Last weekend Love God Love People went down to Puerto Penasco, Mexico for our monthly trip. Along with some of our regular volunteers we also brought down a great group from Phoenix First Assembly’s Youth/Young Adult Ministry. Also a treat, was the Malouf family joining us from Seattle. An added bonus is that Tara is a photographer and I saw her taking pictures all day so keep an eye on her blog for pictures from the trip!
With the weather finally starting to cool down again we moved back to staying at a campsite that is run by Missions Jim, a local missionary and longtime partner in our work in Mexico. It was great to be camping again, and even better to have a warm fire on a cool night! But back to the outreach portion of the trip.
We originally had planned on doing our normal kids outreach which partners with a local church. Long story short there was at one point no kids ministry happening, and then, within an hour we had two different locations that we were doing the program at. Our group of volunteers was extremely flexible, and working alongside local volunteers we had ten people working with roughly 75 kids throughout the morning (divided between the two sites). By the time it was over the kids had enjoyed a great lesson, been fed lunch, and latched on to many of the awesome volunteers.
A few blocks away from the kids ministry was one of the two construction projects which we took on this month. This particular project was an addition of a bedroom. The family is made up of a single dad, his three daughters, and his son. They were all sharing one room, but with the addition the three girls now have their own room, something they were very excited about. I didn’t make it over in time to get any photos of the family but here is the group hard at work framing the room and putting up the roof.
The second construction site was actually a continuation of a newly built home by a group from UthBuild, a ministry based out of Phoenix. This project entailed a little expert trim painting and a lot of dry-walling!
In the afternoon all of the groups gathered together at the food bank and sorted over 140 bags of food. We then went out into the community and distributed the food to the many families in need.
We ended the day with a great fiesta at the Men’s and Women’s rehabilitation center, Nueva Creacion; then returned to the campsite for a fire, some worship songs and eventually smores! Sunday morning we went to Family of God’s first service, grabbed tacos at our favorite taco shop, and then headed back home. Unfortunately that also included a two hour wait at the border! All in all it was a great trip, we loved meeting a lot of new volunteers this trip, and as I mentioned they were all great! We look forward to working with them again and to the upcoming November trip the 13th-15th. Thanks everyone for all the hard work!
