Casa de la Esperanza

Finally! My Mexico update is here! (Happy now, mom?) It is pretty long so be prepared to sit down for a while. I would love to hear comments from everyone! Well here we go…


Wednesday
To start off our lovely trip, Matt and I arrived at the church building on Wednesday morning at 4:50am. That’s right… 4:50am. I can’t remember the last time I was up that early! Surprisingly it wasn’t that bad, I didn’t think. Matt might say differently. We got everything all ready to go then just waited on the youth group to get there. We left the church building around 5:30am and most people just went straight to sleep on the bus. Well, at least I went straight to sleep… I don’t know about everyone else! It was a long and, for the most part, pretty boring drive. It became especially fun when the air conditioning went out around 10:00am. Driving through West Texas in August in a church bus full of teenagers with no air conditioner is something everyone should experience. It was awesome. Can you sense my sarcasm? Haha, besides it being very hot, we really still had a good time. We split up into teams on the bus and had a song writing contest (which we so kindly passed on to Matt) so that was pretty fun. Once we got to El Paso we stopped at a church there and switched over to a Mexican charter bus. All you really need to know about that is that it had air conditioning… and a bathroom.

Here is a picture of Matt enjoying the long bus ride:

THEN we got to the border. Haha. We all had to get out and take everything out of the overhead compartments, the luggage space under the bus, and we had to completely unload our trailer that we were pulling. It, too, was really fun. We each had to walk across with our luggage and push a little button on a pole. If the light turned green, we could continue across. If it turned RED then you had to stop so they could check your luggage. Well OF COURSE… I bet you’ll never guess who got a red light. Just try to guess. Go on try. Are you ready? The person that got stopped was NOT me. J Gotcha. Actually none of us got a red light. Wes had to go back across to get something and when he came back the second time he got a red light but I don’t think it was much. Once our bus got across we just had to sit around and wait for one of our adults who was in his own truck (and carrying the trailer) to get a permit to go into Mexico.

We ended up getting to the orphanage around 3:30am. We were all pretty tired so we just unloaded our pillows and sleeping bags and any other necessities and went strait to bed.

Thus concludes day one.


Thursday
Thursday morning we were supposed to get to sleep in since we had such a late night. Well everyone started waking up about the same time (we were in a big room full of bunk beds) and someone said it was about 9:00am and that we had something at 10:00am to go to if we wanted. So we were all kind of slowly getting out of bed and someone told us that the time was different there. Well everyone went back and forth about what time it was and we were all thoroughly confused. It turns out we probably woke up around 6:30 or 7:00am! So much for sleeping in! I actually felt quite rested and I didn’t hear many others complaining, so I guess its ok! :)

There was another youth group already at Casa when we got there. Some of the girls from Park Avenue were a little upset when we got up and saw some of the stuff that the girls from the other group had brought. We were told to bring only what we absolutely needed. We were told not to bring hair dryers, any plug-in appliances. I personally think that is a good idea because we weren’t there that week to focus on ourselves or how we look anyway. However, the other group apparently didn’t have those same rules! When we got there they had big fans plugged in by their beds, and hair dryers and straightners everywhere. Our girls just kind of looked around as if saying, “Not fair!” Haha, it worked out just fine though going all week without all of that stuff.

Once we all got up and moving we met outside to take a tour of the orphanage. Gil is the man who is the director/founder of the orphanage and he is the one who showed us around. He is a really awesome man, and he gave up a lot in America to come to Mexico and start up Casa. I really enjoyed talking to him and getting to know him a little bit throughout the week. He showed us the kid’s rooms, the shop, the barn, and some of the places where we would be working during the week. The part that had us all talking the most was in the barn…

That’s right, the pigs! You can’t tell from the pictures, but those pigs were huge! You could easily throw a saddle on them and go for a ride! I couldn’t believe how big they were.

For lunch that day we had real Mexican rice! I thought it was absolutely wonderful. We had it a few times throughout the week and each time I wiped out mine, as well as anyone else’s that left some on their plate!

