San Quintin Day 8

Saturday, August 1 was another travel day. We were up at 3:00am and on the bus pulling away at 4:00am. We drove to Ensenada where we attempted to buy some sombreros for the missions committee but most of the sellers weren't open yet and the ones that were only had regular hats. No one in the Baja wears sombreros. I suppose they are mostly for tourists. We stopped for breakfast beside a race course at Las Cañadas which seemed fitting. There is a tilde on the "n" so it doesn't really say Canada.
We arrived at the border about midmorning and had no trouble going through. When we arrived in San Diego we stopped at In and Out Burger for lunch. When I went to Tijuana in 1995 we stopped at one as well so it is quite a tradition :). In and Out puts Bible verses on the cups and burger packages so it is quite fitting. Alana hit a grocery store and bought some non-meat products for lunch.
We arrived at the airport in the early afternoon and checked in. The flight to Portland was fine and although we temporarily lost Lemuel at the airport when he decided to leave the secure area we boarded our flight to Seattle with no problems. We arrived back there at about 9:30pm and Joe and Chris picked us up and drove us back to BAC. We arrived here at about 1:00am so it was quite a day!

San Quintin Day 7

Friday was our last day on the job so we needed to finish everything up on the house. Rob Wall came to help us finish as we wanted to be done by lunchtime so that we could have the dedication ceremony while the husband and church people were there. We finished working about 1:00pm and learned that Vicky and some neighbours had prepared a Mexican lunch for us. There was pasta salad and refried beans with hard flat taco shells.

In this picture I am giving the house keys to Vicky. Each team member had a chance to say something about their trip and the experience and then encouraged the family. We gathered together and had a group picture with the family and their neighbours who had joined us for lunch. We are the ones in the Red Stoney Creek t-shirts while Kit has the blue one and the family and friends are the Mexicans ;-). The family were quite happy to receive their house. They had to buy the land themselves so I am sure they had been eagerly waiting for us to come and build a house for them. Fortunately Maria came and translated for us so that we could talk with them and have the dedication ceremony. Thanks Maria!

We also discovered that the husband is an ice cream seller who peddles an ice cream cart around all day. This was a blessing as we were able to buy some icy cream. I had a strawberry popsicle with real strawberries inside! Yummy.

Friday evening we went back to the camp and cleaned up and packed to get ready for our 4:00am departure. It was a great week which flew by soooo quickly.

San Quintin Day 6

On Thursday, July 30 we were back at the house in the morning and worked all day. The roof was completed and Jeff is putting on some tar in this picture. We wanted to make sure that it was well sealed on the edges and seams to ensure that the wind does not get in at a later date and lift the roof off. The wind can blow quite strongly there, and does so on a daily basis.

We also put the windows in on Thursday. This was quite easy because Kit just cut some holes in the walls and then popped the windows in. We had picked them up the day before along with four mattresses to give the families for the bunk beds we would be making. The painting also began on Thursday although we wouldn't finish until Friday. Vicky chose light green as the colour, so that's what we did along with white trim. Some of the painters seem to have gotten as much paint on themselves as on the house and our little amigos also pitched in. I wasn't feeling very well on Wednesday evening, having thrown up on three occasions so I took it easy on Thursday and worked inside installing panelling and building a bunk bed. Here is the finished product. There will be two kids on the bottom on a double mattress and one on the top on a single mattress. This way the three daughters can share one bedroom and the three sons another.

I ate breakfast on Thursday and felt ok but threw up again about 11:00am so I skipped lunch and although we went out for tacos and hotdogs for supper I only had a few bites of my wife's food. All would be well by Friday morning, although the bug would show up again on Saturday at the other end.

On Thursday evening we went to the church again for their praise and prayer evening. There was no translator so we had to muddle our way through. Marianne's Spanish really developed over the week and she was able to help us. The pastor preached a short sermon and then they had a time of prayer. Three folks were anointed with oil and a young boy scheduled for an operation was also prayed for. The highlight of the evening for us was when they called our team to the front and the church folks came up and laid hands on us and prayed for us. Although we couldn't understand most of what they were saying we understood that Holy Spirit was in our midst and we were communing together in Christ. We were all touched by the service and the unity among believers from different countries and languages. Dios les Bendiga!

San Quintin Day 5

This is Elia's house where we went on Wednesday afternoon to pick her up. She is the lady in the yellow shirt in the centre. She began a children's program at her house many years ago and this current house was built by Americans so that her former house could be converted into a children's centre. She is also having another house built on her site for single mothers and will be tearing down her original house to build a larger centre. We spent the morning playing with the children, doing our skit, and colouring with them.

We headed for the build site at noon and ate on the bus. Work continued on the roof and the walls and we knocked off for supper.

San Quintin Day 4

Tuesday, July 28 dawned cloudy with overtures of rain. While we were in the Baja in the afternoons it was very hot but every evening it would cool down and we would wake up to cloudy skies and even a slight drizzle the one morning. The nights were cold so in addition to the two blankets we bought for the missions committee we bought one to keep ourselves warm at night! Tuesday morning found us at the build site putting up roof joists. Alana is showing us how to nail in the centres.

