Mexico

Saturday we went to Mexico.

Man does God work in mysterious ways... it's amazing to me how He blesses us in the most unexpected ways. I have been going through a really difficult time in my personal life. I've had a lot of high highs and a lot of low lows these last couple of weeks, and Saturday I woke up really struggling. But I was committed to going to Mexico and I knew they needed my car. So I dragged myself out of bed and headed to the church as the sun was coming up (well not really, but it sure seemed early!) and tried to plaster a smile on my face.

Here's the thing... God has this way of bringing joy when you ask for it. That has been my prayer for so long... for joy even through the trials and hurts... and on Saturday, God brought me incredible joy.

When we got to Mexico, we got out of the cars and started talking to the kids and families that were there. It turns out that this is a place the Spanish ministry has been going for quite some time, and they have known the kids since some of them were tiny! We spent most of the day there with the kids, playing and talking...

Well everyone else was talking... I was trying... and the kids were so good about speaking slowly so I could figure out what they were saying... they were even trying to teach me more Spanish... and some of them wanted to learn some English words too!

We took some of the kids with us to the next place we went and they helped us hand things out to other families. It was so cool to see people we'd helped helping other people! Then we took them to eat tacos! The kids were so much fun!

I want to share some pictures... more than I usually post on a blog entry, but I just think that this is such a cool opportunity. Plus, two of the older girls that went with us are the ones that took most of the pictures. They were so excited to get to play with my camera and I love that the pictures are taken through their eyes!

So here are quite a few pictures from our latest trip to Mexico :)

Carla, Me and Jasmin... these are the two girls that took almost all of the pictures.
Me and some of the girls... and Moses (one of our teens)
Pastor Gabriel and two of the little boys
Me and Javier (for those of you who have asked who he is)
Some of the boys goofing around
Javier playing around with one of the boys (who then tried to do the same thing to Javi...) Dont worry, no one was hurt in the making of this photo :)
Carla and "Mango" with their POP! :)
Praying over the food... yummie tacos!
Me and "Mango"... such a great kid! I wanted to bring him home with us!
Me, Javier and Jasmin... the kids all wanted to take pictures with us
Me and Pastor Gabriel giving out toys
Javier and Pastor Gabriel with some of the kids that they've known since they were tiny!
Me and a couple of the girls who asked to take a picture with me :)
Writing on soccer balls (they all wanted us to write our names)
Me and a guy that spoke a tiny bit of English and wanted me in the picture with him.
Me and a few of the boys... they're so cool!