It is hard to imagine that two weeks ago today (right now even) we were preparing for landing and getting off the plane in Mexico City.  What an amazing couple of weeks, and it will take a few days/weeks for all of us to fully unpack what we saw, learned, and are becoming because of what God did with us and through us.

Thank you for your prayers and support along this journey.  They have meant more than words can express.

There is a song by the group MercyMe on their new album - The Generous Mr. Lovewell, that really speaks to what I think our team went through landing in Mexico City, and now back home in Edmonton.  The lyrics are:

Juan & Amanda Luna

Edgar & Noe

Edgar, Jaime, Juan - the 3 Amigos

Amanda sharing the Gospel

Noe - an amazing example of someone with a "servant heart"

Pastor Juan

Yolanda

Isaac & Vivis

Oscar & Luis

Jaime, Jose, Oscar, Jose's brother

Sara, Yvonne, Jose, Jaime

Kathrine, Lupita, Obed

Edgar

Sara

Guiereni

Our amazing cooks during construction!

Here we come. Last flight. See you soon.

Terry

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We just landed in Phoenix. It's raining - which makes 13 straight days with rain! :-)

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Waiting to board our flight in Mexico City.

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Saying adios to loved ones!

We are all here and getting ready to check-in. The goodbyes r yet to come.

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They are back from the first trip (60 minutes round trip - PTL) and the rest of us are now on our way to the airport.

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Pray for good traffic conditions please.

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Hard to believe but in 24 hours we'll be on the last leg of our trip home.  And I just had to say goodbye to Sara Becerra so I'm feeling pretty emotional.

The Roof on Tuesday afternoon

Wednesday morning pouring concrete

Moving cement the old fashioned way - 1 bucket at a time.

I wanted to write to you friends and families about some of the re-entry process and what it might be like for your family member coming home.  This is not an exhaustive list, and not ever person will feel all of these things, but I thought it might help you to know.

 - They will be incredibly tired.  This has been the busiest of the 3 trips Terry has taken the team on.  Some of that was due to knowing our hosts more and them wanting to give more to us by taking us places etc.  And some of it was due to the combination of VBS and construction.  Lots of sleep will probably be needed.

 - Because of the busy nature of these days, students haven't had much time to think over or "distill" some of the things they have learned and experienced.  This is probably the most important part of the trip, and it may come slowly.  Having them talk over what they saw, experienced, did, felt, learned, going through pictures with you, describing things will be helpful to them.  Encourage them to talk, journal, spend time thinking.

 - The team has been immersed in Mexican culture 24/7 for 12 days straight.  The only English they have heard is from their team members.  Canada/Edmonton will feel strange to them.  Re-entry into the culture they came from is often just as difficult as it was coming into this new culture.  This will take a patient process, for some it will come easier, for some it might be more difficult.

 - Saying goodbye to these people has been hard on the team. I wish we could have each one of you here with us so you could have a snapshot of the relationships and bonds they have built with the Nationals, and if you were here you'd have them too!   These people love deeply, freely and completely generously.  We have laughed so hard together, cried together and prayed together.  Ask them about people they've met and let them tell you stories.

 - Don't be surprised if you hear dis-satisfaction from the team for they way we live as Canadians.  Please do not take this personally.  They've seen a lot and it's changed their perspective.  Each of them needs to find new ways to take their experience and learn from it and live it out in Edmonton.  Things like how much we waste, how much we have.  They've seen humble circumstances and have seen how amazing these people are and how they live despite what they "don't have".  It's likely impacted them.

 - They've developed a very rare yet precious closeness to the mission team. They "get" each other because of their shared experiences.  It will be important that they continue this bond and spend time talking to each other and getting together over the next days and weeks.  They will need each other.

 - And another point fitting with this, we've lived in VERY close quarters for these 12 days.  There were very few moments that the team wasn't sleeping right beside a team member, sitting on a lap or very close in a car (whoa man Traffic and driving is so different here!).  We've shared supplies, food, blankets, snacks, etc.  At first it was a bit hard, but now that's completely normal for them.  So, they might be a little lonely without someone beside them all the time.

