Traveling Mercies

Our trip to Mexico over spring break was amazing! It was a whirlwind of a trip, but we bonded with our group, completed two building projects ate a ton of delicious food, laughed alot, cried a little, drove 36 hours both directions, and had a blast! God's hand of protection was on us so mightily the whole time. We were really blessed!

We left cold, rainy Tillamook on Friday morning at 8:00 am and drove all the way down to Yuma, AZ without any incidents. The futher south we got the warmer is was getting so we were all happy about that. We were traveling in two 15 passenger vans and 2 large pick-up trucks carrying over 3 tons equipment and donated materials. We arrived in Yuma at 3:00 in the afternoon and set up camp in a church that some summer-time volunteers ofTwin Rocks attend when they winter in Yuma. The church ladies were wonderful and cooked a great dinner and we all got to stretch our legs and sleep horizontally. The next morning we packed up early because they were having an Easter service and we had to make it to San Luis, Mexico in time for their Easter 11:00 service.

We arrived at the church (and also home) of Michael and Vicky Hernandez by 10:00AM, and of course the church service didn't actually start until 11:45 (Mexico time:)), but that was great because we got a chance to unpack, and the group members who had been there before got a chance to catch up with their old friends. For a few members of the group this was the 4th time they had been back to the same place and for many others it was the 2nd or 3rd time.

The Easter service was great! Very pentacostal...lots of singing, clapping, shouting and healing. There were tons of little kids running around and wanting to sit in our laps. It was really sweet. After the service the whole church and our whole group (24 of us and at least as many locals) all at a delicious lunch of fried chicked, with corn tortillas and salad.

The next morning we had a light breakfast at 7:00 and then dove into the work projects. Our goal was to build a 3 room house and a second story on the church in 4 days! Luckily we had some very experienced and amazing workers in our group. They assigned tasks quickly, problem-solved well, and just did a great job. Rarely were there moments when people had nothing to do. Jeff did a great job with the electrical end of things...taking a really botched up electrical system and figuring out how to rewire it, and teaching 2 high schoolers how to do it also!

I tried to help with the work projects in the mornings, but my afternoons were devoted to VBS. We ended up with about 50 kids each day which was great because we had planned crafts supplies and snacks for about 100 kids, but even with just 50 we started running low on supplies...I think some of them had "sticky fingers" :) But that's ok, because everything we took down there was for them anyway. The Bible lessons went pretty well. My Spanish was a little bit lacking, but I think I got the point across. We basically presented the gospel in 4 days by practicing a bible verse each day follwed by me giving a very animated explanation of it, and doing a craft that sort of tied in. After the craft each day we would hand out a snack and then just play games with the kids for about 45 minutes. Most days they would wear us out in the first 15 minutes because they all wanted "caballitos" or piggy-back rides, and loved to shout "vuelta, vuelta" (spin around), so for the last half hour we would keep them entertained in the shade with digital camaras. When it was time to send the kids home we usually had to have the pastor come out to tell them because they wouldn't leave when we told them...they would have stayed there all night if they could, but they respect and listen to the pastor, so that was good.

The VBS team was made up of 5 of the youth, two ladies and myself. After running around in the dirt in the heat of the day with kids on our backs we were all usually ready for shower. It was such a blessing to have two working, private showers. Last time I was in Mexico (not counting my honeymoon) a shower consisted of dumping a bucket of cold water over our heads.

When the builders were done and showered we would either go out for dinner or Vicky would make us dinner. We ate so well on this trip! Every meal was something new and delicious! One night we went to a place that specialized in carne asada and pastor (pork cooked on a vertical, rotisserie style grill) and another night we went to a place called Tostyflautas. It was the first time I had tried flautas and they were really good! Vicky made the best fish tacos I've ever had in my life and really good guacamole to go with them.

The only incident on the trip happened one night when I got a bloody nose. It was really hot and dry down there and there was constantly dust in the air, especially at the work site. On Tuesday evening after dinner I blew my nose and it just started gushing blood. The group was just sitting down for our evening meeting, so I had to have someone get Jeff's attention and he brought me some paper towels. We down on the cement patio outside thinking it would stop in a minute, but about 45 minutes later it was still bleeding just as strong. By this time the group had gotten done with the meeting and the leader and some other people were getting concerned and thought I should go to a doctor. Now, in all the traveling I've done, nothing major has ever happened while I've been in a 3rd world country and I've been really thankful for that because I have a fear of going to a hospital outside of the US. I'm not really sure where this fear comes from...probably just from the fact that if you're ill enough or hurt badly enough to be in a hospital you're already stressed, and being in a foreign place with foreign practices and procedures just seems like too much.

