Every Wednesday at 2pm we go out to visit the girls at the La Esperanza Rehab (on the way to the shipwreck in San Jacinto) and bring them a delicious dessert. In the beginning, this used to be an outreach that I would merely tag along on. No more, no less. I felt no particular use or purpose being there since I didn’t know enough Spanish to understand very much of the lesson that was given by our helper Maritoña and I was too intimidated by the ladies in the rehab to try and practice the few words I knew with them. As time went on though, I began to understand more and more and started to make more eye contact and smile at the ladies even if I was still too uncomfortable to talk to them. It’s almost weird for me to remember these feelings as now I have come to feel so comfortable with most of them that we have decided to be “pen pals” (well, through facebook, at least) after they get out. Granted, this is partly due to the fact that a majority of the women right now are bilingual (many coming from California – Vista, Oceanside, Riverside, etc., Las Vegas, and other places in the states) and also very young, many are in their teens still. One girl in particular has caught my heart, she is SO incredibly sweet and pretty and so nervous about leaving the rehab because she doesn’t want to “mess up” again. The women don’t have much spiritual or life direction in this particular rehab….it’s become more of a “drying out” home where they get clean for 3 months and then are flung back into the world. SCARY. I’m excited to keep in contact with these girls after they leave though and check up on them. Between La Esperanza and the Mission Church, Wednesdays have become one of my favorite days of the week that I look very much forward too every week.
Parent Visit Weekend
Two weekends ago, I was blessed to have not only my mom and Norm come down and visit me (which I knew about ahead of time and which is not uncommon for them), but less than an hour after they left my dad and Karen showed up! It was such a blessing and at the most perfect time. The week before this, these thoughts had been looming in my mind, “What if I’m not supposed to be here forever? What would I do back home if I decided it would be best to move back soon? Should I be ‘getting on with my life’ or is this my life?” But those thoughts just ended up making me really sad. I tried to imagine saying goodbye to the church at La Gloria and I 
La Gloria Baptisms
Summer's Almost Gone!
Then once again, I returned to Mexico. As groups came and went this summer it was fun getting to know them as usual :] One group in particular that I really grew fond of was Vickie Millhouse’s group from Washington. They came down to do a Vacation Bible School at my favorite outreach church, La Gloria. I went with them all week and honestly I think I had more fun than some of the kids did. We had 100+ kids almost every day! (If you know how tiny that church is, you’ll know to be even more impressed). We had our EFF school bus drive around the surrounding neighborhoods to pick up the kids. The group sang songs with them, taught them lessons, played games with them, did crafts with them, and gave them snacks. It was so fun :]
The grand finale to that week was my BIRTHDAY! The group had already planned to bring a pi
This past weekend, I went (yet again!) up to the states, but this time for a wedding. My friend, Danielle Pearson, who I met in Mexico, moved up to northern California about a year ago and announced to us this spring that she was getting married! WOOHOO! So, Hannah Koppers, Tani Manzano, and I drove up to Chico (about 2 hours above Sacramento) to be with our amazing friend on this wonderful day. On the way up we stopped in Auberry for a night to visit Arjuna and Kesh. We continued on to Lodi to visit the Manzanos’ grandparents and where Hope Manzano met up with us after driving out from Reno and joined the roadtrip. We made it to Chico by Thursday evening, treated ourselves with some Olive Garden, met up with Danielle, and headed to our accommodations (David’s grandpa’s cabin in Paradise). Thanks David! It was such an enjoyable weekend of many laughs, meeting new friends like Jen Buckner, and bonding moments with some of the greatest people. By Sunday morning it was time to pack up, drop Jen Buckner off in Sacramento, and head back to Mexico. 
Returning to EFF
Praise the Lord for giving me amazing friends though. Dawn and Andrew (Anthonie's parents) have allowed me to take time off to move and my friends Gabby (Rydmark) and Hannah have offered to come over tomorrow and help with the actual packing and moving and unpacking of my things. This is also great because Gabby has a pick-up truck that will come much in handy with the moving (even though I'm just moving across the road).
God has also blessed me so much with the encouragement and love that people (friends and acquaintances) keep pouring onto me through facebook messages, emails, text messages, phone calls, visits, and just hanging out with me. Thank you so much to all of you who have been encouraging and strengthening me through your words to me and your prayers.
No better way to go…
As many of you may know, Erma, the woman that I had be living and working with over the past year and a quarter, passed away. Here’s the email I sent out from her office account the morning of her passing.
“It is with great sadness, but inexplicable peace, that I report to all of you that this Easter morning around 8AM, Erma went to be with the Lord. She was walking up to the early morning Easter Service for the Mission Church and other surrounding churches at the top of a hill in Valle Tranquilo. On the way up, she had a heart attack and was not able to be resuscitated by the doctor, Pastor Avitia. As we kept saying, what better way and time for her to go than serving the Lord on the day we celebrate His resurrection and life. Please keep her family and friends and all the people that she has touched down here with her life in your prayers. What a great example she has been to all of us, serving the Lord to her dying day. I can hardly believe it’s true.”
