Update On My Trip to Chihuahua

Hi Everyone,

Here is an update of my ministry trip to Chihuahua with a short video and pictures. We were up in the mountains on the west side of the state of Chihuahua. One thing that I thought was so neat was that the pastor and his family that we were working with were Mexicans--that had been reaching out to the Tarhumara for many years.

Basically my responsibilities were to help with the children's ministry part, hand out gifts (more on that later), washing dishes, serving food, and a variety of other things where and as needed.

Here we are in a team effort making Mexican hot chocolate for the children over fire.

I tried to get a picture of us all pouring the milk at once because I thought it would look cool---but by the time the camera took the picture, most people's milk had poured out!

Here I am with others getting ready to serve food to the people that attended.
I don't have many pictures of myself working--we were all just sooo busy!

Here are the women in their traditional dress.
Here are the children

The highlight of my trip was seeing these boxes

And being in awe and humbled by the fact that God was going to use my hands along with others to distribute Operation Christmas Child Shoebox gift boxes to the children! I think I was almost more excited to give the boxes to the children than they were to receive the gifts! I have filled boxes in the past (which is so much fun!) but was praying that God would one day let me give out shoe boxes to children. I want to be able to participate in all aspects of the process of boxes being sent out. All that is left in the process is to one day be able to volunteer and help check boxes at one of the processing centers!

So here are the photos you are waiting for!!!!
The pastor had all of the children wait and open the boxes all at once. It was really hard to get good pictures of them opening the boxes because they were obviously "in action" so much.
I woke up for several nights in the early hours of the morning with tears in my eyes from an overflowing heart of joy--thinking "God, You are awesome! I had no idea this was a part of this trip! Thank you for using my hands to give the boxes to the children---and at the same time giving me a true desire of my heart!"

Here are some of the children singing the "Head and Shoulder's Knees and Toes" song in their dialect--pretty cool!


The scenery while being driven the eight hours up and back was amazing!
I got to see things that I hadn't seen for awhile:

spruce trees
A touch of snow
A train


And there were other surprises

A beautiful sunset


Rock formations that looked sort of like elephants
And apparently I have a "house" in Mexico :) After all--the translation is "House of Cristal" :)
God is good--and it was a blessing to serve Him with others! Thanks for your prayers!