After lunch each day we would go outside and play with the kids. The weather was surprisingly nice there. It is definitely much hotter in north Texas than it was in Anahuac, Mexico. We would play basketball or link ‘em or whatever games the kids felt like playing. Some of the kids decided to start a game that involved me! My part in the game was simple. I would sit, then scream. That was it! Let me explain. Some of the kids noticed my scar on my knee which, if you haven’t seen, is pretty big and disgusting looking at times. Well they would kind of point at it as if saying, “Can I touch it?” So I would nod and as they would reach over and almost touch it, I would scream and the kids would jump! They thought it was absolutely hilarious! So then that kid would call over his/her friend and tell them to touch it, then they would all stand around and wait to see his/her reaction when I screamed. It kept them entertained for fifteen or twenty minutes! It was pretty funny to see how easily amused they were! Wes, our youth minister, then challenged me to a game of PIG in basketball. The two of us were playing and I was about to lose when another one of our adults came out and wanted to join the game. So, luckily for me, we started a new game! I guess I was trying to redeem myself for my poor game before because I was… as they say, “on fire”. Hahaha! Wes was the first one to get knocked out, then (after some very stressful shots) I finally knocked Kyle out. It was possibly the most intense game of PIG I have ever played, but we had a really good time.

Thursday was when I first saw Saul. (You say it like “Sah – Ool”) He was my favorite kid there! He is five years old and one of the most precious little boys I have ever seen… in Mexico. (I’ve got ya covered, Elijah! J) I just fell in love with him right away. As soon as you look at these precious pictures, I think you’ll see why!

That evening for our activity we had a Bible Bowl. Gil had warned us that only about two church groups had ever beat his Casa kids! Those kids know the Bible, that is for sure! We had a Park Avenue team, a Casa team, and a team for another church group that was there. Matt and I had to play for the other church team because they didn’t have enough people. Now the questions that were asked were not basic questions like, “Who built the ark?” (“Noah! Noah!” remember that song?!) They were very in depth questions. Those Casa kids put us all to shame. It was a little embarrassing, actually! It really impressed me though how well they knew their stuff! Gil and the staff at Casa are really doing amazing things for those kids and are really leading them in the right direction!

Rain! It rained every single night that we were there! Not the kind of rain that we typically get here though. It would pour down rain! It was pretty consistent, too. Every evening around dinner time it would start getting cloudy then come a downpour. As most of you know, I love storms, so I enjoyed it. We stayed in a building with a tin roof though so sometimes it was a bit distracting when we were trying to have youth group time or something.

We had a youth group time each night before we went to bed. We sat up the chairs in a big circle and spent some time singing then discussing things from the day. One thing that I knew before, but that really became apparent that week, is that the Park Avenue youth group can really sing! We had some awesome time spent in song each night. There are a couple of songs that I have learned this summer from the Park Avenue youth that are simply amazing, and I love hearing them sing them!

Thus concludes day two.

Friday
Friday was our first day of work. I was assigned to the “fence crew”. Our job was to put up a chain link fence around what will soon be the kid’s volleyball court. There were four of us on that team. It took us a long time just to figure out what all we needed and to gather all of our supplies. Once we got all of the smaller parts up on the poles, the boys sent Janaga (one of the adults that came with us) and I to go get the big roll of chain link fence. They told us it was over by the barn so we went to go get it. We got around there and saw a big roll of it leaning against the barn. If you have never tried to carry a huge roll of chain link fence, let me tell you something. It is HEAVY! It took us forever just to get it in a horizontal position. We tried all sorts of different ways of carrying it but nothing seemed to work. Finally we found a little cart in the shop that had wheels on it. We used all of our strength to pick it up and get it on the cart then wheeled it back over to the volleyball court. As soon as we got there we both just sat down to rest. Wes came over and looked at it and told us it was the wrong roll!! We both looked at each other in disbelief. SO the four of us went over and found the roll that we were suppose to use. I think the guys had a little more respect for us after seeing just how heavy it was! It took all four of us to get this one back over to the court. We didn’t do a whole lot more that day. We spend most of the day getting all of the clamps and nuts and bolts put on the posts. It was tough work carrying that fence though!

This is the volleyball court where we were working. We only got the fence up on a small section of it though...

Wes and Heath working on the fence...

Matt and I took some time to take a couple of pictures on our "work breaks".

That afternoon during playtime Matt and I went inside to the nursery. There weren’t any tiny babies there. Most of them were probably between nine months and two years old I would guess. They were jumping and crawling all over Matt. I got the easier part of the job because they just wanted me to sit there so they could play with my flip flops and my feet. I just sat on the couch while they would take my shoe off, look at it, then put it back on! It was apparently very entertaining! Matt had two kids on his lap; one on each leg. Well the little boy, for whatever reason, decided to push the little girl off! It was just a tile floor and she hit the floor pretty hard! So Matt put the little boy down and picked up the little girl to try to calm her down. They were sitting in the rocking chair, which I guess was pretty comfortable because in just a few minutes I looked over and they were both asleep! I snapped a picture as quickly as I could because it was just too cute! It is kind of hard to tell that it is a child in his lap from this picture, but you can see her little pigtail.

