Thanks!

Hey everyone! One last post. Thank you so much for your prayers and support throughout the trip. After a long day of travel, everyone arrived home safe and in one piece. God did many wonderful things this trip, and I hope you get to hear many stories for a long time to come. Thanks once again!
~Beth :)

El fine! Hasta Manaña!

Wow. Once again it is midnight, and we have just reached our homes. The girls are packing behind me as I hurridly try to write this so I can pack as well. Today was less intense then the other days. We got to sleep in a little bit later, and met up at the church. After our usual prayer time, the White Team headed out to the same university the Green Team visited on Tuesday. By the way-I think I finally convinced somebody from the White Team to write an update tonight! These computers are pretty scary, because they keyboard as well as the screen are all in Spanish. That might explain the lack of punctuation. I have yet to find the apostrophe button. Anyways, the Green Team had reached a dilema. We did not exactly have a plan as to where we were going to go. There were many different choices, but no one could quite decide exactly where God wanted us to be for that day. So we did something that Im sure many of us have never done. We circled up, and voiced prayers to God, asking for wisdom and clarity as to where to go. Many ideas came up-go back to the homeless people, head to a broken womens shelter, and even go back to the university. But the overall feeling was that we were needed at a halfway house, or some kind of rehab center. Sure enough, God provided. There was one only about 5 minutes away from the church that no one really knew about. So without even calling ahead, we loaded into the vans and headed over. We pulled up, and all of the sponsers went in as we waited in the vans. We waited in the hot vans, sweating and waiting in suspense to see what marvelous things God had prepared for us. The sponsers came hurrying out, and said that we had 30 minutes to put on our drama, El Mundo, and share the Good News. Thats it? 30 minutes to tell these broken, addicted men about Jesus? No pressure! So we breathed a prayer of thanks and piled out of the vans to set up.
The room where we had to perform was tiny! This was a huge difference from the open air parks we had been in previously. We made some quick adjustments, and did our best. There were only about 10 men seated there to watch and listen. But wow! With eyes wide they watched us act. Then Mr. Sauer went up to preach. What a message! With such restricted time, and with such passion, he spoke to them about forgiveness, and being free of the bonds of hatred. When we offered to prayer for them, the men openly shared about their lives. One young many was 18, and had been using drugs for over 5 years! We talked and prayed for each individual one. But all this work for only 10 men? Well, one man accepted Christ! And so many others asked for Bibles. We hooked them up with the church, and unfortunetly had to leave before we could answer all of their questions. Many seeds were planted, and I think we gave them the hope that they needed to break their addictions.
Afterwards, we did our usual tango through the streets of Mexico City, and went back to meet up with the White Team at the university. They had already done their dramas, and were talking with the students. This time, a professor sent out her entire English class to come and talk to us for their lesson that day. What an opportunity! God sent us at least 50 people that wanted nothing more to practice their English and talk with us, while we wanted nothing more than to talk to them! We did for an hour, maybe more. Once loses track of time here. We finally had to pull oursleves away, and left more connections with the church there. I have a very good feeling that this small church will be overwhelmed on Sunday morning.
The rest of the day was rather celebratory. We went back to the church, and ate a wonderful meal. It was some delicious soup and rolled tacos. I say meal because it was neither lunch nor dinner, as it was about 430pm. Then we ran down the street to the local 7-11, and spent the rest of our pesos on some ice cream. Then we relaxed and discussed the days events with each other.
At 7pm, the church had a special service for us. We sang songs in Spanish...well, they did. We stood around and smiled, or pathetically tried to sing along. Afterwards, we performed El Mundo once again in a ridiculously small space. The church then asked us to share what God had done in our lives this week. Many people went up and told the church people though a translator how God used them, and used the church. We thanked them for all of their hard work, and hugs, handshakes, and pictures were ubiquitos.
Everyone now was in quite the celebratory mood. We all went walking down the street singing and laughing, and drawing alot of attention to oursleves. We presented quite the funny picture. Most people were in their bright lime green shirts, and we are all tall, blonde Americans. Cars would stop and watch us as we walked along. We went to a local taco shop for 2nd dinner, and had some amazing tacos! Hot sauce, bottles of coke, and tortillas were passes up and down the tables like it was Thanksgiving. Throughout the meal, we would randomly break out into song, sometimes in Spanish, and sometimes in English. It was a ton of fun! We went back and loaded up the vans, and headed back to our host homes. It was about midnight when we finally arrived.
We are leaving the house at 520am tomorrow, or is it today already?
I think many of us want to stay another week, and see what else we can do for the glory of God. But we love all of you as well, so I guess we will be coming home. We will call when we can, and we are looking forward to seeing you all. Be prepared for a group of sunburned, tired, hungry, dirty, and smelly high schoolers! I better get to packing, otherwise I will be laying down when it is time to get up. Thank you so much for your prayers all week. We definetly felt them while we were down here. Everyone has some pretty unique stories to tell you when we get back. Im sure there will be tons of pictures on facebook by tomorrow night for your viewing pleasure. Pray for a safe trip home! Adios Mexcio! Te amo!
-Beth (Hasta manaña Mama y Papa!)

