Tuesday at The Axis

Tuesday was the final day of ministry in Dublin. Leona and I worked on music for the time of worship and I put together a final message to share. I had an entirely different plan for that evening, but on Tuesday morning it seemed the Lord had a different idea so I changed my message. Sometimes God has different plans than us...so I tried to go with it.

One place I wanted Leona to see was a seaside village called Howth so we took a drive to the sea for lunch. Had some excellent fresh fish and chips in the harbor and then it was off to Ballymun to see the kids in the Asiling project and get set up for the evening service. For those who are not familiar with Ballymun...it is the very low income area of Dublin. The Asiling project works with disadvantage kids who live in this area. The first time I brought a team here we spent most of our time working with these kids so it was great to see some of the staff and check out their new location.

At the Axis we got set up and spent time with the people Denny and Linda are working with in small home groups around the area. Worship went well, Leona's song ministered to the people and then I brought the message I felt the Lord had for this group....overall we felt that God was honored and His truth was heard. Our prayer is that those who were there would take the message and apply it in their own lives.

After the meeting it was time to head home to pack up for travel the next day. We were tired!

Mexico Day 6

Hola from Rio (Brooke), Sister Ann, Esperanza Smellybud Damprock (Brittini), Pedro (Mary), Mamasita Christy, and last but not least El Guapo (Dan).
Well, it is another beautiful sunny day here in Puerto Vallarta and we have been working hard all the while wishing that there was at least 8 inches of snow on the ground and freezing temperatures.
This morning we went into the dump area to a little playground near the School for Champions to pick up all of the trash that was there. The job started to go very quickly when three of the local boys ( Raul, Andy and Juan) came by and started running around the place helping to pick up. As we were finishing up and the park was looking great a mom came in with her little baby boy and then said to me "Hola mi amiga" (hello my friend) and then went to push her little boy on the swing both with smiles on their faces. We then continued on to the School for Champions just down the road and our new friends that helped us to clean the playground followed along wearing their new work gloves we gave them. They so wanted to come and help us do some cleaning within the school grounds but we had to say goodbye because only those children who attend the school are allowed in. Hopefully by leading by example we have made an impression on them as well as those that have seen us working hard in the community this past week. Anyhow, we did another cleaning of the School for Champions and now we are preparing to go and have a meal with our new friends at the church.
Our trip to Mexico has turned out to be nothing like we expected but full of blessings that we never even imagined. Our team has worked so well together as a unit and laughed all the while. We have all remained flexible and done whatever was needed by those running a very huge ministry in areas surrounding Puerta Vallarta. We are all looking forward to coming back to visit with you and share all of our photos and stories. We´ll see you soon

--Brooke

Mexico Day 5

Today is my day to write about out days activities. We went back to the church we painted on Tues to finish the iron gate. We got it almost finished but it is quite a chore. We mix black paint with paint thinner and it smells great. After Brittney has been painting for awhile she comes alive and she tried her hardest to tease Anne and get her to break but Anne held true to her composure and gave it right back which made us all laugh. Dan on the other hand spent the whole time trying to bribe Enhenio to kill the rooster that kept cockadoodeling. He kept saying he would pay 200 pesos if he would kill the rooster. Dan finally yelled - in Spanish - kill the rooster and just then 5 of then let loose which even made Enhenio laugh. Once we were finished we went back to the church where we said goodbye to Anne, Brooke stayed back because she was not feeling well and Anne wanted to be with her. We, on the other hand, stayed back for a lunch that none of us, but Christy, liked. Really hot soup with sponge cheese and some kind of chicken salad on a toastada. After that we took our VBS material and went to the School of Champions. The was the best part of our day. Before they told us we could not give lessons about Jeses because it was on Govt property but then all of a sudden there we were with the material and a fabulous translator. We told the story about Jesus and the little children. They colored happy/sad faces and made a necklace from the Bible verses with wild colored string and beads. They loved it and our translator had them repeat the verse multiple times. Then we spent time talking to them well the only thing we knew how to say was What is your name and How old are you. The smiles and their big eyes said it all. We had bigger kids who kept trying to come into our classes because they wanted to do the craft. The best part was on our last class there was a boy - we will call Brandon- who was desperately trying to get his necklace and beads just right, and at the very end Dan gave him his hat that said Mexico and the smile would have melted your heart. He ran out to show all his friends. Then Dan played soccer with the kids and Philipe made Dan go on the girls team. They all giggled and put their hands to their mouth - but they loved it. After that we went back to the church and we were suppose to go home but they needed Dan to go for 5 min - turned out to be 20 to get furniture from someone who donated it to the church. Dan had the ride of his live on the back of a truck going 60 mph down these skinny side streets. People pay good money to go on rides half as fun. I on the other had still can not look when they drive we are millameter away from the other car. When we got back we went to dinner at Dominos - yes some members of our team were craving pizza. They bri ng the pizzas to your table, we ordere 3, and we had no idea what kid he was saying but there were 3 so we took them. Turns out we had the other two tables pizza and they went crazy when they opened it and it was our Deluxe pizza - they gave us dirty looks but we tryed to offer them the right pizza. Just as we were about to leave there appeared a little girl who looked up at Anne. Anne kept looking at us - like what am I suppose to do - so she gave her a piece of pizza. After she left we all just started laughing like who was she and where did she go. Well I will end this and would have written this in Spanish but not even Spanish speaking people would have been able to ready this - according to Dan.

