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

Day 29

 Hello everyone! We have been here about a month and things are going great! Tomorrow we will be finishing our 5th house and I can't wait for the family to move in! However, outside of the house building, we have also been doing outreach in a little community called Las Aves. We go out every Monday evening and gather at tiny little house with as many of the locals who are interested. We start out with a time of worship and then go into a time of bible study. The adults (almost entirely women) go inside and are taught by either Neri (welcome home staff) or Richard (orphanage staff) while the kids stay outside for crafts and teaching by Brigi (Welcome home daycare director). After that, its time for playing and passing out of muffins and hot chocolate or lemonade!

Time for worship at the outreach in Las Aves

In Las Aves, it is fairly common to see a house looking like this. This happens to be the family that will receive the house that we have been building with the extra money brought down by a church from Portland. This pic shows the beginning steps of prepping for the foundation.

Another home out in Las Aves

Some of the kids out herding turkeys

We were blessed this past weekend by the fairly random visit from some of my wonderful family! Jen and Gabe caught a ride down to Ensenada with my aunt Carolyn and grandma, and then hitched a ride down here to VG last Friday with Jackie. We put them right to work and the spent the first part of Saturday digging for the foundation at a brand new site and then laying block at a house in progress. We were able to hit up the beach in the afternoon and then had an evening full of games and laughter to complete the experience. My aunt, uncle, and grandma came down on Sunday and we gave them the tour and they were able to experience the orientation for a new group that had just arrived. And then just like that, they had to leave again :( It was such a wonderful treat and I am so thankful for the effort they put in to make it happen!

Jen and Gabe laying block under the direction of Steve

Ash with Jennifer. One of the amazing kids that always come and help out at the two work sites in Las Aves

Our first trip down to the beach since we've been down here. Though it is only 3 miles away, it's not exactly easy to get to... Anyways, Gabe and I had a wonderful time playing in the waves :)

Parking lot for the beach. Along with the awesome van that Ash and I get to use when we need to get around :)

And I just had to show this video of our drive out to the beach... Good times with Jen and Gabe in Mexico. We miss you SO much!

Day 19

Hello everyone, Kev has been doing a great job writing these blog updates, and now Im taking a turn on this one :) Thank you for all of your prayers and support, we are so grateful to have such great family and friends who are praying for us and what God is doing here in Vicente Guerro! One of the outreach projects Welcome Home Ministries facilitates is handing out food bags consisting of rice, beans, oil, lentils, corn masa and flour. When there is extra money left over after teams have paid to build a house, this is one of the additional projects we encourage teams to take part in, a great way to spend left over money and greatly bless those in need.  Over the summer this is one of the tasks I am responsible for helping with. Jackie and I spent the first half of the day driving to the warehouse and purchasing all the food. We then spent the afternoon measuring out proportions and bagging the items up.

The next day Jackie, Meghan and I opened the front doors and passed out one food bag per family that was waiting in line. We ended up giving out about 70 food bags, praise the Lord for providing!

The line of people stayed consistent for 2 hours!

Once a month the staff does a little birthday fiesta for all the kids whose birthdays fall in that particular month. For this month we celebrated miss Julissa, Paula and Sarah's birthdays, they get the honor of sitting in the front of the cafeteria at the special birthday table. They are each giving one present and Brigi (a member of our staff, the school director) bakes a huge cake for all the kids to enjoy. This is a very special day for the kids each month because for many it is the only piece of birthday cake they will eat, the only present they may receive and the only birthday "party" they will have. It was so touching to see these little girl's faces light up with such joy over anticipation of the cake and their one present. We have a lot to learn from these little ones who are so excited and content with so little. 

Cande our sweet kitchen cook, who has been here for 22 yrs & Abel our bus driver joined the birthday girls at the table.

God has deeply blessed us and our time here, serving at Welcome Home Outreach Ministries, we are fortunate to have this opportunity! We are also reminded that no matter where you are living, there is a mission field close by, there are so many unsaved souls that surround us everyday, so many who don't know our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. You don't have to go far or look very hard to find mission work to do, even in your own neighborhoods. We are called to love as Christ loved, to serve, to be His hands and feet, to reach the lost, broken, hurting and sick and to share with them the love of Christ.  We encourage you to spend less, give more,  to think globally and act locally,  invest in others lives and love the unlovable.

"If you can't feed 100 people, start by feeding just 1." -Mother Teresa

 LOVE IS THE MOVEMENT 

Day 16

Hola!
Another week done with so much accomplished! We finished up house #2 and have three more in different stages of development. This week we had another group from Portland that consisted of a high school youth group along with a college/young adult group. They had a lot of people and since we had so many houses in progress at different sites, I was put in charge of groups and had to oversee the work being done at some of the sites. I was a little nervous at first considering a lot of this stuff I had only done once before but so far everything has worked out!

This was the main project and the house we finished this week.  It is for a family of five  who live in a tiny little shack and all share one double bed. Both parents work full time in the fields and their middle son, Bernardo, attends the day care at Welcome Home. In addition to the house, we are also able to provide an additional bed and some other furniture that had been donated from the states.

I always end up getting dirty, no matter what job I have.