I had a little girl that fell asleep in my lap too. I had my legs curled up under me which quickly became an uncomfortable position! Both of my legs were asleep but that little girl was too precious so I couldn’t wake her up! I sat there with her for about 45 minutes with her until another one of our Park Avenue girls, Lauren, came in. She said she wanted to hold her, so we were trying to figure out how to pass her over. When Lauren reached over and started picking her up I looked down and I had the biggest string of drool strung from her mouth down to my arm. I had a huge puddle of it just sitting on my arm. It was extremely disgusting but she was so cute, I didn’t really care. I didn’t get a picture of her that day, but I got one of her later in the week. Here she is…

For dinner that night we cooked for everyone. I say “we” but really I didn’t do anything to help. We had a “kitchen crew” that was kind of in charge of that. We cooked out hamburgers! It was as if those kids had never seen a cheeseburger before in their lives! They loved them! These little kids who couldn’t have been older than five or six years old were eating two or three burgers a piece! So you would think they would be pretty full, right? Well then we brought out dessert! We made dirt pudding complete with gummy worms. They ate those up too! I think they enjoyed dinner that night!

For our activity that night we watched a movie with the older kids. It was a movie called Firehouse Dog. It was pretty cute, I guess, for a kid’s movie. It was a little annoying having to read the captions through the whole thing, but it was ok.

After the movie I went to bed. I was pretty exhausted from the day’s work!

Thus concludes day three.

Saturday
Saturday morning our “kitchen crew” team made breakfast for us and for the Casa kids. We had biscuits and gravy! We went to breakfast a little early so we could get to work early.

I started off at the fence crew again. After working for a few minutes one of our girls came over to get Janaga because she was needed as a nurse. Janaga was our nurse for the week. We asked what happened and she told us that Matt got hit in the face with a shovel! When I got a break I went inside to check it out and he had a gash in his cheek! He said it didn’t hurt all that bad and, by the time I got there, they had already cleaned up all the blood so it didn’t look TOO bad, but it was still gross. Janaga said that if we had been in the United States that he would have to get stitches! She wanted to use the dentistry supplies to give him stitches but the thread was too thick. She ended up just cleaning it up and putting some butterfly stitches on it. That was the “story of the week” that everyone was talking about. As much as I hated it for him, it makes a pretty awesome story and it really was pretty funny.

Before he got hit with the shovel... when he was feeling nice and tough:

After he got hit in the face with the shovel:

Here he is attempting to smile for a picture with me!

After working with the fence crew for a little while I realized that there wasn’t a lot I could do at the time to help. So instead of sitting around, I moved to the dirt crew to help out there. We were shoveling dirt into wheelbarrows and dumping it and raking it to raise the ground level so they can eventually pour cement for the basketball court. This is TOUGH WORK! Those wheelbarrows are very heavy! This was especially true because it had rained a lot the night before so it was more like shoveling mud. Here are some pictures from various times throughout the week of people working with the dirt crew…

Here is Basil working hard!!!

One of the Casa kids helping us out during his play time...

Dumping the wheelbarrow...

Matt hauling some dirt!

There was an area of the kids playground that would just fill up with inches of water every time it rained. The drainage system outside was practically nonexistent. So to try to drain some of that water we dug a trench leading out to an empty field. We dug it out then used our shovels like oars and pushed the water out. The kids were having their playtime, but a few of them came over to help us out. I think they liked splashing through the water, mainly, but it helped to keep it moving so we didn’t complain! Here are a couple of pictures of our trench…

For dinner that night we had flour tortillas! I love flour tortillas! We had had corn tortillas a couple times before, but I really liked the flour best! Who knows how many of them I ate… I lost count! Those tortillas and the rice were the best things we had in my opinion! After lunch I went with a few people to "slop the pigs". I happened to snap this lovely picture in the process. Doesn't that look yummy?

Here are a few pictures from our playtime with the kids that day...

Jorge being silly...

Here is Jorge and his friend being silly for the video:

We always found time for a picture!

