Love is the Answer

Last week was such a blessing, the team from our home church Mountainbrook was here! Although it was frustrating not being able to talk to them as much as I would have liked (still having to rest my voice and not talk due to lump feeling in throat) it was still such a joy to see each of them and spend time together! We also loved last week because the Mountainbrook team spends a lot of time with Pastor Pedro's family, and since part of our role is to be available/accompany our teams that are staying with us, we were able to spend several days last week with the family.

Pastor Pedro, his beautiful wife Marina and one of their three kids, Alex. We got to know this family very well last summer when we first came to Vicente Guerrero and we love them dearly! 

While we were at Pedro and Marina's in the afternoons, the group helped finish a room that the family had been trying to add for over a year to their house. Pedro and Marina currently do not have a bedroom, there are 3 small rooms inside the house, but each of their three kids use the rooms. This extra space will allow Pedro and Marina to have a room together. 

After working Marina and her wonderful daughters Marysol and Jan Mar spoiled us all with homemade sopes, they are so tasty! One of Kev's favorite Mexican dishes is sopes and he orders them a lot, he says Marina's are by far the best he has ever had. Another night she also made us all delicious enchiladas, followed by yummy ice cream cones! 

The ladies preparing the the delicious meal. Also notice the decorations, so sweet they did that just for Mountainbrook's arrival

It was so great to just spend time with MB group and Pedro & Marina's family, eating, laughing, talking and worshiping our Savior. 

Pastor Pedro led us in some worship!

This current week has been a busy busy busy one! We had 3 groups here, every bed available was taken, it was a packed house, praise the Lord! We had an awesome youth group of about 18 from Centralia here who worked with Kev and Colores in building a house for a single mom, Veronica with three kids. This youth group had such willing and kindhearted kids, we loved having them here!  One of the other groups this week was just about 5 people, some of who are board directors for Welcome Home Outreach. They were here for the 2nd time this summer installing play structure equipment that a school in the states was going to throw away because it was "old" and they had bought newer equipment, but praise the Lord our board members got a hold of the equipment before it was thrown out, made it across the boarder with all of it, only by the grace of God and spent all week installing it. Here is a video of the kids on the first day the play structure was open, they were elated! The kids acted as if the structure was made of gold, all of them flooding it, all smiles and full of laughter. This is the nicest playground they have ever had, and yet it is only one structure and sits on a field of dirt...but their hearts were grateful and full of joy :)

Can you tell they like it....

The third group staying with us this week at Welcome Home is a family group of about 10. This group comes down every year to put on a VBS for the kids in the same neighborhood of where the play structure was put in. I (Ashley) was assigned to help with this all week and was put at the snack station. We had 250-320 kids every day, it was complete chaos! But the good kind of chaos, full of laughter, smiles and happiness :) Each morning we sent out 4 vans/trucks to pick up whatever kids jumped in. Its unbelievable how many kids you can fit in a truck down here, the record: 62 kids in a pick up. only in mexico.

Once all the kiddos arrived we divided them into groups by age and then sent through rotations of centers including crafts, recreation, snack, worship and a bible story. We had kids from 2-15 years old running around everyday, such a blessing God sent so many kids to participate!

Line 'em Up, all 300 of them!

definition of precious

worship station with Brigi
(she is full time staff at Welcome Home)

All of our groups left today (Friday) and we have this evening off, then tomorrow morning its back to work! Kev and Colores will be laying block to prep the house for the team next week and I will be cleaning the dorms, bathrooms and doing lots of laundry to prep for arriving team tomorrow evening. Hopefully we will get a few hours in between working and before our next group arrives to take the 4wheeler to the beach, our sweet reward after long week of work :) Hard to believe we only have a week left here serving at Welcome Home Outreach, this summer has gone by so fast! We want to leave you with this verse as a reminder and encouragement of Gods word and just one of the hundreds of verses where our Father commands us to help the needy, the lost, the broken, the hungry and the hurting.

