Trip Home

Well, today is out last day for travel. The original plan was to go shopping in Austin, Texas and take our time coming home Saturday morning, but after much deliberation, we decided that it would be nice to sleep in our own beds and have a full day of rest on Saturday. Before we headed out for our 9.5 hour drive we ate breakfast at Twin Sisters - located a block away from the Alamo. After that we walked a block to - you guessed it - the Alamo! :) It is somewhere I have never been, so it was very exciting for me to experience a piece of history. We walked around for a while in the Fortified Church area, then went outside and found a peaceful place to have our devotion. Afterwards, we headed into the courtyard to listened as one of the staff explained the historical significance of the Alamo. Not only was it an educational experience, it was also very captivating for everyone. After the visit, we pursued our journey towards home. Even with a few stops along the way, we made excellent time and arrived at the church around 10:30 safe and sound. Thank you to everyone who followed our blog (even though the posting wasn't consistent) and those who prayed for safe travels there and back! We could not have done this without those who supported and prayed for us. :D

- Golden Girls

Thursday

Our morning routine was about the same this morning. Unfortunately it was the last time we would have Rita's delicious cooking. :( After breakfast we loaded the van and headed out to our family's house to work for the last time. The family picked out this blue that looked really nice with the white stucco, which the only thing we really needed to do was use it to paint the gables and the doors. Once we finished our beautiful paint job we decided to go back to the LARC to clean up before the dedication. So we hurried home, took showers, packed our things, and loaded the van to go to the dedication. After the dedication we took them to a place called The Shed to eat, and to our surprise they have only been there once before because it is very expensive. We fed 19 people for $122 with tip. They also had a full meal they took home with them. We all shared chips and salsa, some sort of mashed potatoes and tostada chips. It was a great way to leave the family. They will always be a part of our family as I'm sure we are in theirs.

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Julian Hard at Work

Day 3

This morning seemed to be a little bit better when we were all trying to get up and around for the day. After another amazing breakfast we were ready to get started for the day and try to get the rest of the work done. We started off the day by putting purlings on the roof and then added the tin to finish it off. Once the roof was done Jorge, one of our Maestros, started to put the windows in and Julian, (our other Maestro) started to cut wood for the door frames and the doors. We all decided to help wherever we could. Some of us were helping Julian, others were helping Jorge, and then Cally and I got to play with the kids that we had played with the other day and a few more. :) Today instead of our original plan of going to a hot dog place in town, we were surprised to find out the family was planning to prepare lunch for us! It was very delicious! We had chicken with vegetables, rice, and mashed potatoes. We were very blessed to have had the opportunity to eat with them. After lunch we headed back to the LARC for showers and then back out to Soriana (their Wal-Mart) to purchase the gifts for the family to give to them at the dedication ceremony tomorrow. We got the kids coloring books, markers, colored pencils, Legos, Frisbees, a Soccer ball, and a UNO game. We also got the family 10 packages of rice, 8 packages of beans, onions, potatoes, and a watermelon, and a Spanish Bible (that we will also present to them during the ceremony). Now we are finishing up dinner and planning to go play with the neighborhood kids later on this evening. Don’t forget to pray for our family here and that the dedication ceremony goes over smoothly.  Thank you again for supporting us and we will update again tomorrow. (We will be in the states tomorrow so we will have service!!!)
- Golden Girls

Day 2

It was very difficult to get out of bed this morning, due to the hard work that we all did the day before. But, we did wake up to another delicious breakfast cooked by Rita. We went through our normal morning routine by having devotions, eating breakfast, and then heading out to the work site. Today we thought we would be putting up most of the roof, cutting boards, and then painting what needed to be painted. To our surprise our Maestros had another idea because we are so ahead with our progress. They told us that we were going to put the stucco on the walls, begin constructing the roof, and create the loft. With a lot of hard work from everyone, and some staying a little later than others, we were able to get all of that done! We invited the family back to the LARC for lunch- that is why some of us left a little earlier than the others. Once we got back to the LARC with the family, it took a little while for them to get use to us, but once they warmed up to us we played a rousing game of Volleyball (with a soccer ball), UNO, and a game that was a cross between Go Fish and Memory. It was a little hard to communicate so we made up our own games. :) They got to stay for a couple of hours, but then they had to get back home. Later in the evening, we handed out some popsicles to the neighborhood kids in the park next door. Thankfully we had enough popsicles for everyone who wanted one plus a few more! We played outside with those kids until it got dark outside and then we had to go. Some of us played futbol with the smaller kids, some played on the big play ground with elementary age kids, and others just watched the big kids play some intense futbol on the basketball court. It was definitely a high light of our week so far. We finished off the day with our ending devotion and tried to find some WIFI to send our blog. However, we were unsuccessful in finding any WIFI (hence why this is a day late). We are very sorry that this year’s blog has not been as consistent in being posted as the previous year. Please continue to pray for us as we try to finish up most of the house tomorrow!
- Golden Girls

Where we finished on the house.

