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!)