Even on beach day, we witnessed God's protection in many ways!. As soon as we made it to the beach, 3 students and a leader paid for horse rides along the beach. It was great fun, until one of the horses bucked one of our students off, and then stepped on the student's leg. While there is a wonderfully colorful bruise forming, the students leg seems to be ok otherwise. I am pretty certain some of you were praying, because that could have gone worse in so many ways. So know that your prayers are so evident to us... even in accidents we see God's grace and protections.
After that the rest of our market day was uneventful. The beach was quite fun. The waves were cold, but most of our students took a quick swim and jumped some waves. We pretty much had the beach to ourselves. Students had a great time haggling with the vendors and trying to get the best possible deals. They almost didn't care what they were buying as long as they God to haggle.
Not all of the shopping in the market was for trinkets and memorabilia... we also were shopping for things to give as gifts to our families we were building houses for. Our students and leaders have been incredibly generous and have bought many awesome things for their families. Several groups bought small gas stoves that run on small propane tanks. Clearly the students realize now that they have been blessed to bless others.
Tomorrow we have our last day on our sites and we have to finish the houses. Four of us leaders are going early to make sure all our sites are caught up to where they need to be to finish the work tomorrow. After the students finish building the houses, they will have a little dedication service to present it to its new owners, and to present the gifts that they bought for them. This is an incredible time of joy and tears. The only tricky part is getting enough translators. Pray that we would be able to clearly and graciously communicate to each family how much God also loved them during these dedication services. Pray also that the work goes well tomorrow with no time consuming frustrations to limit the time of the dedication.
Our cooks are the unsung heroes of this week. In order to feed the students they are putting in close to 14 hours a day. Three of them are from our own ministry, so please pray that they would have the strength to finish well tomorrow.
This has been such a good trip. Your students are having such a wonderful time and have really bonded in wonderful ways. They miss you, but are so full of the joy that comes in serving our Lord God so purely. Thanks for your prayers, we need them to keep us moving.
Thanks so much
Brandon
Click
here for more pics of our group
Ps. one of the other groups of students that is here also is blogging about their experience... check it out if you are interested.... click
here
This summer there has been much progress on the new student ministry lounge. If you have not been upstairs above the gym lobby, here are some pictures of what you are missing out on. Hopefully the construction will be finished in time for our september premiere.
the last 24 hours have been a whirlwind. We finished the houses late Friday afternoon. Earlier in the day, each site had the opportunity to present the house and other gifts to their family and to have a little dedication service. There were many joyful tears shed as students and the families contemplated how incredible and unexpected God is to bring 5 teams of middle school students to build a house for those in need. The students went to provide a family with a house, but we blown away by the generosity of their hosts familes. They never expected to recieve so much from these "poor" people. In such a short amount of time, the families and the students had fallen in love with each, and now they will most likely never see each other again
Even on beach day, we witnessed God's protection in many ways!. As soon as we made it to the beach, 3 students and a leader paid for horse rides along the beach. It was great fun, until one of the horses bucked one of our students off, and then stepped on the student's leg. While there is a wonderfully colorful bruise forming, the students leg seems to be ok otherwise. I am pretty certain some of you were praying, because that could have gone worse in so many ways. So know that your prayers are so evident to us... even in accidents we see God's grace and protections.
Well, after great night of sleep, with no sick children, we are off to the work sites again. Today we will finish setting the walls, and hopefully get the roof started... we have already built most of the trusses, but they need to be lifted into place and then covered with plywood, and then tar and shingle rolls. 
Today was another incredible day. Our students have a lot to be proud of as they have worked selflessly this week so far. Our houses are progressing nicely. Two of our sites have already started putting up walls, and the other three will do so before lunch tomorrow. This is great. Additionally we had around 100 children attend our first day of VBS and we think the number will continue to rise the rest of the week. The mexican children loving riding in the buses with the Americans on the way to VBS. They had a wonderful time today learning about Jesus.
As promised, I am filling in today's details... All five of our teams are off to a great start. The stories of the people that we get to build houses for are incredible. At some point we may share them with you, but right now lets just say that they all understand need at a different level than we do. 