Even though I had moved out from the foundation, I still saw Erma at least once a week either at the Mission Church or at our friend Hector’s church. For Easter, Erma had offered to let Hector’s church use her bus to transport the congregation to Valle Tranquilo for the sunrise service. I picked up my friend Carmen and met them down at the church. As I loaded the bus, I saw Erma and greeted her with a smile and a handshake (she was sitting or else we would have hugged). She seemed very happy that morning. I remember that morning before I got there, I had kept praying that things would not be awkward between us. God answered my prayer. Anyways, once we arrived at Valle Tranquilo, I hurried up the mountain with some of the kids. About 15 minutes later, I saw some unusual commotion with Victor, Hector, Pastor Avitia, and some other people. I wondered what was going on, but was not too concerned. Then Victor came over to me and in his broken English said, “Erma is dying.” The way he said it, I thought I had misunderstood him. I said, “What?” “Erma is dying,” he answered. But how could that be? I had JUST seen her 15 minutes earlier and she was completely fine! “Wait, what??” I tried to clarify. “Erma is dying. We need to go.” When I saw the looks on some of the faces around me, I realized it was true. The next thing I know one of the women came over to me and hugged me and was saying, “Se murio, se murio,” “She died, she died.” I was unsure if she was dying or had already died, so I went over to where I saw some people (including Victor) loading into Hector’s van to drive down the hill. They had confirmed that she had died. I asked if there was anything I could do to help and they asked if I wanted to come with them. So I jumped in the van as well. As we headed down the hill and off the the mortuary where they had already driven Erma’s body, Victor said one thing I could do to help would be to go back to Erma’s house and start making calls to tell her family and then send out an email to all her contacts to inform them of what happened. WOW. Me?? Call her children and let them know that their mother has died?? It was really weird though, I kept feeling like I should be nervous, I should be trying to get out of that hefty responsibility, I should be trying to run away from this, but no. God gave me an inexplicable peace and strength to suck it up and do it.
We arrived at the mortuary where my friend, Carmen, was sitting next to Erma’s body in the car in which she was driven to the mortuary. I went over to comfort Carmen and hold her hand as she held Erma’s hand. This part was a little scary for me. I had never seen a dead person before, let alone someone I knew, but I knew I had to be there for Carmen. We just stayed there for about a half an hour crying, holding hands, and talking about how this was the perfect day and perfect way for her to go. A little while later, it was decided that there was nothing else Carmen and I could do there to help, so we headed back to Erma’s to start making calls. I was having a difficult time getting a hold of anyone since it was Easter Sunday morning. I finally got ahold of Michael, Erma’s grandson whom I’ve met, and told him the news. He couldn’t believe it and even thought I was joking. It was really sad, but I’m glad it was Michael, someone I knew, that I got to tell. From there, he said that he would get ahold of his mom, Judy, and they would tell the rest of the family. After all the family had been informed, I sent out the above message to the rest of Erma’s email contacts. It was a long day, but Carmen stayed by my side all day and God gave me the strength and peace to get through it and to do what I need to and could do to help.
The following day, my wonderful friend, Hannah, volunteered to drive up to the states with me to go pick up Judy, Paul, Michael, and his fiancé, Renee. On the way up, we found ou
The following day was the other funeral service which was followed by the ca
She was a wonderful woman who had done wonderful things for the Lord. She touched a lot of lives. This has been very evident this past week.
Praise the Lord! May this glorify His name.
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!
Well, as many of you may already know, these past two weeks have brought many changes to my life here in Mexico. It all started when God told me it was time to take a break from the Erma Fennell Foundation. I’m not sure if this is just for a time or if it has been permanent, but I have indeed moved out of my lovely little house at Erma’s as of Tuesday, March 29th. The Lord has blessed me, though, by there being no hard feelings between Erma and me, by giving me another place to live (Welcome Home Ministry, just across the main road from Erma’s) while I finish out the school year with Anthonie and figure out what God has next for me, and by giving me more free time with which to study up on different ways to make school less laborious for Ant. I’ve attached some pictures of the little house to which I so dolefully bid farewell.
Lore and Melissa came by to visit me on my last night in the casita.
This is what the house looked like before I had turned it into a home.
This was the last puzzle we had done in the house. My friends and I got pretty into puzzling. I liked having it set up at my house because I would sneak and do some while everybody was away.
Goodbye, house. You’ve been so good to me and my friends. We will miss you so.
I absolutely LOADED my car down with all my stuff, just to take it across the road over to Meghan’s house (my new house at Welcome Home). Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I’m now living in a house with my friend Meghan and Welcome Home’s new month-long intern, Kalene.
See, no hard feelings 
My new digs in the “Big House” at Welcome Home.
I’m still unpacking/ rearranging.
Big News #2: Anthonie Bernardi (my student) and his parents are moving back to Canada at the end of this summer. I’m sad they will be gone, but I’m also really excited for Anthonie. It will be SO good for him to be in a class with other children he can challenge himself with, play with, compete with, learn with, and grow with. I believe God can do great things in his life through this. I will continue to pray for him as he is gone and if you happen to think of him throughout the day, please pray for him and his family as well.