Bernardo's dad was so thankful and started to tear up a little while telling us how much it meant to him.

It was a touching time to see God bringing people together from very different cultures and lifestyles and to have both sides leave feeling they have been blessed. I just want to say again how amazing it feels to be able to present a home to a family who is so in need. Even more so when it is a home that you have put a lot of hard work into. It is so awesome that God continues to provide the funds for these homes. They really do change lives.

On a different note, we figured we would meet some interesting people during our summer here in Mexico, but we hadn't expected to meet a man from Ireland who was doing a record breaking jog across the world. Yes, the world. Over 31,000 miles. Running. He had made a connection with Welcome Home and ended up staying here for a night on his journey. We had some good conversations with him over dinner and breakfast and he ended up bunking in my room for the night so I was able to chat with him a little more. He has some crazy stories and is a really inspiring guy. You should check out his site.

Day 11

Hello everyone!

Things ended nicely by the end of last week, we finished up the house with the Bethany group and it ended up looking great! Sorry for the lack of pictures but I never took my camera out to the work site. Ill try to take some progression pictures on one of the next houses. The group left on Friday (after having an awesome time of worship on Thursday night)  and it was sad to see them go. I felt like I was just starting to build some friendships but now they are gone, and we are preparing for the arrival of the next group. The Bethany group were all hard workers with good hearts and they will be missed.  Our crew had to spend a few extra days working this weekend to prepare for the TWO houses that the group will be building this week. Today was our day off, which was nice. Ash's poor foot is still in the healing process and she is wearing a boot and using crutches but she is going to be able to start helping out in the kitchen around meal times and also will be preparing food bags for the needy people in the community this week.

Today was a great day because we were finally able to see some of our favorite people the Marquez family! We were able to spend a lot of time with them last year and have kept in touch over email over this past year and were so excited to be reunited with them this morning! We went to the church that Pedro and Marina Marquez started and pastor. Although we weren't able to understand much of the sermon, it was such a blessing for us to be able to worship along side our brothers and sisters in Christ. The family is incredibly inspiring and their faith is so strong. This church is very small and located in an area of great poverty, so although the people tithe faithfully the amount is very little, therefore pastor Pedro doesn't receive any pay  and the family frequently struggles to get by, their sole income relies on whether or not Pastor Pedro can sell the cheesecakes he makes (Clearly since this is an area of need I am taking responsibility to buy as many cheesecakes as needed to help support the family, I mean its for a good cause, hehe). This family relies day by day on the Lord for support and wait on Him to provide for their family and all the while sing praises to His name. Ash and I are so encouraged by their love for our Father and each other. They welcomed us with open arms and giant smiles, what blessings they are to us!

Ash and I with the Marquez family - Our family in Mexico

Team two arrived tonight, it is a youth group and a college group from New Hope Church in Portland. There are 33 of them, which is a lot of people to have staying here but such a blessing because they raised enough money to build two houses (originally only planned on one house as I mentioned in the last post) so we will be finishing two houses this week! We can't believe its already been 11 days since we moved here to Vicente Guerrero, we are loving every minute of it. Everyday is a reminder of how blessed we are to live in the United States, things like the ability to flush toilet paper down the toilets, drink and brush you teeth with the water from the sink, paved side walks and roads, access to quality health care and the list goes on. Ash and I feel so blessed to have this opportunity to serve our Savior and His people here in Mexico and to be able to do it together :)  

Sunday is laundry day - I have a feeling we'll be thankful for dryers by the end of the summer

Day 6

Hola!
The days are just flying by! A group finally showed up Sunday afternoon after driving all the way down from Portland, Oregon. We have been working hard on the house the past couple days and pretty much only have the roof left to do. The people have been really great and I've really enjoyed getting to know them. Tonight we went out to a men's rehab and recovery center with the group and it was a very moving time for me. First, it was so touching to hear the voices of all these men who have had drug and alcohol addictions lifted in worship. Even though it was in Spanish, we could hear the emotion and love for the Lord. Also, I have a feeling my spiritual life and relationship with God is going to grow deeply just through the different teams that come down. Hearing the testimonies from a few of the guys from the team and a few side conversations I have had, have really got me thinking and brought my focus back to God. It is also just so inspiring to see the faith and trust in God of the men who run the recovery center. They don't receive government support or any other support from ministries/churches. They have to rely solely on random donations or extras from Welcome Home. Ash and I decided we are going to help support them by supplying rice and beans (this is what they said their greatest need is) and if any of you want to help in this, just let us know :)

On a side note, the team was out at a migrant camp last night, a place Welcome Home does outreach at weekly. The group ended up praying with a young woman whose one prayer request was that she would be able to have a real home. She is a single mom with three young kids and is currently living in a "shack" (if you can even call it that) with plastic wrap as walls and a dirt floor. This would be an ideal candidate for a house built by Welcome Home, but the problem is that they already had the families and homes chosen and planned out for this coming year. Here comes the cool part... About half an hour later, after we came back home, Jackie (her and her husband Steve run Welcome Home) checked her email and saw that the team that is coming next week had raised double the amount of money that had been expected and we're now going to be able to build a home for the woman and her children! Hows that for answered prayer :) God is so good!