Day 1 of Casita Building

Today was the first day of our Casita project, which is also, allegedly, the hardest working day of the week. We meet for devotions around 6:15, before our wonderful cook, Rita, served us breakfast. Following breakfast we headed out to the worksite with our Maestro Julian- who is also the same Maestro that we had the previous year. When we got there we started by forming a line while handing all the cement blocks from one person to the next until we got most of them on the foundation. We then proceeded to unconsciously split into teams and began working on the walls. Around 10:00 am we took a quick snack break in the shade to replenish our bodies and then we started back up to finish the afternoon. We continued to work in our groups to finish the walls and then before we knew it, it was time to head back to the LARC for lunch!:) The second the van door opened we all scattered to our rooms to hurry up and take our much needed showers. Once we were all clean and ready to eat we sat down for a nice lunch with Julian and our other Maestro Jorge. And then it was nap time! We were truly being a part of the Hispanic culture. Our next adventure lead us to our previous year’s casita, the home of Karina (age 23), Johanni (6), and Jorge (2), we were so excited to see the family!! We gave them a cross (in remembrance of last year), a framed picture of last year’s team, and I gave Johanni a framed picture of the two of us.:) We talked for a little while to see how she and her family are doing. She shared that they are all doing well and is very excited to see us again. After we returned to the LARC we had the opportunity to play futbol with some of the neighborhood kids in the park next door. It took them a while to warm up to us, but eventually we got them to play. It started to get late so we had to tell them goodbye, but we told them to come back the same time tomorrow and we would play with them again. Then we had our last devotion for the day and some of us decided to relax for awhile and the others decided it was time for some well deserved sleep. Tomorrow we have another busy day ahead of us. Right now we are ahead of schedule so please pray that we continue on this path and that we all stay hydrated and safe in this heat (because we are in this blistering heat of 95 degrees). :)

- Golden Girls

Saturday & Sunday

First of all for everyone who is following us I’m going to apologize because we haven’t found good WIFI until today. We thought we had tried everywhere downstairs to find a WIFI area, even the computer itself that is hooked up to the internet was down. We were trying to figure out how we were supposed to update our blogs without internet. We just found a random spot where we could sit in the cool air to turn the computer on before we would try to get WIFI outside. We got just enough WIFI to send out our blog. Praise God for just enough!
Anyway, back to our trip.. Saturday we left East Cross close to 6:00 am right after Jeff prayed for us. Everyone was healthy and we didn’t have to make any emergency stops along the way, which is a definite blessing! Especially since I was one of the ones who got sick last year. On the way into Mexico we had planned to take the new Donna Bridge that would lead us straight in to Rio Bravo, but to our lack of knowledge the bridge had closed down 20 minutes before we got there. So we had to turn around and go back to the Farr Bridge which cost us sunlight and half an hour of time. BUT, we did make it safe in town around 9:30 pm that evening with plenty of time to have our devotions and play the card game Nertz before we went to bed.
The next morning we all had the opportunity to sleep in, but most of us got up around 8 o’clock to start getting ready for the day. I guess that is still sleeping in for a lot of us. Around 10:45 Gustavo, our translator, came to lead us to the Methodist church that we went to for service. The service was amazing and the Worship band was wonderful! We wish you could be here with us to see how powerful God is even when we can’t fully understand what is being said. The service was two hours long, but to our surprise it only felt like 45 minutes! For the first hour the praise band played in between alternating scripture readings. Then in the second hour the pastor preached for the whole time! We had no idea that time had passed so quickly, the next thing we knew he said Amen and the service was concluded. (Jeff this doesn’t give you an excuse to start preaching for an hour ;) ). After the service we went to a local restaurant with Gustavo and we dined on some deliciously authentic Mexican food. Following lunch we quickly returned to the Larry Acton Retreat Center to change and get our grocery list. A short drive later we found ourselves at Soriana, their “Walmart”, getting all of the necessities for the week.
Later on in the evening when we returned we discovered that the other team had arrived and low and behold they were none other than THE Larry Acton’s group! Once they got settled in they came down and shared their history regarding the LARC as well as their hopes and visions leading up to the construction of the LARC. We got to listen to their stories, ask questions, and sing a few of their favorite hymns with them. Thanks to this group of dream pursuers we are able to be accommodated in a safe haven while doing the Lord’s work in the community.
Thank you for all the prayers offered already, but please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers daily because we have a long road ahead of us.
- The Golden Girls