We finished up at lunch time and headed back to the camp to get ready to visit the migrant camp. We needed to change into long pants for the guys and dresses for the ladies in order to fit in with their conservative culture. We picked up Elia, the lady in charge of the migrant ministries. She is a former migrant worker herself and a member of a Mexican tribal group. Many migrants come up from the far south of Mexico to work for four months or so before returning home. They do not speak Spanish but native dialects. The seven of us had prepared a skit about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead so we began by presenting that and Elia translated for us. We then coloured with the children and played with them while the other teams distributed food and clothing to the families.


In the accompanying picture Jesus is calling Lazarus out of the grave.

They also distributed several large blue tarps for the migrants to put over their houses. Otherwise they just use clear plastic wrap for walls and many did not even have roofs. Because it almost never rains they don't see any need for them. In the picture below you can see examples of the large blue covered dwellings were many families would live together and some of the smaller one-family dwellings which just consist of sheeting wrapped around four posts.
You can also see one made of yellow plastic in the centre of the picture. The background should also be quite noticeable to you. Other than the fields of irrigated crops that they are here to harvest there is not a lot of vegetation in this area. The migrant camp is located on a hill of non-arable land surrounded on three sides by hills and desert. There is no running water and most just walk to the edge of the camp to relieve themselves. Unfortunately, these migrants chose to live in these conditions because they retain a sense of community and independence.

We dropped Elia back off at her home and she liked our skit so much that she asked us to come to her house on Wednesday morning to do it again for the children's program that she has there four days per week.

San Quintin Day 3

Monday July 27 started out bright and early with a pile of lumber, some hammers, and a circular saw. We arrived around 9:00 and Vicky, the mother of the family we built the house for, was there to meet us along with a couple of the children. The boy in the picture is Jose and he was very helpful all week pounding nails and helping us build his house.

Things went quite quickly, visually speaking, the first day as we completed the framing and panelling of the outer walls and lifted them into position. The fellow in the blue shirt and cowboy hat on the far right at the back is Kit. He was the Stoney Creek employee who guided us in the building and ensured that all the boards were cut to the right length and put together to form a house and not a wood collage.

After we had the walls nailed up in position we called it a day and dropped by their church on the way home. This is the same church where BAC's 2008 team did ESL. Shaun was able to see the pastor again and show us the church where their team had held the ESL program. We made plans to return on Thursday evening for their praise and prayer night. We learned our first Spanish blessing: Dios les Bendiga which means "God Bless You." When we arrived back at the campground we realised that our harsh farmer's tans were actually just dirt! It is very dusty in the Baja and standing outside all day we became filthy.

San Quintin Day 2

On Sunday, July 26 we woke up refreshed and ready for orientation. Gord warned us about all the dangerous spiders and scorpions as well as filling us in on the events for the week. Mid morning we took a ride to the beach and had a hot dog BBQ lunch. Needless to say our team really enjoyed cooking and eating hotdogs! The water was quite cold and although the sun was quite hot it was windy. Thankfully we brought 60spf sunscreen to prevent any burns. After lunch we headed back to the campground where we were staying in tents. Half the campground is reserved for teams like ours while the other half is run as a campground and swimming pool for locals. The pool looked very inviting but we didn't have time for swimming.

Today's picture is of the church we went to after supper. They normally have headphones for English speakers but someone had stolen them all so they had a translator on stage, which was fortunate for us. After the church service we went to a local ice cream parlour and enjoyed some authentic American ice cream :).

San Quintin Day 1

On Saturday July 25 we started out early, leaving BAC at 3:00am for the drive down to the Bellingham airport. The border was quick and we arrived in Bellingham with plenty of time to spare. We took the short flight to Seattle and then waited about 1/2 an hour for the flight to San Diego. Alaska had overbooked the flight and were offering $200 vouchers for those willing to wait for the 9:00am flight. Not bad for those travelling alone or in pairs and willing to wait two hours. We arrived in San Diego shortly after 9:00 and received our bags quickly. San Diego's airport isn't large and is crowded. The line-up to get through security stretched 100m down the main cooridor of the airport. Brenda arrived after we had lunch and we met the other two groups and loaded up the bus for the ride south. We stopped at Costco to buy supplies and most of us had ice cream and headed to Walmart. We took the Tecate border crossing rather than Tijuana as it is safer and much quieter as well.

It was dark when we arrived in San Quintin because it gets dark quite early there (around 8:00) as it is much closer to the equator. We settled into our tents and were soon sleeping soundly after our looooooooooooooong day. The picture is us at the Bellingham airport. Joe and Andy drove us and we are very thankful for the willingness to wake up so early!

We're Back!!

Sorry we weren't able to provide you with daily updates from Mexico. We had a great trip and are safely back in Canada. It's late so our reflections on the trip will have to wait for a later time. We hope to see you at church in the morning and we can tell you some about it! :)