We found out yesterday (Tuesday) that most of the supplies we were missing were picked up from the border by the trucking company! Everything they picked up was then delivered to our camp!
Praise the Lord!
Monday in Tecate is when the real work begins on the houses. Sites were able to make good progress on Sunday, but the day is shorter and you're often working out of the excitement of being here and starting work. Monday is the first of the longer days, and some of the excitement has been lost. Despite that, though, every site I have visited has been in good spirits and appear to be enjoying the work. One of the things that helps keep morale high around the sites, and one of the things I cherish about this trip, is the emphasis, not on building the house, but on building relationships. Students are building relationships with each other, with the families for whom we're building houses, but most of all, with Christ.
I wish I could share all the stories with you, but hopefully these student reflections will provide a glimpse into the many ways God is making His presence known in Tecate this week.
One house keeping note, it was brought to my attention that there has been some confusion about how to see the pictures (which is understandable since I never explained it, and it wasn't obvious). For each day, I choose a single photo and make it a link to that day's photo album. To help, I will also be including text links directly before the photo link. I have also gone back and done this for each of the previous days.
Thank you all, again, for your prayers and support!
------------------------------------------------
Student Reflection
I know no
Spanish. Tecate is the only time of year where I feel that my French education
is useless. I can guess the meaning of most signs, because of the similar Latin
roots to French, but verbal communication (the only kind that matters) is
nonexistent. “Hola,” “gracias,” and “lo siento” are my limit; I don’t even know
numbers to ten. So even though this is my second time in Tecate, I felt just as
out of place when I arrived on Friday.
After a
productive day on Site 13, we crammed ourselves into cars and the caravan drove
back to camp on a typical Tecate road – super steep, super bumpy. As we were
coming to the bottom of a particularly tall and bumpy hill, we saw a woman pulling
a makeshift wooden cart about the size of a truck bed up the hill. None of the
wheels matched the other, the axles weren’t straight, and it was filled with
random tools and pieces of plastic. The woman was bent over at an almost 45-degree
angle pulling the cart, both legs and back pulling the cart slowly up the hill.
Almost as soon as
we saw her, the driver slowed the car down, and almost before he could ask, the
two boys nearest the doors jumped out of the car and ran to help her. They
pushed the cart up the rest of the way with her, ran back down, and jumped in
the car. The whole operation took barely five minutes with their combined
effort.
Two things about
this struck me. First, it wasn’t a huge deal. The boys didn’t sacrifice much to
do this, maybe a few more minutes without a Mexican Coke. The only reason why I
didn’t jump out with them was because I was stuck in the back. Second, I don’t
think they spoke to her at all. Maybe hello, but their action was
self-explanatory. Even my Spanish abilities
(or lack thereof) could do that.
In Acts, the
disciples spoke in many tongues through the Holy Spirit, and that happened
today, even if there wasn’t any actual speaking involved.
-Emily Starke, 10th
grade
Monday 2017 Photo Album
Can someone please post pics from the Tecate Soccer ministry team?
ReplyDeleteThank you!!
Saul Altabet