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