 - Some of the kids have some anxiety about coming home.  Not because they don't love you :)  But purely because they've made some changes in their life, or want to, and God has taught them some things that they're wanting to live out at home, but don't know how.  They might be nervous about it, afraid they'll fall back into old patterns.  This could be something you might ask them about.

 - Their clothes will be SO dirty, and because of the amount of rain over extended periods of time, and the lingering humidity some things won't have dried out, so laundry right away will be really good.

 - They haven't had much time to read the blog while we were gone, so they might want to spend time reading at home.

 - They can call us if they need us.  We're in Edmonton for at least a week before we leave on vacation.   We're available!

Christine

Hi Everyone,

Well, I your authoress have now contracted this team cold that has been going around.  Very honestly I'm feeling pretty sick and depleted.  But I just wanted to write a few things about today.

Dave is doing better.  Lupita has a friend who works in a close-by clinic where they took him to get his Tetanus shot this morning, and just to be on the safe side he saw a Doctor too, and got some antibiotics.  I am amazed that in both times we've had to go to see Doctors here in Mexico they haven't charged us.  His foot is still quite sore so we've put him on "partial duty".

We had a beautiful sunny day!  Our first full-day of sun since the beginning of the trip.  It was perfect for doing construction.  The rain did come back though, but not until we were back at the Becerra's home.

Today was a day where we hauled up 3 yards of sand, 3 yards of rocks, and 36 50KG bags of cement mix (we have 24 more to go) up on the roof for laying concrete hopefully tomorrow.  The team and Nationals and leaders rigged up 2 pulley systems to the top of the church and then worked together to fill buckets or haul up the bags to then arrange them on the roof where they will be needed.  This is heavy heavy work, using lots of muscles!  Terry loved every minute of it! And got to show that he's still strong as an ox.  (LOL!).  They call him Chief in his red hard hat.  :)

Jesse was a huge blessing these past few days.  He commented earlier in the trip that from his perspective he hadn't quite found his place yet where he could serve most effectively on the trip.  Well, Jesse is an electrical engineer and Pastor Jaime had him develop a plan for the electricity in the new area and write/draw it all down and convey it to Edgar and the rest of the nationals.  They either today or tomorrow will/or have run conduit, pulled wires etc to prepare for electricity.  How cool is that?  Such a beautiful thing of God to allow Jesse to come and do something he knows how to do that would make such a difference for them.

We laid a second layer of re-bar and many students did all the tying down of each section.  The Nationals showed them the proper way to do it and were really pleased with the work.  It was neat for Drew as he is interested in architecture and got to see things from another perspective here.  He worked so hard today!  Actually all our students did.  I'm so very proud of them.

Tonight at 5 pm, we invited families in the community to come to the church for a Spanish version of a Veggie Tales video that we had brought along.  It was fun, the team purchased snacks and juice for the families too.  Most of them have never heard of Veggie Tales.

Truly our team got filthy today!  And I know they will be very tired, we bought take out pizza for them tonight and gave them their favourite chocolate bars from home for dessert that we had brought along (thank you Evelyn!).

Tomorrow is going to be a very early morning (5am departure from the house), the Nationals want us to get as much as possible done as it is our last day here before we leave on Thursday afternoon.  Please pray for the kids.  I know their energy is down and it's the last big push before we go.  We've really made a big difference here in this project.

Please pray for Erin and I, and it looks like Ethan as well.  We're the ones currently in the beginning stages (I call them the yucky stages) of this cold.  It's the sneezing, coughing, stuffed up, achy stage.  Erin took a break and rested this afternoon, and I really did not do much today either.  I'm in that "I don't want to feel crabby but do feel crabby stage right now!  So frustrating!)

Pray for the students ....the re-entry is on their minds and we're trying to prepare them a little for it.  It's a big challenge to sort though all they've learned and experienced, and then try and determine what has changed it them, and what they want to live out as they come back.  And it's going to be hard for them to articulate it all to all of you.

