Sundry Update

FUNDRAISING – A couple weeks ago, Pastor Hector called a meeting about this confraternidad that will be taking place at our little outreach church, La Gloria, at the end of November.  This is where we’ve been building the new church building (which will be finished by then).  Hector had a great idea that he wants to do a special foot washing ceremony at the conference, but that would require getting water pitchers, large basins, towels, etc.  We also will need to have more seating (the benches that are in the old building right now will not even be enough to fill half of the new building), plus provide food for everyone who comes.  Now, the people in our congregation are very, very poor and can barely afford to feed and clothe themselves and their families, let alone this big conference.  So we decided to brainstorm.  I asked about doing a fundraiser, maybe a bake sale or something is what I was thinking.  So we decided to start off by seeing how well bags of cookies sold.  I baked 2 batches of cookies and Judy pitched in some muffins and Rice Krispy treats to start.  We sold them 10 pesos (about $1) a bag for either 4 Rice Krispy treats, 3 cookies, or 2 muffins.  They sold like crazy!  I also decided to see if I could help fundraise by making some fabric flowers to sell for 25 pesos each (about $2.50).  After baking a couple rounds of cookies (whom Andres, Rocio, Hermenia, and myself have helped sell), we’ve had quite the success.  We’ve just past 800 pesos (about $80) without breaking a sweat.  We wanted to raise 1000 pesos before we tell Pastor Hector about our success and hand over the funds.

This is Arnulfo.  He goes to La Gloria as well.  This past year, he’s given his life over to the Lord, started coming to our church, and been baptized (you can see his picture in the post below about baptisms).  He’s in a wheelchair because he was a victim of some sort of crime in Florida a few years ago.  Since he’s become a Christian, his life has changed dramatically.  He’s become a wonderful, loving father and we’re hoping to make him a deacon in the church soon.  He and his family are some of the dearest to me among that congregation.  They are faithful and hard working.  It’s been difficult for him to find work though to provide for his family.  We’ve been brainstorming with him things he could do, Carmen even taught him how to crochet!    But that didn’t really catch on, so he put his hand to carpentry, which he turns out to be really, pretty good at!  He’s been making these beautiful signs and puts hooks at the bottom of them so they can be key rings or just beautiful wall decorations.  He’s selling them for 100 pesos each or $10.  Let me know if you want one and I can bring it up the next time I come up.

On Friday I was blessed with the opportunity to go with another kid, Jesus (from Las Aves), to pick out school clothes and supplies.  A group from Canada met him a year ago when they built a house for his neighbor and have committed to supporting his schooling last year and this year.  It really is fun to get to do school shopping again, especially when it’s not your money! 

Another fundraising idea I had (but this time to raise money to get little tables and chairs for the kids classrooms, paint for the walls, a whiteboard, markers, maybe a cabinet for supplies, etc.), was to get the kids involved!  I wanted them to help earn money and put work into making their classrooms their own.  So I decided to have them create bookmarks.  If anyone would like to donate money towards their classrooms, we’ll send (or hand) you a bookmark as a thank you and to remind you to pray for the children.  I had each kid color the front and back of the bookmark and then write on it “Pueden orar por mi por favor.  Please pray for me.” and then sign it.  Also each bookmark is complete with a beautiful picture of the child (compliments of my sister, Elissa, who came to visit me 2 weekends ago).  Next time I go home, I’m going to get them laminated and then they’ll be ready.  If you are interested in donating (any amount will help, even $1), please shoot me an email at christina.j.harris@gmail.com and I’ll be sure to set one aside especially for you!

Lastly, I’ve been redecorating my house!  Enough of this old lady stuff.  It’s time for my house to look like someone young lives in it!  So I’ve been spray painting and sewing up a storm these last couple weeks and look what I’ve done so far!

You’ll have to come over to get the real feel of it and to see all the other little things I’ve done and changed.  But yeah, the really cool thing about all this is that I’ve probably not even spent $20 redecorating.  THANK YOU GLOBOS!!  Also a few things are compliments of the clothing room (i.e. I sewed the curtains out of old burlap curtains that were too short and an old, stained bed sheet that I cut up, another set of curtains were really dirty and stained, but I just scrubbed and washed them and now their as good as new!).  So come visit me and see for yourself! 

Laughing, laughing, laughing, all the way home :]

Tonight on the way home from outreach at La Gloria, Andres was teaching me how to say things in Mixteco.  That’s a dialect here in Mexico that many of the older people who have migrated here from mainland Mexico speak.  It sounds very Asian with it’s breathy, pushy fluctuation of intonations.  Anyways, there are a number of abuelitos (grandmas and grandpas) in our little church that only speak Mixteco, so it’s a real blessing to have Andres as co-pastor so that he can communicate with them.  I asked him to teach me how to say “Dios le bendiga (God bless you)” tonight on the way home and we were just laughing and laughing as it’s difficult to get the right intonation (or else you might be saying a completely different word).  Unfortunately, I’ve already forgotten how to say it, but he said he’d keep reminding me and testing me on it. 

The Grand Opening of the Daisy Mae Daycare Center!