Sunburns, speedbumps, and suds.

Today was an extremely long day. It is about midnight, and we have just reached our host homes, so forgive me if my post is not all the way up to par. To start out, we had two girls come down sick. Laura caught some sort of cold, and was running quite a high fever. Myself came down with some 24 hour flu, and spent the entire night throwing up. That was pretty awsome though, because I got to stick my head out of a van to throw up, moving at 50 miles per hour, weaving in and out of traffic. But I think Laura and I feel much better now thanks to the prayers of our friends.
We started the day by driving two hours out of Mexico City to a small town pronounced Chill. This is where David, our coordinator, grew up. We ate lunch in this really cute hut with a thatched roof on carved, wooden pinic tables. Davids family served us a wonderful homemade lunch with too many dishes to name. After lunch, we ran down the road a bit and explored a huge waterfall. It was a rainforest type atmosphere, damp and cool. That was very nice, because Im sure it got to 90 degrees in the sun! We all have the very nice red blush flaming across our noses and cheeks now. Needless to say, we took some gorgeous pictures and relaxed for a few minutes. The boys took this opportunity to see how close they could get to the waterfall without getting wet, or caught by the sponsors. This in itself was extremely entertaining.
We once again split up. Im so very sorry that I can only report of the Green Teams activities, but I do know the White Team is having a wonderful, and very similar experience. We went to a local park in this same small town. David said we were the first group to ever bring the Good News. We performed our dramas, sang songs, and put on a puppet show for the niños (That means children in Spanish.) Kelsi Bodine shared an inspiring testimony that moved everyone there. When we invited people to come up and recieve Christ, to our joy about 15 new brothers and sisters walked up to the front! We rejoiced and prayed with them for quite a while, as much as we could with our limited Spanish. Unfortunetly, we had to leave and move on to another place that God had prepared for us.
We continued on to a small, concrete church. Literally, it was completely concrete. The walls, the roof, the floors-everything! It was very open and airy, with no doors and large holes for windows. This group was mostly church people, we geared our presentation for towards encouraging them instead of the Gospel message. We sang some songs in English, then they sang for us in Spanish. A smile is a smile, no matter the language, right? Amos, Mallory, Kelsi, and Mrs. Miller shared a few words, and we performed our drama. Afterwards, we once again prayed with these believers. This is an amazing experience. In the USA, when thé pastor asks everyone to bow their heads and pray, everyone reverently bows their heads, and silently listens while the pastor prayers. I think it gave us all a shock when everyone started praying at once! So many voices lifted to God at the same time in different languages sounds incredible, even if you cant understand the words. We played with the niños for awhile, then told them all adios, and that we would be praying.
Whew! By now we are all completely exhausted, and it is dark. We drive to a small house, and are served dinner, once again by Davids family. It again is wonderful, with homecooked rice, tortillas, soup, pico de gallo, and manzana. We met up with the white team here, and spent some time celebrating the events of the day. When we finally packed up and left, it was about 830. Now began our adventure home...
Mexico City is full of speed bumps, and for a very good reason. People drive at ridiculous speeds! But so does Mrs. Miller. And aparently the speed bumps do not apply to her. So everytime someone falls asleep, we will hit a speed bump, and they go flying off the seat and onto the floor or the poor soul packed in next to them. So on the drive home we counted our mishaps. We hit 63 speed bumps, and I think 62 of those were at full speed. She got the last one alright. We also ran into a road block of bubbles. Yes, bubbles. Like a huge wall, 10 feet tall, of soap suds. I cannot say I have ever seen 4 fully loaded vans drive through a wall of suds. But hey, theres a first for everything! Then, we had to pull over and wait for all of the vans after that. Unfortunetly, no one can count, so we sat in a nice neat line, all four vans, for about 20 minutes. That was really fun. Then, we ran into a drug bust. Police were swarming an area with huge guns strapped to their backs, and were shining flashlights everywhere. THEN, we almost hit a guy on a bike that looked just like Santa Clause. That was really close-no more Christmas! :( Mix all of that in with the usual Mexico crazy traffic, we are extremely grateful to be alive and back at our home away from home.
Once again, we thank you for your prayers. Tomorrow we head back out into the streets, hitting a subway station entry, parks, and universities. I cant imagine anything but good coming out of it. For "all things work together for those who love him." Pray that everyone will be healthy again, and we will all have strength. Everyone is starting to lag on energy to get us through the day. We miss you all, and look forward to the comments we get to read each night. Buenos noches! (Good night!)
-Beth (Love you Mom and Dad!)

