness *pray for him* . Well we cant describe the massive amount of fun we had, it was defiantely the highlight of both*cory and aprilles* trip. All the mexicans spoke english really well, and were super nice. They could crush any of us any day at mexicano futbol anytime. I *cory* probably scored around seven goals on amy, and jaun scored like.... a million. So between us *mostly jaun* we dominated. THe other team *poor poor aprille* scored like four or five times on us. Christin *who is also standing here* was was ninja goalie and blocked like all of the other teams measly attempts to score. *cory is the father of lies they were amazin attempts! aprille* *aprille is trying to build here pathetic team up. cory* *cory is just really vain! * *aprille is just a sore loser* *i resent that* sure you do. now back to the story. We became really good friends with all the mexicans, and we invited them to play with us on saturday, which is sports day. In our spare time, those who played with them are going to try to set up another mexicano futbol game, because we love them and it was the best part of the trip. We cant describe it, ive already said that. Everyone that played *me cheyene amy aprille christin* are like bouncing off the walls with happiness. hooray! Im rambling so now this awsome blog must end. I know all you readers are very disappointed.


:Cory *and aprille* *and christin, un poco*

its amy

hola! today started out with the usual (well actually it wasnt so usual because dave forgot to do something in the apartment so had to go back and by the time he got back he had to run after us in the car with all the mexicans laughing at him runnning after us, then losing his shoe, and finally reaching the car, totally out of breath and laughing hysterically) then heading to our seperate vbs groups. robs group took jessica and christin to their group to help out with the kids, so that left abby's group with 7 people, because 2 were left at the nevins to help with lunch. robs group had 116 kids today while abbys group had around 30. 7 made pronouncements of faith in robs group but im not sure about abbys. i personally started out vbs by dressing up in too big train conductor overalls, a red fleece jacket, and some kind of hat, then continued by having anna draw a red dot on my nose, blue dots on my cheeks and a yellow smile. i walked out and all the kids looked at me liked i walked off another planet, but then they would smile at me shyly. jennete, jody, christin, and zach made balloons while anna, lillian, cheynne, rob, and david played games with the kids. we had to ride back by taxi and the smiths van because our two translators came with us to eat lunch. after lunch we went back to our vbs site to pick up trash and pass out tracks. our 2 translators went with us because they live near the vbs and their father helped us pick up trash. we were all broken up into four groups and were supposed to meet at 4-45. we all met at the field and saw a group of people sitting there doing something, so jody went over to see if they wanted some tracks. jody came back over with a smile on her face and was like "they were all reading the track aloud to each other" (the track being the book of romans and john in spanish) that was the highlight of that part. when we took off all the gloves that we had had on, we discovered all the nasty dead skin had come off, interesting sight lets just say. then we all had to pile into the nevins car which technically holds 7. lets just say we went over by a lil bit, such as we really had 18 people in the car. some things you only do in mexico. yes there is a video, thanks to dave, so im sure you will all see it. after we all got out of the car, i have no idea what happened cuz i took a nap, but im assuming there was some street soccer, and board games going on because we ate out tonight. tonight we ate at a taco place that had pork, chicken, and beef tacos along with tongue tacos. the tacos were all good, even the tongue ones. after that the group split up into 2 groups, one going back to the nevins, the other going to play mexican racket ball and other games with our 2 translators (jenette and pati) and their dad, odene. i was in the group that went back to the nevins. we went for a walk to the cornerstore for some chocolate because cory, aprille, and christin have been craving chocolate. as we were walking back, we passed a group of young people about our age and continued past just saying !hola! we we got home we all ran upstairs to taste all the different chocolate (lots of different kinds, believe me, they are all laying on my bed as i type this, eating it.) susan came up to ask us if we wanted to play street soccer (football) because there was the group of young people we had passed that spake english and wanted to play with us. so of course we went out to play for almost 3 hours. this is actually amazing because the nevins haven't been able to reach out to their neighborhood at all (they think the nevins are in a cult) so we divided up and i became the goalie. it was amazing for me because the whole time i had a 11 year old boy that talked to me about planes the whole time. i told him i liked planes (there are planes flying over every 10 minutes) and he immediatly began listing what airlines had what planes, which plane he liked the most(british airlines 747) and what time that excact plane went by (8pm)then he tried to teach me espanol, which im not at all well versed in. i helped me a little bit , but im still just a little lost (lol actually still alot, he could probably teach me all day and i would probably get one thing out of it)susan had to come and get us at 10 so we would go to bed sometime tonight. but we did invite them to the sport thing on saturday, which they were very interested about. the other group still hasn't come back from playing racketball. well the other girls are going to give you better details about what happened because i wrote about all the rest of the day
signing out,
~amy~