For our evening activity we put on a talent show for the kids. It was a big hit and it was a lot of fun! Wes and Heath did a juggling act. Not just normal juggling though! They did all sorts of crazy tricks with it. I was in a group called “The Impersonators”. We would walk out with very serious faces and our hands folded in front of us then Naomi would say, “We are the impersonators impersonating… the banana.” On the banana, I stood in the middle and the other ladies stood around me. Then they all bent down like they were going to touch their toes and I was left standing in the middle (I was the actual banana, and they were the peel). Then we did the piñata. On that one we all pretended to be at a party while we hit one of the ladies with a stick. After hitting her a couple of times she dropped candy out all over the floor. The last one we did was my favorite. It was the sprinkler. We all came out with mouths full of water (but the audience didn’t know that). Naomi didn’t have water yet so she said, “We are the impersonators impersonating… a sprinkler.” Then we all turned our backs to them while Naomi got a mouth full of water, then we turned around and spit water all over everyone! It was pretty funny. When we were told what all we were doing we all thought it would be really lame and that nobody would think it was funny, but it was a lot of fun. We had a few group acts where the Casa kids got to come up and do it with us. We did a song with kazoos and a “midget dance” with the kids and they really enjoyed it. One of our adults, Jim, got up and played his harmonica for everyone! He was really good. I learned that week that he has many talents! I really enjoyed getting to know him throughout the week. Then some of our men, including Jim, got up and did a boy band dance to the Backstreet Boys song “I Want it That Way”. It was HILARIOUS! They really got into it, and had some choreographed dance moves and it was so much fun! The kids absolutely loved it. We also had a break dance competition between some of our youth group boys and some of the Casa boys. Whereas our boys did alright, the Casa kids were much better! Some of them could really break dance! It really got everyone cracked up and having a great time. There were so many other good acts, but some of them are “you had to be there” kinds of stories so I won’t go into detail. All in all we had a great time!

After the talent show we had our youth group time again. Once again we had some amazing singing! Listening to the singing is one of my favorite memories of the whole week. It was really an awesome time of fellowship with each other, a time to reflect on the day, then a time to end our day singing praises to our Savior.

Thus concludes day four.


Sunday
Sunday morning we got up and got ready for church. We had Bible class outside under the awning. There is a man at Casa named Abraham who does a lot of the devotionals. He taught Bible class in both English and Spanish. He is a very talented man who really shows his enthusiasm for the Lord. He taught a very good class about God’s grace. You can tell how much he loves each and every one of the children there and he is really a blessing to everyone he comes in contact with. After class we went inside to meet with everyone else. One of the youth group kids that I was sitting by had one of the little Casa boys sitting in his lap. The little boy’s name is Alexander. Alexander fell asleep in Brytton’s lap during the sermon. When we stood up to sing a song after the sermon Brytton wasn’t sure what to do with him because he wasn’t waking up at all! I took him and held him during the song and he went right back into a deep sleep. When we sat back down he just curled up in my lap and held my hand. It just about made me cry! I don’t cry too often, especially not in front of other people, but he just about got me! He is such a precious child… then again, aren’t all children precious when they’re sleeping? :)

I didn't get any pictures of Alexander at church, but here are some pictures of him from earlier in the week. He is such a cheese ball...

After church we had a carnival for the Casa kids. We set up bean bag toss boards, face painting, football toss, prize walks, fishing (over the counter) for prizes, and all sorts of other games. We had a lot of fun prizes for them to win like beanie babies, and hats, etc. I sat at the face painting table. Painting a heart or a soccer ball or a puppy is a lot harder than I thought it would be! The girl that hit Matt with the shovel got a “custom” face painting job. I think hers was the best…

We cooked dinner again for the kids that night. This time we had roast with “Red Lobster” biscuits. Not all of the kids liked this meal quite as much. I thought it was wonderful, but if someone would’ve given me roast, potatoes, and carrots when I was eight years old I probably wouldn’t have eaten it either! I can understand being a picky eater! :)

After dinner a bunch of the guys worked it out to have a big soccer game. It was Americans against Mexicans. Believe it or not, Americans won! I couldn’t believe it! It was fun though to sit outside and watch them play. The weather was perfect and you could see some storm clouds rolling in from a distance. We were all noticing how pretty the sky was and we were talking about how sad it is that a camera really can’t capture it. It was very pretty though. Here are a couple of pictures.

Here is a video of one of the boys showing off during the soccer game. One of the girls was trying to get her camera ready to take a picture so she kept saying, "Wait!" So he was making fun of her and copying her. At the end of the concrete there is a drop of about two feet or so and he does a flip off the end...

Since everyone was still in such a competitive mood after the soccer game, we decided to play basketball next! The Casa kids didn’t play basketball with us though. We played Park Avenue against the other youth group that was there. We dominated. The end.

Thus concludes day five.