It's not about me...

There are no words to describe the day we had today. We laughed and we cried. Unfortunely, I can only speak for the Green team, which is all of the seniors on the trip, plus Kaylee, Kayla, Danielle, and I. We started the day off by heading out to the local university. It was huge! no one knew exactly how many students were on campus. Too many to count, we were told. We planned to preform our dramas and speak to the students. After a morning worship service, we were all pretty pumped about heading out. But as the vans pulled into the parking lot, we all had second thoughts. The students stopped and stared as a group of 20 white, blonde, American kids went walking through their campus with mouths gaping and eyes wide with fear. We met up with some of the Christian students on campus and walked around handing our flyers to invite them to our program. At least, that's what we thought they said. As I listened to the translator speak over and over, I finally figured it out. They were declaring, "Hello! These people are from the United States! They speak English. Come practice your English with them today at 1pm!" But whatever works! Along the way, a small group of girls (Kaylee, Kayla, Danielle and I) got invited to a party. "Free beer!" it said. It starts in 15 minutes-I hope we won't be late! we also got invited to a Indian Dance class. That's tomorrow morning.

As we started doing the dramas, the students flocked to us like mosquitoes to one of those electric lights. We counted over 200 people! They were so engaged in the entire performance, and reacted to each and every scene. They stared with eyes open wide at the boldness with which our drama depicted the story of Christ. Afterwards, we invited them to talk in small groups. We had barley stepped off the stage when we were swarmed with people. You will just have to ask your own child about those conversations. Each was unique, and everyone was extremely moved. We stayed for a few hours, ate lunch, then loaded the vans once more.

We then went down to a bridge where a bunch of homeless people were living. This experience is extremely difficult to describe. I will do my best to put it into words.

There were about 15-20 people living by this bridge, including a small baby about a year old named Alexander. Most had a rag that they had soaked in glue, and would hold it up to their mouth and breathe it in. It is a cheap drug that stops the hunger pains. The boys started up a pretty intense game of soccer while the girls simply sat and listened. I heard stories of abuse, drugs, rape, unwanted pregnancies, and hopelessness. Our hearts broke for these people, and several wept as we prayed over them.

There is not much more to say about that. I know I have never been more thankful for a sleeping bad and a hard floor awaiting me at our host house. We are healthy, and we are fed. We have a bed, loving families, and have the hope of Christ within us. For what else can we ask? We are now at the church eating some wonderful homemade quesedillas (Spelling?). We are going to head back to the host homes soon, and try to get some extra sleep. Tomorrow we are heading two hours out of Mexico City to witness to a small village. Thank your for your prayers, and we miss you all. We will let you know how the party was! ;)

~Beth (I love you Mom and Dad!)

