We're Here!

Thursday, February 19, 2009

We’re in Ensenada, and we love it! Thank you for your prayers. God has provided us with wonderful hosts, wonderful weather, and a wonderful mission. Today we woke up early [most of us woke up several times throughout the night – the normal thing to happen when dealing with a time change and new surroundings] and had a delicious breakfast of pancakes, sausage, cereal, yogurt and fruit. Then it was off to a Homes of Hope orientation meeting. It was fun to hear the story behind the Homes of Hope projects. YWAM will build over 200 homes this year for needy families in Ensenada, Tijuana, and Tecate, Mexico. When we completed orientation, each team member was given a tool belt and a Homes of Hope t-shirt, and then it was off to our construction site. As you can see in a prior post, we are building a home for the Gaynor Lopez family. They are a sweet family with five children all living in a tiny home. As best as we can tell the Lopez family all sleep in the same room. They have a stove with two burners that work and an oven that doesn’t. The family does have a refrigerator and a table, but there is very little food in the home. We were told that this family could desperately use some food. So, we are going to take up a collection from the team and try to purchase them some food. We’re also going to try to get them a second bunk bed. The package that we purchased for the family includes a furniture set. That means that we will give them a new working stove, a bunk bed, a table, and some more items. I’m excited to see the difference that these items will make in this family’s life.
We got to work on the home as soon as we got to the site. By the end of the day, all four walls were up. We are going to add one more room to the inside of the home tomorrow, bringing it to a total of three rooms. We had a painting team that painted the entire exterior of the home today. They also painted all the trusses that the truss team built. There was also a team in charge of framing the home. After a long day of work on the home, our children’s team made balloon animals, played parachute games, put on a puppet show and sang, and then Lauren Kimball shared her testimony with the kids. The kids loved the beach balls, books, evangelistic bracelets and balloon animals that were given to them.
We’ll have team time after dinner tonight and then a good number of us will head to the street Taco stands of Ensenada for some of the best tacos in the world.
Thanks for your prayers. We were not able to go to the orphanage today. We may get to do that on this trip, but it may not work out. We’ll visit the home that we built last year tomorrow afternoon. Everyone on our team is in great spirits. Some are a little sore tonight, but everyone is feeling healthy. Please keep us in prayer over the next two days as we continue work on the house. We’ll begin putting the interior of the home up tomorrow, as well as the roof. I’ll have several people post their experiences and post pictures from earlier today in a few hours.