Hey Everyone....it's Jessica

I have had a long week. It has been especially fun seeing even more children come to know God over the last few days. Even though there is a barrier with the language, God is still helping us communicate and I thank God for that. I haven't liked all of the foods, but I have tried all of them. For vbs I got to paint the kids faces. I chose to paint an owl on one of the kids cheeks and he was really ancy. After the face was painted it looked like a frog. Then some of the kids wanted a frog and I could not paint it lol. Abby is 10 months old and so adorable and fun to be around. Caleb is the middle child and he always keeps you on your feet to play a game with him. Last but not least the oldest one is Joshy. He is always up to playing a great game of guess who?, and he somehow usually always wins lol. I have helped around the house quite a bit. I enjoy helping Susan, Mrs. Nevin, with Abby. Abby usually stops crying whenever you give her a bottle. I don't think many of us have gotten a lot of sleep. Our siesta is if we fall asleep on the couch, while a few others are putting the crafts together for the next day lol. Everyone got woke up last night here at the Nevin's because Abby got up at 5:30 am lol. Oh yes and the knew thing here in Mexico is to play ball on the street lol. Just because it's in an ally it's entertaining. Everyone is working as a team to get work done and everyone is doing well. A few got dizzy and sick ...but they are better thanks to our prayers. Well it is just about time to eat dinner and we are having a mexican dish lol.
Love you all,
Jessica
P.S. Dad-I am doing great and the weather is rather just warm enough and some evenings we have had rain ...lol....a windy rain...i'll explain in my email to you all.

P.S. Hallbergs-Thanks for praying for us we appreciate the prayers....we everyone's prayers many have become saved.

P.S.Weymans- We are so blessed to have all the kids that have become saved so far

P.S.Mom-I will see what recipes I can get from Susan and the Smiths
Once again I love you all,
Jessica

VBS Photos!

New photos have been uploaded. Be sure to check them out at:

http://s149.photobucket.com/albums/s72/pbcyg/MexicoCityTrip/?start=all

Continue to check back for additional photos as the week progresses.

VBS Day Three

Today was the third day of VBS, and it was very tiring. Everything went pretty well except we had four or five kids sent home because they were really little, they didn't want to participate, and they started to cry. We're still having trouble communicating with them about the games and everything, but things aren't going too bad. What's really funny (maybe not funny) is that everytime i'm standing somewhere not doing anything for like two minutes a little kid decides to ask me something, and I have to call Matt or someone and i'm like "what are they saying?!" Lillian and I were playing games with the younger kids while Matt and Dave took the kids that were nine and up across the street to play futbal (soccer) again. It wasn't too bad; we got to play a few games with them (with Matt translating the directions to them) today, until he took them over to play futbal. Then we had a mexican person playng with them, and they didn't speak english, so they did whatever games they felt like and me and Lillian just watched because we had no idea what games they were doing!! That's always slightly disappointing because I was looking forward to playing games with the little kids. :( There are still two more days of VBS, and I think I speak for the whole group when I say I am completely wiped out!! These are gonna be pretty much the same prayer requests I wrote in my last blog. Again please just pray that the language barrier will not be too hindering and that even with that barrier we will be able to show these kids the love of God and how much joy we have serving him and just obeying him. Pray that we all would get used to the altitude and that our sickness would clear up whether it be headaches or sore throats. Also that we would just show these kids that they need God and that when things are tested with fire everything but God will be burnt to the ground and nothing will be left. Also just keep praying that we will grow in God and learn from these kids through this trip.

later,
Cheyenne and Lillian (Lillian put forth a couple good blogging sentences!)

Day 3 of VBS

Hola! Well, I was supposed to blog yesterday, but I ran out of time, so I'm blogging today. Today at our location for VBS, we had 33 kids and the other location had 110 kids!!!! Praise the LORD! We had many kids pray with Bryan when the salvation message was given. I am currently at the Bryan's house, waiting for lunch. Today, we are going to go back to the church and finish painting. The church looks brand new! With the wooden walls gone, it makes the church so much bigger. We are also going to pick up trash today and pass out tracks. Yesterday night, we (the guys) invited our mexican host family to our apartment to play Jenga and have fun. It was such an experience with the mixture of spanish and english. It was so awesome! Well, lunch is ready. It's spaghetti!
~Gregorio (Craig)

Mexico!!

