Pictures from Mexico

Sunday morning,ready to head to Hagerman for church service and to meet up with our MAPS team. We dropped Caleb off on the way with friends from our church. The Hagerman church heads up a team each year during Spring Break to assist a couple churches that Pastor Tellez has been associated with down in Mexico.

Kevin had our van packed very strategically so everything would fit and things needed sooner were more readily accessible. We were packed to the gills.

Prayer with our team prior to leaving. James was the youngest at age 10. Gene S. was the oldest and is at least in his 70's. Some of the team are experienced construction people but most of us were just taking willing hearts and hands.

I, Joy, was enthralled with the palm trees and all the desert plants. Here are Billy, James, and Teresa under the fronds in Las Vegas where we spent the first night at Boulder Station.

Here's Scheri beside a 'palm bush'--sorry this Idaho girl doesn't know the proper terminology
for this beautiful vegetation.

Kevin and Billy beside their cacti buddies in Yuma, Arizona--our last potty and food stop before crossing the border on Monday, Mar 16

Gorgeous flowering bush in Yuma. Also the very cool woven palm bark in the background. Here in Idaho the kids had just shown me tiny green leaves showing themselves in our flower beds.

The smooth, green bark on this tree was quite remarkable as well. I took tons of pictures of the plants but I won't bore you with any more of them.

The border between the United States of America and Mexico. For all of us but Kevin this was our first visit to Mexico and for our children this trip was their first visit to Nevada and Arizona as well as their first time to a foreign country.

This is the church in Morales where our team was working. Various ones did painting, sheetrock, tape and texture, dropped ceiling, floor tiles and roof work. Several of the teens were part of a praise band.

Construction Scheri ready and available for work.

The Sunday School room at the church that was our family's home for 3 nights.

Kevin (far left) playing guitar with part of the praise band at morning devotions.

Here's Teresa holding the long handle of a paint roller. The kids and I were given the assignment of priming and putting 2 coats of paint in the kitchen/fellowship hall.

Kevin spent hours and hours and days on his knees laying tile in the sanctuary. Here Teresa is holding a piece of tile until he is ready for it.

Here's Kevin and Scheri stirring up another batch of 'mud' for the tile.

Scheri singing "You Said" at the San Luis church on Wednesday night.

Here's Scheri assisting with the tile-work by carrying mud to the proper spots.

Another shot of Kevin laying tile.

On Thursday I had the unique opportunity of going to a private school in San Luis run by the church there. I took salvation bracelets made by the kids in our children's church several years ago and got to explain them to the approximately-70 students seated on the floor in front of me. This was my first-ever experience to speak through an interpreter (Pastor Tellez' teenage daughter, Ana). The black beads stands for all of our hearts dirty with sin. The red bead stands for the blood of Jesus that cleanses us from all sin. The white bead stands for our hearts that are made pure and clean when we ask Jesus to forgive our sins. The green bead stands for life and growing in Jesus through Bible reading and prayer. The yellow bead stands for eternity with Jesus in heaven where the streets are paved with gold.

Thursday night Kevin got to actually preach a sermon at the church in Morales (after we scurried around sweeping and mopping those new tiles, got the chairs set back up, the platform back in order, the outside cleared of pieces of tile and scraps of boards and papers) through an interpreter. He spoke from Romans 12 about being a living sacrifice and worshiping GOD's way.