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adventures of SKIP

skippi_h
read my profile sign my guestbook Name: Skip (Tracy) Gender: Female Message: message me MSN: skippi@hotmail.com Member Since: 1/10/2007

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Sunday, August 05, 2007

HI Friends,

Well I figured it was time to up date some photo's so here's my Mexico adventure by photo....

The April team from Airdrie.. in Guanajuato doing some sightseeing

Med clinics...which of course included some evangelism.

Let me introduce you to Pedro.... the team had a challenge to see who could get the most interesting photo's of Pedro.. here's a few..

Marce and Goyo, always do such a great job of preparing a goodbye fiesta for the teams. What a great treat.. Mexican dancing... and the team was invited to join in too.

The team left and I stayed at the construction site for a week and then moved to Jeremy and Anna's house to stay with Sarah while they were gone on holidays.

Eddi e and Louis.. construction neighborhood kids..

After the team left it was just Duane and I at the construction site for about 1 month because Aarron (another Canadian was in Guadalahara for a course and Jer & Anna were gone)... progress was slow but the goal was to get things ready for the July team to pour the floor for the second level.... and we got it done! God sent some help for us.. especially on the days we needed more help. A group of high school students, a few seminary students and some others from Duane's church.

Here are some before and after pics of construction....

Before April/ May / June

view from the top of the stairs Goyo chico and the ever present cement mixer

high school students helping out

Canadian construction team.... Duane, Jeremy, Skip and Aarron

And now....

sorry i thought I had pic of the finished floor... guess I'll have to take one.

Aside from construction we've done some events with the kids, who of course all this is being done for. We took them to the water park one day.. such fun..

deep end anyone??? Sarah? Goyo?

One of the older girls, Malena had a 15th birthday which is a HUGE deal here so they had a party...

and of course she had to dance with all her "brothers" big and small from Dulce Refugio....

One day we went to a kids theatre production of Beauty and the Beast.. all the actors were kids.

Recently a group from one of the universities came and took the kids out to historical hacienda for the day.. it was some great one on one time for the kids..

A good bye fiesta for 2 volunteers... thanks for your help Kerri and Marisa!

and meet some of the people involved with Dulce...

Jeremy (Anna's husband, Team host, volunteer coordinator and Duane construction project foreman)

Marce and 2 girls from Pan de Vida to cook for the team

Goyo (Goyo the directors son) he helps out at the construction site in the mornings...

Sarah (left) teaches english to the little kids and Marce one of the directors

Anna (Jeremy's wife) she teaches classes to the kids in afternoon..

well that's it for now.. you can check out more pics and info at www.xanga.com/childrenofhope or if you want more info on the orphanage you can go to www.childrenofhope.info

bye.. Skip

2:57 PM - 24 views - add eprops - add comments - email it

Sunday, July 22, 2007

I am sitting at in internet cafe (because my computer is not working, email me if you are a computer whiz please!) and enjoying the sun because after last night it is a welcome site. The rainy season has started here and last night we had torrential rain for about an 2 hours. So that meant bailing water, and the boys house had sewage backup.. not a good time!

We have been making good progress on the worksite and a team will be comin on July 7, you can see the progress at www.xanga.com/childrenofhope we are working on the girls dorm and are starting the 2nd floor. I have been really thankful for the prayers of people especially for safety at the worksite. I had a bit of an incident this week with a ladder. I was working on an extension ladder that i leaned against a brick wall and the bricks fell and I came down with it. The bricks fell about 2 meters on the outside of the building but i pushed back and grabbed the other wall and came down inside. So a few scrapes and bruises were what I walked away with and it could have been much worse. We have had all kinds of unexpected help at the work site. There´s a guy who is living there now named Hose and he helps out in the afternoon (he sells cactus door to door in the morning). We had some high school guys come for about 2 hours a day for 2 weeks because they needed to do a work project. This week we have some 3 Americans joinging us and 3 guys from a seminary in Juarez.

It´s been great getting to know some of the kids better and the daily hugs are always welcome. One night I spent about and hour sitting on the floor playing with 3 bottle caps with a little 4 year old named Anotnio, such simple fun! I started spinning the caps and he thought it was the greatest thing in the world. The spanish is slowly coming along and this week one of the Mexican girls from church said that my spanish was getting better! what a compliment. I´m sure that I still sound like a fool but it´s coming.

I am living in a house with Jeremy and Ana and it´s been great, it´s nice to have a house to live in! Jeremy keeps bugging me to stay or at least come back next year to help out with the teams and so that is defintely on my prayer list. I am loving life here, not to say that I don´t miss some things from home.... friends, sports, communication! I have a car though now to use and so it makes it really easy to get around.

well that's it for now... cheers

12:55 PM - 14 views - add eprops - add comments - email it

Thursday, May 10, 2007

hello all..

here's a pic of Eddie

click to choose

and Luis

click to choose

9:57 PM - 20 views - add eprops - add comments - email it

Saturday, May 05, 2007

Hi Friends and family,

It's hard to believe that it's been almost a month that I've been here... Crazy! Let me give you a run down on what's been going on.