The Daisy Mae Guardaria (Daycare Center) was built in San Telmo (where we have our Thursday outreach) by a group from Canada over 2 years ago (I believe it was the summer before I moved here).  Anyways, it has been a long hard struggle to get this place cleared by the government and up and running (lots of work these days after another daycare center was not up to code and burned down with children trapped inside).  It has been one lawyer fee after another for over two years as we have done everything the legal way to make sure everything would be safe for the kids. 
Pastor Santos’ wife, Sara (pictured), has agreed to be the director of the guardaria and has brought on one other helper named Leti who will be doing most of the cooking (daily breakfast and lunch) and cleaning while Sara will be doing more of the teaching.  So far, eight children have been signed up for this daycare program (allowing space for only two more).  This should be such a great blessing to the entire families of these children as it will allow parents to go to work in the fields (which usually both have to do in order for families to survive) and the older siblings to be able to go to school (it’s not rare to find that a few kids in each family may be pulled out of school to stay home and raise the babies themselves).  Praise the Lord for this blessing!  Pastor Santos and Sara are praying that this (and the principles that are being taught to these children in the daycare) will be a witness to some of the non-Christian parents of the students.
It brought so much happiness to my heart today to be able to visit the kids (along with Judy, Paul, Victor, Saul and Amber and their two kids, Kaden and Brielle) on their first day at the guardaria.  We had a little dedication prayer with the children and then played for a bit with them.  It was so fun, those little kiddos are so cute!  I wish I had more pictures to share with you, but my camera battery died.

Quick Catch-up

So, I meant to update this more often with shorter posts, but I just really have not had the time.  I’ll try to quickly catch you up on my last few weeks of events and news.

First of all, I’ve been blessed with the opportunity (through support from the ministry) to help outfit some kids with school uniforms and school supplies so that they can go to school.  Even though it is “free” for children to go to school here, they are required to arrive clean, well groomed, and in a uniform (which are not exactly cheap, $30 for a sweater is a lot when most people don’t even make $30 in a day).

 

Another thing that’s happened in the last few weeks is that I’m learning how to drive stick shift on this bad boy.  I’ve only had one lesson so far, but Judy and Paul said I could use it to keep practicing.  I’ve always wanted to learn and finally I’m getting the opportunity!  It’s really fun actually   I like it.

 

 

My neighbor (and one of our staff), Yolanda (pictured), and our other neighbor Myra convinced me that everyone was going to be dressing up for this big party (the Noche Mexicana) at the orphanage down the street (Foundation for His Ministry) a few weeks ago and they gave me this outfit to wear.  Well, when we all got together that night to walk over to it, THEY weren’t dressed up!  They came up with all kinds of excuses, but I think they just wanted to use me as a doll that they could play “dress-up” with.  Haha.  It was really fun though.  Pretty much everyone from the orphanage and our church come to this event every year on the night before their independence day.  They have a stage set up where Mexico is celebrated through traditional song and dance.  Then after all that, there are booths set up all around with the incredible homemade FOOD!  When you arrive you are given three tickets, two for food, and one for a drink.  Once the performances are over, everyone just bumps around, mingles, gets in line for their favorite foods, and then you just eat and hang out.  It’s pretty great.

 

 

 

 

The following day, September 16th, is Mexico’s Independence Day.  I met up with some of my friends to go watch the parade and then hang out at the party in the park, where again there is TONS of food (but this time you had to pay for it), lots of traditional music and dancing, and where if you aren’t careful, you’ll get hit in the head with a confetti egg!

 

These past two months, construction has been going on at La Gloria (primarily by Victor, Pastor Hector, and Saul), but also some men and older boys from the church have been coming to help and I’ve been able to go and help two days myself!  The church walls are up, tresses have been built and put on, and on Monday I get to go help with roofing!  Yay!  I like doing that kind of stuff (every now and then mind you).  I am definitely not cut out for this as a career.

 

Last thing for this post!  Last weekend I was able to escape to the states at the last minute for a short break, some grocery and clothes shopping, and some good quality time with my family.  I was even surprised to be able to see Mammere and Pappere (my grandparents on my dad’s side), Uncle Chris and Aunt Lilibeth, and my Uncle Jerry from Washington!  The night before I went back Mexico, I took a train down to San Diego where I got to spend some good quality time with my friend Hannah (who moved there from Mexico about 2 months ago).  It was SUCH a wonderful trip and I was SO blessed to be able to take it.

Well, that’s all I’m going to leave you with for now.  I have exciting news about my “new position” here at EFF, but I want to save that for it’s own post (hopefully in a couple days).  Thanks for keeping up with my busy, but exciting life here   Until next time, amigos!

La Esperanza (The Hope) Rehab

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 welled up merely thinking about it.  Then when my mom and Norm arrived, they were just in time to help get things ready for Friday outreach in Rancho San Francisco.  While at outreach, my mom especially was really encouraging me that I was supposed to be there, loving the kids with God’s love and that I was were God wanted me to be.  When my dad and Karen arrived just after my mom left on Sunday it was a complete surprise for me!  I had no idea they were coming, in fact we almost (well, we should have) missed each other, but God worked it out by keeping me from leaving for outreach when I was planning on, and keeping my dad and Karen from their last bathroom stop.  Anyways, it all worked out just perfectly and they were able to join me on our Sunday outreach to the church, La Gloria, in Lazaro Cardenas.  When we arrived they were also able to fill me with more words of encouragement and confirmation that this is where God wants me and can use me most right now.  All in all, it was a most blessed weekend and even though sometimes it difficult for me to be here, alone, without my family, I know that this is where I am supposed to be and I have peace about that and am very blessed to have friends and amazing “coworkers” and neighbors who look out for me and take care of me when I really need it.

La Gloria Baptisms

Praise the Lord!  What a wonderful, fun-filled, celebratory day that was!  A few Sundays ago (I believe it was August 14th?), we took the EFF school bus down to Lazaro Cardenas where Pastor Hector (pictured on the right) picked up nearly the entire congregation (plus some!) and drove them to the beach to celebrate in the baptisms of four of our hermanos from La Gloria.  The kids has SO much fun playing in the water and the sand (as did I :-P) and the joy on the faces of those baptized was priceless.