Pictures From My Trip and Stories!

Well, I can definitely say I am glad to be home! As I mentioned earlier, our trip was extremely eventful, TOO eventful! We left home around 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning and things started out well. We had a great trip all the way up until we were about 10 minutes from the place we were going to stay in Phoenix. Well, a long story short, my husband was driving a friend's vehicle and we got in a 3 car pileup! It was a disaster but thank the Lord no one got hurt. We totaled the car and had to find a new one to drive the following morning! Luckily, God has a tendency to work miracles, and we just happed to know someone in Phoenix who offered us their conversion van for the rest of the trip! The next day we arrived safely in Mexico and had wonderful weather for the entire week!












While in Mexico we camped in a little site where we were crammed in between lots of other youth groups but that didn't bother us much.









Here is a picture of me in our TEENY tent! Can you believe both my husband and I AND our stuff fit in there???







We built 2 houses for a couple of families in need and it only took us 3 days so we had one entire day to sight see and shop! Here are a few pictures of us working on the houses. We had to do EVERYTHING by hand. Power tools were not allowed.




Here we are finishing putting up the walls and stringing wire around them.














Here I am stuccoing next to my wonderful husband! He actually stuccoes as a second job so he is really good at it!










Here is a picture of one of the finished houses. Yes, that is my handsome husband standing in front of the house. We wouldn't have been able to build the house if we hadn't had him! He was an amazing leader!






The families that we built our houses for were amazing and it really made us realize how selfish we, as Americans, are! We had a blast playing with the neighborhood children (even though most of us couldn't speak much Spanish). There was one little 3 or 4 year old boy who really tugged at my heart though. His name is Kevin and he has a severe disability. They are not sure what is wrong with him because they can't afford a doctor who can diagnose him but we are almost positive that he has cerebral palsy. This little boy was a champ! It was very difficult for him to move but he would insist on doing everything that the other kids were! The last day that we were there we were mixing stucco (by hand) and he started carrying water in a little bucket from his home to where we were! It was the most amazing site I had ever seen. Here is a picture of him pouring the water.

The trip, overall was great! We had a wonderful time and grew so much closer not only to each other but to God. Amazing things happen when God is involved!

Well, for another tragic story. On our way back from Mexico we stopped again in Phoenix and spent the night in a church mission that was located in inner city Pheonix. That night my husband and I had to go pick up a rental car because we needed to give the conversion van back and we got back to the church around 11:50 p.m. By the time we got there, everyone was sound asleep so I decided to go take a shower (since I hadn't really showered in a week). While I was getting ready to take a shower I heard voices right outside the window and glass breaking. I then heard someone yell "Go, go, go!" and then tires squeal. It scared me to death but I had no idea what had happened. I had all of these thoughts running through my head but I was too scared to even move. I eventually calmed down, took a shower and went back to the room with Nick only to discover that he had heard the same thing. We didn't think much of it and decided it was probably just some of the neighbor kids goofing off so we went to bed. I wish we had have checked though because we woke up the next morning around 5 a.m. only to discover that one of our trucks and the trailer attached to it had been stolen along with ALL of our luggage, tools, camping equipment, and gear! It was pretty devastating at first because we had lost so much, but again, the Lord is awesome and He calmed us down and we were able to accept what had happened. We called the cops but they pretty much told us that we were out of luck because more than likely the truck was already across the border.

I guess I am going to end my story telling there. Sorry about going on so long. I just though you all might be interested in hearing how our trip went. Like I said before, it was a great trip, we just had a few major incidents. All I can say though is: Hallelujah no one was hurt!