"But if someone who is a Christian has money enough to live well, and sees a brother in need, and won't help him, how can God's love be within them? Children, let us stop just saying we love people; let us really love them, and show by our actions." 1 John 3:17-18

"LIVE SIMPLY, SO THAT OTHERS MAY SIMPLY LIVE" ~Ghandi

My God He Was, My God He Is, My God He's Always Gonna Be

One of our favorite things to do when we have a couple hours off,
take the 4wheeler to the beach, only 3miles from Welcome Home!

Hola Family and Friends! We apologize for the long delay of a new post, we will do a little catch up about past 3 weeks. A week after we last wrote an incredible team of Dentists and Dental Hygienists came and put on a dental clinic from 8am-5pm everyday. The line was constant outside the doors here at Welcome Home Outreach, over 250 people got free dental care, what a blessing! The Dentist pulled teeth, filled cavities and scrapped lots and lots of plaque. As you can imagine a lot of the people's teeth here are in pretty poor shape, from the bad water, lack of calcium, lack of fluoride and lack of access to dental care (no money, no insurance, etc). One woman's teeth were so bad that if they continued to scrape any more of the heavy build up of plaque on her teeth, her teeth would fall out. The plaque was the only thing keeping them in. One of the litte girls who attends our preschool had to have 4 of her front baby teeth pulled because there were all abscessed and were causing infection in her mouth, which was making her sick. Just another one of the MANY blessings and things we take for granted living in the states, access to toothbrushes, fluoride and dental care.   

The preschool graduates dressed in their finest :) 

Each year the oldest group of kids who attend the preschool "graduate" and the teachers put on a really nice ceremony for them and their parents to celebrate their completion here at Welcome Home Outreach and the new beginning of them starting kindergarten in the fall! The kids each received a backpack with school supplies, graduation certificate and we had a BBQ with their families afterwards. The kids sang songs for their parents, several in Spanish and then they sang one in English (B-I-N-G-O that they have learned from English classes here) Such a joyful afternoon!

Special decorations to welcome to the graduates for their special camp out  over night at Welcome Home Outreach

The graduates got the special privilege of staying over night here at Welcome Home on their last day. The teachers did such a great job planning games, activities, junk food dinner, games in the dark and roasting marshmallows at the fire pit, the kids were so happy! It was the best feeling going to sleep that night listening to the kids laughing and playing outside my window (the teachers let them stay up until 11pm!).

Kev and the infamous Colores  (he is full time contractor for Welcome Home, Kev has learned so much from him!)

Building has still been going great! Kev and the construction crew have started and finished 7 homes so far this summer, with the financial and physical help of all the amazing youth groups, church groups and teams that have come down this summer. Kev and I were just talking about what a good reminder it has been to be thankful for our education and the opportunity to have jobs that don't entail washing dishes all day long or doing hard labor in the sun day after day. We are so blessed!

All the kiddos got a field trip to the beach last Friday, they were in  heaven!

On a side note, I've (Ashley) have been struggling with this weird throat/vocal cords sickness for quite some time now. To make a long story short, I had a sore throat, lost my voice and then went to doctor where they didnt do much examining and instead just gave me a steroid shot and steroid pills to take for a week. Things got better and havent gotten worse, however that was 3.5 weeks ago and Im still only able to talk in bits and pieces and frequently have this feeling of a lump in my throat. I'm guessing I had laryngitis, but who knows? I am trusting in the Lord for full healing and recovery. It could be so much worse and I'll count my blessings that as of now (or what i know of) its nothing more serious! Prayers would be appreciated :)

God is good, all the time, all the time God is so GOOD! We have been challenged, blessed and encouraged by our time here serving at Welcome Home Outreach. So many incredible people who have touched our lives and the most beautiful children everywhere we look! Kev and I were talking about how we are thankful the preschool is no longer an orphanage as it once use to be....otherwise we'd be coming home to the states with a couple extra passengers :) Hard to believe we only have a week left here in Mexico, the summer flew by!

We have so much to be thankful for! We will leave you with this verse from the Psalms, we pray our hearts and yours will always speak these words in both good times and bad.

"The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song." Psalm 28:7