Pray for Edgar, our friend here in Mexico City.  Today while working he pulled something in his arm and it is causing him some pain and a lack of mobility.

Praise for safety, outside of Dave's injury and some minor cuts and scrapes no one has been injured.  Please pray for continued safety for the team.

Alright friends, time for me to take my medicine and go to sleep.

Love to all of you!

Christine

Hi from a team that has been very busy today.  We did construction work at Monte Sion till late this evening.  The church is adding on a second story to the church which will add an additional 6 rooms upstairs.  If you're building in Mexico - you're building UP, there's no where else to go!  In fact if you look around at almost any building in Mexico City you will see re-bar sticking up through the top level of the concrete.  This is so if they add to the current building any time in the future, they can tie the levels together with the re-bar.

Buenos Noches Everyone!

It is very late so I know this post will need to be shorter, but also that these will be days that you'll need to ask your family member/friend about as they've been so full with really important and great events/happenings.

Yesterday was our day off, and we headed out on a bus we rented to go to the Pyramids.  Teotiquican (that spelling may be wrong) is a Unesco World Heritage site.  There are several pyramids there but the two main ones are the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon.  These were built but the Aztecs in 100 - 650 AD.  They are really amazing.  We were able to climb the Pyramid of the Sun.  It is so much higher than expected and the climb didn't take long but was harder than I expected too.  But Oh the VIEW!  From the top of the pyramid you can see a 360 degree view of the area of Mexico City.  So impressive.  It was raining again (now we realize what the rainy season looks like).  We were also able to tour the shops on the site, and then Edgar took us to an area where they manufacture natural materials into piece of art to sell, plus a silver shop.  Mexico is known for it's silver as you may already know.  He also showed us fascinating things about the Agava plant (what we would know on a much smaller scale in Canada as the Aloe Vera plant).  These plants are massive and can give you so many useful materials from the plant.

Later the bus took us to Yvonne and Jose's home for supper and a Mexican birthday party.  Yvonne was one of the translators on the 1st trip to Mexico for the team 4 years ago.  It was an absolute delight to be in their home.  We had a special party soup called Posolae (that's just phonetic spelling there).  Wow it was fantastic.  Highlights of the night, seeing Hayley drink Coca-cola, Charades with Jesse, Singing songs (the Mexican and Canadian versions of Happy Birthday, and a Mexican goodbye song).  These are truly hospitable people.

I have seen many conversations between the team take on some really fantastic spiritual discussions about God, about faith, about what the Bible says.  It's such a rich environment.  It feels so much like what I believe the early church must have felt like.  They are learning from each other and asking questions and wanting to grow deeper.   I love seeing that kind of hunger.

Today was church, and we worshipped in English and Spanish, Pastor Juan preached, we prayed over some in the congregation and some of our team that have been sick, Terry was privelaged to baptize 5 people from teenage years to grandma ages, and we shared a wonderful meal together again.

Later in the afternoon we went to Xochimilko (again phonetic not proper spelling) to go to the Hanging Gardens, they are canal boat rides where you are pushed along the canal by a driver with a 12 foot stick who propells you down the canal, there are mariachi singers/ bands, people selling you flowers or snacks down the way in smaller boats, and it's really fun.  There also was a market there where some of the team bought some thing.

Then we went to Terry's very favourite place in the world to eat.  Amanda Luna and Sara Beccera's cousin owns a taco restaurant and we had supper there with some of the Mexicans.  What a fun time.  Alex broke the record with 12 tacos, Terry 10 and many of the other team had many too.  They really are outstanding!

Alright it's super late.  Tomorrow we hope to do some construction/clean up at the church.  We are unsure about the Soccer camp.  If it continues to rain it may not work, but we trust God to show us what to do in it's place.

Blessings!

Christine

Hey everyone back at home. It has definitely been an awesome journey so far, and it has been a huge blessing to be able to be here with the team. I’m so looking forward to whatever God has in store for us for the rest of the week. It’s so cool for me to see the work that God has been doing through the team and I’ve never been so proud of these students.