Double the Groups, Double the Fun!

So this week was a two for one special. We had a group from Guntersville, AL working with the church in San Vicente and a group from Owens Cross Roads (Alabama) working with the church in Erendira. Those two churches are just about 30 minutes apart, so both groups ate breakfast and dinner together and stayed in two hotels in San Vicente.

Usually when there are two groups in one week, we translators get split up and assigned a group to work with. But this week was different, since the groups were working together in some capacities and separate in others. I spent each morning/afternoon with Guntersville and each evening/VBS with Owens Cross Roads.

It was such a blessing getting to know and work with two different groups at the same time. I believe there were about 50 people total between the two groups, and with groups of only 15 during the two previous weeks, it was a big overwhelming at first!

Siobhan, Jamie, Me, Sara and Misha at Covelli's with the Special Assistant to the Field Director.

Luckily, some familiar faces, Kent and Jamie Pendergrass, greeted us on Thursday. We went out to eat at Covelli's and had a briefing with the Kent, the Special Assistant to the Field Director of Baja Missions, before the Field Director arrived. To understand Kent's job, just think of this: Kent is to Matt Moore as John the Baptist is to Jesus (it's not nearly as blasphemous as it appears).

I spent Friday shopping and getting ready with about 15 people who came down early. I became pretty good friends with some of the kitchen ladies, Laura and Carrie :), and their friends and family members, Chris and Connie, that night, and those friends helped me learn all the names and faces and family ties the next night when the other 35 people showed up all at once!

The San Vicente church added a sister to the family of God on Sunday, and the two more sisters were added to God's family in Erendira during the week. Both of these groups were very well organized and had great classes for the kids and the adults.

New friends Mont and Jerry Michael with Minga, their new wife.

I spent the mornings taking lunch to different schools with the Guntersville group, and the afternoons doing house visits with Antonio, the preacher in San Vicente. Then when the OXR group would come back for dinner, I'd ride to Erendira with them and translate the VBS class for the children. The first night we had about 15-20 kids, and by the last night we had 50 kids!

Erendira is a pretty small town, and it's the newest of the Baja Missions churches. So the church there only has about 20 active members, not including their children. All over the Baja, there are places called Ranchos where people are given a small amount of money a one-room "apartment" in a concrete complex to live with their families in exchange for their work in the fields every day. A lot of times, they move to different Ranchos as the picking seasons for different crops change. These people are the poorest of poor, not even having a place to call their own, always on the move looking for work.

OXR took a bus to the Rancho in Erendira every night before VBS to pick up kids, who would run screaming to the bus when they saw us pulling up. We also picked up some adults from the Rancho who occasionally visit the church, when they can find a ride. Those these kids were the worst behaved and gave me a headache every night, I saw Jesus in them because of their desire to be a part of something bigger than themselves. They really did listen to the stories and they learned and retained what they learned.

The group from Guntersville built tables for the kids' classroom, to go with the benches built by the Woodland Trace group from two weeks ago. (I have pictures on my camera but I can't put them on here until I get home at the end of the summer!) They also painted the teen room lime green and put in a new rug, painted the kids room yellow, painted a mural on the wall and added a rug to that room as well. The classrooms look so amazing, and so much different than they did just two weeks ago!

Guntersville also did some more work on Lola and Guillermo's roof, put insulation into the house of a couple who both just got out of the hospital and will be in bed for at least 4 or 5 weeks, and readjusted the basketball goal at the church.

My new best friend Connie with one of the boys getting a brand new house!

The OXR group painted the outside of the new church building in Erendira, including a sign on the building, a cross on the top of the building and a sign on the main road pointing people in the direction of the new building. They also built a house for Jacinta, a woman in the church with three boys under the age of 7, who recently lost her husband. By the time they left on Thursday, they had dedicated the house to her-- complete with keys for two outside doors, a custom-made bunk bed with double-size mattresses, dry wall and electricity.

This is Big Baby from the backpack game.

I had such an amazing week with this group. From Wicked singalongs, anti-jokes, many games of Gotcha and Horse, to making a mouth-percussion band, screaming "Acelerale chofer!" with the Rancho kids and hiding super creepy objects in people's backpacks, I spent most of my week laughing with my new friends who I think I'll be able to call friend for years to come.