Hola amigos! Today is our third day of Bible School and it has been an exciting experience so far. Today, over 110 children showed up at our location, which is amazing considering that we were only expecting about half of that. They children love the face painting, balloon animals, bubbles, and games that we have for them. They especially like the clown (David today). It has been fun trying to communicate with the children in Spanish, which most of the time consists of us making up spanish words and hoping they know what we are trying to say. With only four translators and over 100 kids you can imagine that chaos that ensues. But, so far God has blessed. We have had the opportunity to share the gospel many times, and several children have trusted Christ as their Savior!! Please pray that the children understand and will grow in the Lord while we are here and after we leave.

After Bible School in the mornings, we all pile into the car (it's amazing how many people you can fit into a car when you're in Mexico) and we come back and eat lunch, which is very good, and then go and work at the church fixing things up and painting. Yesterday I got to go to the Market with Susan to pick up some things, and that was quite an experience. Not the same as the U.S., but a neat experience. We walked through a huge building filled with hundreds of small stands and shops very close together. The one section had meats of all kinds all around...chickens (de-feathered), beef, brains, livers, ...everything. Needless to say it didn't smell so good, but it was very intersting.

Well, it's time to eat! Then off to paint at the church some more and pick up trash before dinner. See you all soon. Thanks for praying!

Jenette

VBS

today was the second day of VBS and it was crazy. it was slightly better than yesterday because we were more used to everything. the big problem is the language barrier. we're having a hard time explaining the games to the kids and just trying to see what they need help with. today we split the kids off into two groups: the younger kids were one group and then the older ones were another group. lillian and i were in charge of the younger kids, but today we weren't able to actually play the games with them, which was slightly disappointing, because nobody actually explained to us what games we were doing!! so it was pretty funny! :) i'm so appreciative of everyone in charge of our VBS every august; i never knew how much work went into it!! one of the other problems is that we have so many kids in our VBS; the first day we had 64 kids come, and the other group had like 18. then today we had 37 new kids come, although 17 kids didn't come back today, and we are overcrowded. there isn't enough room to play games with that many kids. despite all these problems God is still shining through us; the first day in the other group i'm told three kids got saved; which was just awesome to hear!! so we're all just praising God that we can be here to show his love and how much joy we get from serving him, and we're just praying that despite the language barriers and all the other problems like headaches and sickness that we will just have his light shining through us and that we will show them his love and the joy we have serving him and sharing him to others. because when everything is tested with fire he is the only thing that lasts. money, land, cars, and homes; all of that is gonna be gone when tested through fire, but God and his love will still be there. we're just praying to God that we will be able to show them that.

later,
Cheyenne Warner

Blog - 07/09/2007

From the mind of Tyler Peffer,

Today we started bible school. It was awesome to see all the kids. My group - Me, Abby Craig, Brooke, Cory, Aprille, Laurie, Jen, Jessica, and Christin had 18 kids at our site, the other group - Matt, Jodi, Jenette, Amy, Dave, Anna, Lillian, Rob, Zach, and Cheyenne, had 64 kids. We had 3 kids from my group get saved, but i dont know how much they understood what they were doing. No kids talked to the missionary at the other camp but only God knows if the kids thought about stuff and maybe we planted the seed and the kids will be back tomorrow and they will make the final step.

Yesterday, we went to the church that Brian leads. It was a different experience. When you greet a Mexican woman, you shake their hand, touch cheeks, and air kiss. it was different because when they come to church they greet everyone in the church, and then when they leave they do the same, so it was very interesting to see his church and see they people that are there.

After church, we went to the two different site for the camps and handed out tracks and invitations to bible school. we got to hand out more tracks and invitations to the other group so therefore they had more people. and at our site we didnt get to hand out many tracks because it started to rain. really hard. and my group within the group were way across the street and there was no shelter what so ever on the way back to the car. so we had to run, with the rain coming directly at us, about half a mile or more. so i was soaked and my jeans are still trying as I type. so that was an experience.

Tomorrow we will be doing another day of bible school and please pray that God will bring more kids to the camps.

We have finished our first day of VBS. We had a great turn out. At the location i was at with Abby's group we had a total of 18 children. That was great because we were not able to hand out nearly as many invitations at that location as the other one the day before due to the rain.

It was difficult with the language barrior because the children didn't know and would try to talk to us and for the most part we really could not understand.

I had fun even though. I started by playing football (soccer) with the children and Tyler and Brooke. Then i noticed that there was a boy named Samuel who was staying alone so I went and played with him. We kicked a small ball around and through the soccer game. Then we had a sang and told a story (Bryan did atleast) and then we had a craft. It was kinda cool because even with the barrior we were still able to understand and create some good sheep!

It was a fun day and tomorrow should be even better. We are hoping that our location with get more children tomorrow!
~Jennifer

New Photos!

