First 24 hours

It is hard to believe we have been in Mexico for only 24 hours!  We arrived safe and sound in Primo Tapia last night at about 10:30pm to a wonderful Mexican feast.  We met Christina, our host, and saw our beloved cook Rosa who happens to live right next door. 

After our late dinner, we went to work preparing our gifts for the kids at CDL.  Thanks to Rainbow Embroidery for their amazing help in embroidering each child’s name on a new beach towel.  What a special gift to give each child.  My prayer for each child in giving them their personalized towel was that they would know that Jesus knows their name.  He knows them personally and deeply and cares for every detail of their lives. 

After a late night, we were up early to the sounds of roosters and dogs in our new neighbourhood in the heart of Primo Tapia.  We got ready and headed to Casa De Luz to meet the children we’d be paired up with for the day.  We each were buddied up with one to three kids for our field trip to Las Canadas – a huge water park and camping resort.  The older children got to enjoy the pool, paddle boat rides and the toboggan waterslide and the little ones played at an amazing waterpark complete with spraying water and an assortment of slides. 

It was such a fun day…. A little chaotic at first as us white kids tried to care for Spanish speaking children…. But once we got to know our child(ren) and what they liked and wanted to do, we had a lot of fun with them.  I enjoyed watching my daughter, Abbi, interact with her partner Karol, who is also 5 years old.  Again proves that you don’t need to have the same language to have fun as they giggled and sang and played on the bus ride and splashed in the pool together. 

I thoroughly enjoyed

bonding with Karol as did the rest of the team with their children.  It was a great way to start our week here and gain their trust and build new relationships. 

Tomorrow will be another fun day as the guys head out to play soccer – it’s quite the match-up with lots of trash-talking…should be exciting to see how things turn out – will the Mexicans win again or will Canada prevail?

We will also be hosting a health and nutrition workshop for the CDL moms and La Hermosa families.  It will include some health talks from our nurses on the team, healthy food demos and Zumba/fitness class.  Then we’ll be off to prep for the rest of the week’s activities. 

Please pray for Christina, our Korean host, as she has been having knee problems and would really like to be able to participate in as much of our programs and events as possible.  We’re excited to walk with her and share our hearts and stories with her in ministry.