The team that I led for Samaritan's Purse was a church group from Airdrie, from Faith Community Baptist Church. We worked on the construction site and got the sidewalk in front of the kitchen poured and stamped so it looks like rock.. very cool. we got a bunch of other stuff done too and you can check out the Children of Hope website for more pics and updates.

http://www.xanga.com/childrenofhope

The team did really well, other than challenges of heat and a few minor injuries everyone did really wel.We had a doctor along with us and did 6 medical clinics in communities with the local churches. We even had an eye doctor come along one day and help out.

here we are hard at work at a med clinic..

kitchen..

team trip to Guanajuato....

So the team left on April 15 and then my adventure as a resident in Mexico began. My living accomodations for the first week were at the constructions site (where we had been already with the team) now it just meant that it was me and Duane (the guy running the construction project). It was actually really good, flush toilets, running water, electricity... what more could a girl ask for?? well a little less dust would have been great! After a week I moved into Jeremy and Ana's house as they were going away for 6 weeks and said that I could stay there. Also as they share a house with a girl from the US, Sarah and so it worked out well that I could stay because she's really been wanting some fellowship so it was meant to be.

It has been nice being in a house, with a few extra's like no dust, the internet and it's really close to the orphanage so I can walk over and see the kids. Also downtown is really nice and close too.

Aguascalientes has a festival every year called the "Ferria de San Marcos" which is like the stampede multiplied by 3 and add in that anyone can drink on the streets... and it's for 4 weeks. So it's been a little crazy here but the fair is far enough away that we don't get to much residual noise. Sarah and I took the little boys last night because Dulce Refugio was given free ride tickets. It was a blast and 5 of th 6 were asleep as soon as we got into the cab for the ride home.

Well that's a lot of what I've been doing but there is also the stuff that God's been doing that I need to tell you about. I totally saw His hand working as we dealt with some team issues. Also one of the guys jumped over the fence to retrieve a soccer ball that got kicked over and fell down and hurt his back.. it was a little scary at first but we got Xrays done and nothing was broken!

I find that I've been doing a lot of prayers of necessity.. and selfishly driven. Specifically at the work site when I'm exhausted and don't really feel up to moving 200+ cinderblock bricks by hand. Or at night when the 2 dalmations, who live on the roof next door bark all night, or the neighbors decide to have a street party.

What I need to tell you though is that God is still answering even though I am praying for selfish reasons. One thing in particular I want to share with you is these 2 little boys named Eddie and Luis. They are brothers and live across the street from the construction site and usally come by everyday. Well one day Duane asked me to move the bricks (as mentioned above) and I really didn't have the energy, so I started praying for God to do something.. well he did. He sent these 2 little boys and they wanted to help. Eddie is probably about 8 and Luis is about 4 or 5. Well they of course asked me in Spanish (no I'm not fluent yet!) if they could help and so once I figured out what they wanted we got at it. Well Eddie tire out after about 3 bricks but Luis helped for 2 wheel barrow loads. Ok we all know that it's not that I got physical help from these 2 little boys but that they were able to help me shift my focus off myself and the work ahead and reminded me that this place we were building was for other little kids like them.

I'll end with a prayer request list.

1. strength, physically.

2. Spiritual food, it's hard to go to Church and be fed when I don't understand the language.

3. Quck mind to pick up Spanish.. I keep getting my frensh mixed up in there.. argggghh.

4. Favor for the construction site and that God's blessing would continue to pour out on it.

Thanks friends.. talk to you soon.

10:30 AM - 1 view - add eprops - add comments - email it

Sunday, April 15, 2007

hello.. Well I'm in Mexico! I got here on April 4 and will be staying until Sept 15 and then after that we'll see where God leads. I lead a team for Samritan's Purse down here and they went home this morning and I stayed behind. My adventure in Mexico feels like it's now beginning.

You know when you watch a movie or a documentary and the actor is walking through a market in another country and it always seems so cool. Well I experienced that today. We went and had Gordita's for lunch at a local shop and then walked through a street market. It was a little surreal.

God has been really faithful and protected us during the team's stay. We had some adventures though. One of the girls got her wallet stolen, thankfully only money was in it..no passport or id. One of the guys went over an 8 foot fence to retrieve the soccer ball but didn't land properly and hurt his back. So after xray's we found out only a bruised back/ tailbone.. again God's protection.

Well please sign my guestbook if you want to leave a message for me..

Take care my friends and I'll update photo's soon.

skip

5:25 PM - 17 views - add eprops - add comments - email it

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