Monday
Monday was our last day of work at Casa. Our two boys that were on the dirt crew (the two that would push the wheelbarrows) had to work at different stations the last day. We were a little unsure how quickly we would be able to work with just us girls pushing, but two of the boys from the other youth group were assigned to work with us. They were both fairly strong young men, both going into high school. However, they were the laziest boys I have ever met. They would not do a thing! Three of us girls ended up making a rotation and taking turns pushing the wheelbarrow. As I said before, that is tough work! We said something to the boys numerous times, and even some of the adults said something to them but they were just lazy. It got real frustrating for a while but we just had to tell ourselves that it was our last day, and we just needed to work as hard as WE could to get the job done.

Matt went into town with another youth group boy to do some patch work on a lady’s roof. They finished up there but didn’t have a ride back to the orphanage! They waited and waited for a ride but nobody came. They had about decided to just start walking, but the woman that lived there apparently realized what was going on and called someone from the orphanage to come pick them up. I can’t remember exactly what she said, but Matt said she was very kind and was very appreciative for what they had done for her.

Once we got cleaned up we went out to say "goodbye" to all of the kids. Everyone was taking pictures and giving big hugs and crying... all of that good stuff! I took a few pictures myself so I will share those...

Now for my sad story! Remember the boy that I said was my favorite? Saul? Well when we were telling everyone "bye" I noticed that he was sitting over by himself and he looked really sad! So I went over there to talk to him, and he was acting soooo sad! It broke my heart because I didn't know what was wrong and I didn't know how to ask him.

I got him to take another picture with me, but he has a goofy smile! I could just tell that something was wrong, but I didn't know what to do about it.

Then he posed for a picture with Jorge! These two were mine and Matt's favorites!

A few minutes later we saw him crying and he had the BIGGEST tear rolling down his face. We still weren't sure why he was crying, so someone asked Gil about it. Matt overheard them talking and Gil said that Saul goes through stages where he really misses his mom. I don't know the story of his mom, whether she is alive or not or anything like that. I DO know that I want to adopt this little boy! Look at those eyes!

Sooo... since I am only 20 years old and have no house, family, or income of my own, someone else should adopt him. Like... YOU! That's right, YOU! :)

Matt and I found time for a picture too...

After we said our "goodbye's" we were ready to go to town! We took Gil and his wife out to eat in town. We left around 3:00 that afternoon and took two vans into town. We split up into groups and did some shopping for a while. A bunch of our youth group kids found a store with cheap sunglasses so they all got some goofy lookin’ sunglasses. After shopping for a while we went to a restaurant called Rancho Viejo...

Most of us got Coca-Cola’s which were so good! I got some quesadillas that were okay. They weren’t wonderful, but it was still pretty good. We had a good time sitting around visiting with each other and talking about the week.

When we got back to the orphanage we had our last group devo at Casa. This one was kind of the big emotional one where everyone basically lost it! Haha! We sang for a little while then we went around and told other people encouraging things about them. Maybe it was something that you noticed about them throughout the week, or just something you wanted to share with them. For me I really got to know some people on a whole new level that week. It’s amazing how much more you can talk to someone and really get to know them without the distractions of television and cell phones and iPods. I got the opportunity to share some things with some friends and how they really made an impact on me that week. I also had some people share some very encouraging things with me. It was really an awesome night of fellowship!

Once things calmed down some, and people stopped crying, :) Matt played his song “Esperanza” that he and Wes wrote about Casa. I have tried and tried to find a way to get that song on here, and I can’t figure it out. Matt has agreed to let me do a video of him playing and singing it so whenever I can get that, I will be able to put it up.

Everyone sat around for a little while visiting with each other then we went to bed pretty early. We only had a few hours to sleep before we would have to get up again!

Thus concludes day six.

Tuesday
We woke up around 4:30am and got all of our stuff loaded up in the trailers and in the bus. We left the orphanage probably around 5:00 or 5:30am. Most everybody went to sleep as soon as we got on the road. When we got to the border we all had to get out again. We had to stay there for a little while, but not nearly as long as we did on our way into Mexico. When we got to El Paso we switched back to our church bus. Here is our group picture in front of our Mexican charter bus we took…

I really slept most of the way home. I don’t remember too much about it… it was just a long bus ride back to north Texas! We didn’t stop very often or for very long. Mainly just long enough to take a bathroom break, and to grab a bite to eat. We got back to Denison around 3:00am. Matt and I waited around and helped unload, then waited for everyone to leave before we left the church building. By the time I got to bed it was about 4:00am.

Thus concludes day seven.

ONE GOD. ONE HOUSE. ONE HOPE.