Here is a link to photos from the first few days of the trip:

http://s149.photobucket.com/albums/s72/pbcyg/MexicoCityTrip/

Keep checking this link as more should be posted as the week progresses.

Bible School, Day 1

Buenas Dias! The first day of Bible school is here, and we are ready to go! Last night was a busy night! There were about 10 different projects going on in the house, trying to get ready for today. Name tags were cut out, boxes were decorated, food was packed into cars and crafts were being pre assembled into little baggies. We also practiced a skit that we'll be doing today call the chicken skit. We did it during church yesterday too. I think they thought we were all crazy!
I was so proud of everyone on the team. As I was working on a project, I looked up and I saw this mass hysteria of people running around, doing all they could to help. The air was filled with laughs, giggles, and instructions as to what we needed to do. Spanish songs were going too! This is a great group of workers. They are not afraid to do their part and are extra willing to do what is needed.
Prayer requests that we have for the clubs are:
1. Many children come to the clubs
2. We work as a team on the different projects during the day
3. The language barrier won't be too difficult with showing our love of Christ
4.The same children come all week, bringing more friends everyday.

Everyone is still feeling fine, but noticing the thinness of the air at times.

Well, I better finish getting ready and go join the girls in a great American breakfast-fruit loops and corn puffs!
Hasta Luego! ~Abby

Hola!

Today was very awesome. We had the opportunity to go to the Nevin's church and see Mexican teenagers around our ages. Some of them actually spoke pretty well in English. After church, we went out to lunch at a Pollo (chicken) place. The food was excellent. The hole menu included rice, beans, and chicken. When finished eating we proceeded to go and hand out tracks to the children in Texcoco and surrounding areas. Many of those children or their parents accepted the tracks and invitation to the VBS held this Mon-Fri. As we were handing out tracks at Texcoco, rain started to approach the area. Though two of the five of our group had umbrellas we all were completely soaked by the time we made it back to shelter. The family the boys were staying with offered us bath towels to get a little dry after a pouring down storm. We finally came home and Susan, Matt, and Jodi had supper cooked and ready to eat. The food has been a real Mexican treat and very delicious. Afterwards all of the 20 members of the group got changed into dry clean clothes. So a really exciting day today and I am positive that there will be many more!!!! Tomorrow is the start of VBS---this is what i have been waiting for all trip for :) Love you all,
Jessica Kennedy

Long day

Hello,

It has been a long day. We started with getting up early, had some breakfast and then all loaded into the cars and went into the city to see some sites and shop. We stopped to have lunch and most of the group went with American food! I went with Matt, Jodi, Jenette, Dave and Rob to a taco place for lunch. It was good food. Once we were all done eating we went to shop! It was interesting because there were all kinds of shops and lots of things to find. I was able to get some good deals along with most of our group. On the way home we drove through the "down town" area of Mexico. I was able to see the building that the President works in and a cathedral. Then we came home had some dinner, a meeting and practiced a skit. It has been a long but fun day.

Hopefully i will be able to get on and update more but right now i would like to get some sleep.

Jennifer

hola!

got up this morning and ate yummy breakfast made by cheyenne and aprille. then continued to the basika (not sure on spelling. walked around for awhile, amazing what people believe in their cultures. people crawled for miles on their knees for forgiveness from the holy virgin mary, who their believe is higher up than Jesus. we then continued to the center of the city where some us ate subway, burger king, mcdonalds,or a real mexican meal. communicating what we want on what was definitly interesting. then we continued to the mexican market to shop, what an experience! bartering was interesting to say the least. right now we are hungry so we are signing off,
god bless,
amy and christin

We have arrived!

We made it to Mexico and through customs with very few problems. There is one bag that was delayed and one bag that was searched while going through customs. God really blessed!!!

The last plane ride was a little rough. we hit a little bit of turbulance and then the landing was a little rough also but other then that everything was smooth sailing!

We also got a very interesting ride though the city and we were all very happy that none of us had to drive!!!!

Right now we are also here resting and getting ready for our first mexican dinner!

Adios for now

~ Laurie

Here we are, 20 of us sitting in the airport, waiting to get on the plane to Mexico city. We are surrounded by those going back home, where we are going to be visitors. It's an odd thing for a group of American teens to feel like the minority. Not many here on this trip have got to experience this. Spanish is being announced after English, and we still aren't sure what we are supposed to be doing. We are about to embark on an adventure. A time where our small world will be made bigger, realizing there is a lot more to the world than the next cool video game or the next greatest car. Our eyes will be opened and we are excited for the journey.

Let the trip begin!

~Abby

Pre-trip

Just posting some images of Events leading up to the trip.