Rain In Hermosillo

Well, as I sit here to write another entry to the blog a couple things strike me as amazing!  First, it is hard to believe we only have three days left to serve here. Secondly, that it is only supposed to rain on about five days a year here ( we have been told), and it is presently raining quite steady and hard. I'm thanking The Lord it was not like this during our pizza supper about four hours ago!  It will be interesting to see how much of the dust it helps to settle over the city. Usually we can see a brownish fog over the city in the distance. So many dirt roads within the city and the dry environment cause this.

Today's team devotional was on submitting ourselves to God so that He is able to use us in His plan. We read a couple of passages, but Romans 12:1,2 was the one that stood out the most to me. Many of us know this scripture well but we don't do well applying it at home. Sure it may be easy to give my body as a living sacrifice here in Mexico, but what about at home?  One of the points of our devotional was that God cannot use me and carry out His will in my life if I don't allow Him to do it. I need to completely surrender to His will in all areas of my life if I want Him to complete His work using me. To not completely surrender doesn't mean God cannot carry out His plan (think of Esther). But it does mean I will miss out on the blessing He has for me when I let Him use me as He sees fit, rather than how I see fit!

Today at the 'home' we arrived to some excited kids!  It really struck me today how much joy is in this place. While waiting to get started working Jaelyn, Patrick, and I started up a game of soccer with the kids. It seems so easy with the kids to bridge the language barrier. We had a blast with them and they love to see us acting like kids. Several times during my day I would take a couple minutes out to go and skip rope with the kids. The amazement in their eyes as you do something unexpected with them is so worthwhile. Sure, we could come in there and build a roof over their heads and walk away feeling good about what was done and they would be thankful too!  But it seems so much more important to me to build those relationships as small as they may be. At several points during the day you could look around and see so much going on, but it pleases me to say that I could see all the team members going beyond the jobs we were there to do. Today, I saw Terrace playing with kids in the yard and bonding more with Barbara. I saw Jaelyn dishing out hugs and making kids laugh with fun rhymes and clapping hands. Dave having arm wrestling contests with boys. 'Patrick Star' having thumb fights with boys. Several ladies helping out in the kitchen. All of us encouraging Griselda to sing 'Jesus loves me' to us at lunch in English and singing along with her the first time. She is a sweet 13 year old girl with the biggest smile you have ever seen!

Probably the highlight of my day was after I was skipping rope with some girls and boys to have them point out Garry as the next skipping candidate. Without hesitation at all, Garry came over and gave it his best attempt in big work boats, to the amazement and laughs of the kids!  I'm pleased to say this white man can jump, and we have the picture to prove it!

As you may have noticed I have not even mentioned our work for the day yet. Well don't worry we did get a bunch accomplished between all this playing!  The ladies and girls did alot of painting and ran out of paint again today. Hopefully the paint will be there tomorrow for them to finish off the second coat in the dorm room as well as the hallway. It looks great!  The men mixed and hauled a lot of concrete, that was handed up to the Mexican team of construction workers to pour on the roof that we prepped yesterday. The 'baby room' now has a roof over it!  We have been having a good time with the crew

joking over our language barrier and making lots of hand gestures to communicate with our ten word vocabulary!  They seem to be enjoying us being around.  I'm sure we are the source of many jokes for them.  Tomorrow we are excited to be pouring a concrete floor in the living room.   The ladies will stay behind at the church I think and do some decorating for a tea tomorrow night.

After our work today we drove to downtown Hermosillo (Centro) for some market shopping and then the best pizza you have ever bought at a car wash for supper!  Ask us about that one!

Please continue to pray for unity amongst our group. It has been great so far!  If we seek to keep God's plan first it will stay strong. It was good to hear from Garry that Greg had mentioned to him while driving today that he is impressed with how great our team gets along!  We are not looking for man's praise but when hearing a comment like that we want to give the glory to God!  Thank you Lord for working amongst us here and uniting us to do Your will. Help us to finish strong and go home 'changed'!

Dwight