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! :)

Connections issue 2

10 Hours to Go!

It's almost time to leave. We are meeting at BAC at 3:00am and driving down to Bellingham for our 5:40am flight to Seattle and then on to San Diego. How many of you will be here to see us off? LOL. Here's a list of things we are doing over the next week so you can pray for us. We will also be distributing a newsletter at church on Sunday.

July 25 — Travel to San Quintín, Mexico.
July 26 — Orientation and attend Church service.
July 27 — Begin building house and VBS program.
July 28 — Shop for house family; Continue with building and VBS program.
July 29 — Continue with building and VBS program; Church in the evening.
July 30 — Continue; Migrant camp visit and VBS program.
July 31 — Finish building and Celebration party.
Aug 1 — Return to Burnaby.

Four days and counting!

It was a busy week and weekend with another BBQ, buying supplies for the children in Mexico, and getting ready to go.

On Sunday the team was called up on the platform and prayed over by Pastor Tim and the English elders. The church has really blessed us and we are so happy to see God work in people's hearts as they get excited about being a part of the Mexico STM without even leaving Burnaby!

Tonight at prayer meeting we will be emphasising the trip and handing out the first copies of the second issue of our newsletter. Be sure to come out and pick one up! I will post it here in a couple of days.