Anyway, a bloody nose isn't that big of a deal, but I think I was already tired, and everybody was making a big fuss about it, so I started to cry and they were asking me if I wanted to go to a hospital across the border, or one in Mexico. I knew that it would take a good hour to cross the border (even though we were only 5 miles from it) and who knows how long we would have to wait at an emergency room, so I said that a hospital in San Luis would be fine. So Jeff and I got in a van with Vicky, Cathy (the "nurse" of the trip) and Wayne, our translator, and we all headed to a hospital. We pulled up to a building that said Urgencia which I assumed to be an Urgent Care kind of palce. We walked into a very nice, clean facility that looked like it could have been in the US and Vicky explained to the receptionist that I had a bloody nose. In less than two minutes a lady (not sure if she was a nurse or doctor) took me to a room, asked me what happened (all in Spanish, so I explained the best I could), looked inside my nose and said, "I'll be back in a minute, don't blow you're nose". It had mostly stopped bleeding by this point, but I could tell that it was just barely clotted. She came back in a few minutes with an anesthetic and squirted it up my nose. For a few seconds I was afraid that she might cauterize my nose, because someone in the group had mentioned that sometimes that has to be done if the bleeding doesn't stop. That would have really freaked me out...but she just started pulling a thin strip of cotton out of a tube. She grabbed a pair of foreceps and told me to put my head back. She then proceeded to shove about 20 inches of it into one of my nostrils. When she was done (meaning she had filled one entire side of my nasal cavity from my nostril to my brain) she taped the end that was sticking out to my nose and told me to leave it in for 3 days! At least I think that's what she said. Jeff and I walked out of the room and the lady at the counter said it would cost $25. We paid and walked out. All together we were in the hospital for about 10 minutes. It was barely enough time for Wayne to park the car, come inside, ask if I needed any clarification, and to go get the car again.

All in all it was a really pleasent hospital experience. And it only cost $25! In the US we would have waited for an hour just to be seen by a nurse who would take my blood pressure, write a few things down, maybe give me a cup of water, then someone else would have come in and hooked me up to an IV and then and doctor might have come in an hour later, stuffed something up my nose, and it would have cost about $1600. I'm a big fan of Mexican hospitals now.

I ended up taking the stuff out of my nose about a day and half later because I just couldn't stand it any more. Everything was fine. I got one more minor nose bleed on the last day, but it only lasted for a few minutes. I'm sure glad I don't live in a dry, dusty climate like that all the time! Yay for the rainy Oregon coast!

It was really hard to say goodbye to everyone in Mexico on the last day! I felt like I had really bonded with a 16 year old girl named Paola, and many of the other group members had bonded with the other workers and people that were just there and helping everyday. We said most of our goodbyes Thursday night after the last church service. It was tough saying bye to the kids because they just kept coming back, even at 10:00 at night, just to give us one more gift, or one more hug.

We tried to leave early on Friday morning, but with all the pictures and hugs and prayers over the new buildings and safe travels, of course we left a bit late. We headed to a border town known for it's tourist shopping market so we could all buy our souvenirs. That also took a little longer than expected. Then, when we were finally on the road, we pulled over a gas station because one of the drivers was worried about one of the vans, and sure enough two tires had begun to separate from the wheels. One was really close to blowing! But we got the van to a tire shop, got it repaired and were back on the road an hour later. With all the delays we decided not to stop for the night at a church like we had orginally planned, and we just drove through the night. We had some pretty amazing drivers! Jeff drove a middle-of-the-night stretch on the way down and back!

We made it back to Tillamook by 8:00 Saturday night which was great because it meant we could all get a good night's rest and still go to church the next morning! I was actually impressed when I saw most of our team there at 10:10 on Sunday morning! We all hugged and greeted each other like it had been forever :) It was such a great group to travel with!

Of course, there are many more stories to tell, but those will just have to wait until we see you all in person!