Farewell Mexico

I have to say that today I am very tired after our full day of travel. I think I'm more tired today than I was after our heaviest day of labor. There is something about driving that can be exhausting, but I'm thankful to the Lord for giving us a safe trip and no issues while crossing the border. My Mexico driving experience was fun but today was a long day of driving. It was nice to see the landscape of Mexico as we drove back to Tucson today. Because of our shuttle breakdown on the way down we were not able to see how beautiful the desert landscape can be!

Let me back up a bit to the beginning of the day. Today we started our day with a 'debriefing meeting'.  This was an awesome time to offer our thanks to Greg and Shelly for the way in which we were treated by them and their team of Ed and Terry, Jack and Lucy, and Cornelius and Yolanda!  They were such a blessing to us all!  We really cannot say enough about the fullness of the experience they brought to our trip.  The number one thing that I would say about them all is that their love of The Lord shines through in the way they love the people of Mexico and even loving an unknown missions team from Saskatchewan. 

During our debriefing Greg also offered a lot of valuable thoughts on how to walk through these next days, now that the trip will be over. He has such wisdom to offer and challenged us to be thoughtful in our approach to sharing about our trip. We don't want everyone we talk to thinking that all our trip was about was some building projects and spending time with orphans. We need to be ready to share how God has changed us through our experiences and observations while there. I think we all have so much to process right now!  It has been a very full experience!  

After our meeting we waited for the church van to return with a new tire so we could be safer for our trip. A big bulge in the tire was discover the day before when it went in for some brake work. Thank you Lord for looking out for us!  Once the van arrived we said our good-byes to everyone at the church except Shelly and a missionary friend who were coming with us to Tucson. This way we could use the church van and would not need the shuttle. Plus Shelly could come and get some shopping for Christmas done!  It worked out well to have them along for their border crossing experience, although that just complicated things having people from various places in the van. 

I realize I had mentioned I would add a few more stories about the kids and people we have met. I had hoped to do that today but we got in a little later because of having to wait about two hours in line ups at the border.  I will try to do that in the next day or two.  

We want to thank you all so much for your prayers and suppprt that made this trip possible. It was a huge team effort including many people at home. Please pray for our team as we travel the rest of the way home tomorrow.  If all goes well we should be arriving in Regina at 3:45 pm. Also, please pray that as we adjust to life at home that Satan would not have any power to discourage us. I believe he would love nothing more than to throw some conflicts our way to attempt to discourage us and keep us from being changed by this trip. One last request is to continue to pray for Emily Rohde who just had her neck surgery!  Harry and Donelda stayed behind to be with her during this time. We are thankful for the successful surgery and that it took place on the scheduled date. Now we want to keep praying that God would encourage her and help her to heal quickly. 

God bless,

Dwight/Pedro