Dia Dos

Hey everyone! Its Beth again. Today was our tourist day. Everybody seemed to have a similar expierence with breakfast-the families we are staying with are extremely gracious, and served us brekfast of many different types of fruits, cereal, freshly squeezed orange juice, yogart, and the list goes on! We all met at the church, and after waiting for a little, and making a quick walk down to the 7-11 for coffee, we all piled into the vans and headed down to the local pyramids. The pyramid we climed was dedicated to the sun god. On the first day of spring, all the people here dress in white robes and climb to the top. The legend has it that at sunrise, the sun will fill them with power. We spent a good hour climbing and exploring, and taking endless pictures (we are going to try and upload some of them for you on here). When we descended, we plumeted into a world of bartering and Spanish. We used up our entire Spanish vocabulary and spent hours going through small market shop after small market shop, the whole time being followed around by merchants trying to sell us a good luck elephant statue, or something of that sort. I think this was everyones favorite spot.
When we finally shook off the last of our salesman buddies, we headed down to the local food market. It was our first taste of real Mexican food! Our translators got a kick out of telling us certain food items and sauces were not spicy, only to watch with joy as we frantically searched for water to cool our burning tongues. Kaylee and Joey were especially adventures and tried the rabbit. Consequently, they spent their entire meal picking out small bones and intestines from the mess on their plate. They did seem to enjoy it though. I, however, stuck with some enchaladas. Not by choice mind you. After ordering what I thought were sopas, they decided I needed enchaladas instead. So enchaladas it was!
We once again piled into our buses and headed back into Mexico City. This is an experience in itself. Being the second largest city in the entire world, and consisting of 25-30 million people, you can imagine the roads are a tad crazy. Stop signs are simply suggestions, speed limits are good ideas, and turn signals are simply myths. Luckly with much verbal prayer on the students part, we continue to make it safetly everywhere we go.
We now arrived at the largest Catholic center in Mexico. It is a type of Mecca for the Catholics here. We explored the church, and even saw the confession stands. For a little, we got lectured on how corrupt Mexico had become as well! We then took a drive around the nicer and richer part of Mexico City, which looked supicisouly like Times Square, New York. By now, it was dinner time. We went back to the church, which has turned into home base, and made some delicious sub sandwhiches. Unfotunetly, we have no idea what was on them. When we asked, they laughed and told us we didnt want to know...
After that, we practiced our dramas, and had a prayer meeting to prepare us for tomorrow. We get to spread the Gospel! We still dont know exactly where, when or how, but we do know whatever we do, and wherever we go, God will use us for His glory. We ask for your continued prayers and support as we venture out tomorrow. We will stay safe, and God willing bear much fruit. Adios!
Beth Good (I love you Mom and Dad!)

Day One... or Day Three?

Hola, just wanted to let you all know that we arrived here today safe and sound. We're all very tired, but we're enjoying our time so far. Tomorrow we're going to go to see some pyramids, apparently a popular tourist spot, and visit some other touristy places in Mexico City. Tomorrow evening we will go on a prayer walk. Thanks for all your support and prayers, and we will be keeping you up to date.

~Tasha

Hi everyone! It's Beth Good here. After a long day that seemed to feel like 3 days, we have finally figured out where everyone is going to stay for the night. Mexico is a beautiful city, and we have all already learned a lot. I'm sure we will all be fluent in Spanish by tomorrow night. That's all we have time for now-we are heading out to our host homes to get some much needed sleep. Thanks for all the prayers, and I love you Mom and Dad :)

-Bethany

Just Thirty-Three More Hours!

Hey, everyone! It's just thirty-three more hours until we fly out, headed for Mexico City! I'm super excited, and I'm sure everyone else is too. I'm looking forward to spending a week with you all doing God's work. We're going to be pushed out of our comfort zones and hopefully we'll come back changed. There are several things I want to pray for all of us. I pray that we go there with the mentality that it's not about us; it's more about them, but it's ultimately about God. I pray that we are humbled and learn, and that we come back changed. I pray that we are aware of the spiritual battle going on around us. I pray for boldness in sharing Christ, and I pray that we represent Christ well in our attitudes, love, and unity. I encourage you all to be bathing this trip in prayer throughout the whole week. See you all tomorrow! :)

~Tasha