For the Team....Mary

Mexico Day 4

Happy Valentines Day everyone, or as our unmarried people on the team say....Happy Single Awareness Day!! We had a very busy day yesterday, we put together 450 sandwiches and then drove to 3 schools located in the Dump area to hand them out for lunch. Then we went to Vallarta Adventures, a resort tour company who donates left over food to the Church . We then took this food, and set up in a town square to hand out a hot meal to children. We fed over 200 children and a few grateful mothers. We brought along some toy cars, crayons and toothbrushes to hand out. What amazes me is that children are children no matter where you are in the world! They laughed, helped thier little sisters, said "thank you", tried to sneak back for more and the boys refused to take a pink toothbrush. Cute!! It was a wonderful day and to top it all off ,we even had a Valentine party with cake, courtesy of friends of Pete and Selena. We cannnot believe we only have a couple of days until we come home...to all that snow!!

We love you all and miss you... but we love the hot weather.... see ya soon!!!

Christy for the Mexico Team

Mexico Day 3

hey guys!

We are having a great time!!

Today we painted the gate thingy (iron security fence- Ann told me to say that) at one of the Pardon y Amidad churches and we learned that black paint does not come off very well with water but it does come off with turpentine (which smells very good) We also cleaned the bathrooms and swept the santuary out so it would be clean for their service either tonight or tomorrow night. Their vision for the future of the church is to one day become a kindergarden.

God is teaching us all different things. For someone of us we are learning patience and for me personally I'm learning obedience.

Tomorrow we will be feeding the childen of the dump -breakfast and dinner.

Tommorrow on the blessed holiday of "Single Awareness Day" Christy will be writing and i think she will have a nice peom for you all!!


Yours truly,
Brittini
(aka Esperanza as i have acquired that nickname for ann)
(aka Shorty by Dan)

Mexico Day 2

Well friends and family another day has gone and it has been a good one. Last night the team took me (Dan Hamrick) out to a place called the Noname restaraunt for my birthday. It was awesome and had really good food. Later in the evening we went and saw some authentic mexican dancers by the ocean, lets just say there were a lot of sombraro's and weird clothing but good dancing none the less. Afterwards the team (by team I mean Ann since the group was just as surpized as me) suprized me with a Birtday party at Pete and Celinas house. I was completely floored they got me a gift and all so that made me super happy I even got to wear the ceremonial red birthday sombraro for the evening. They woldn't let me take it home though. We had a good team meeting last night talking about our day and what we were going to do today. Everybody was pretty much tired so we all went to bed early. This morning we woke up and started our journey at about 7:15 (Yes I do know that there is a 7:15 in the morning thank you very much) and took a bus to the local church we are working with. From there we traveled across town to the dump. WOW that was a shocker we saw people digging through the garbage trying to get things before everybody else did. From there we went to the local school that is located in the dump and helped clean it up a bit. We mowed lawns, moped floors, cleaned toilets, washed some roofs pretty much if it was dirty we cleaned it. So now we are off to take a tour of the rest of the dump ministry sites I hope everybody is doing well tomorrow you will get another update from Brittini.

Yours truly,Dan the Man Hamrick

p.s this was censored by ann harrington

Mexico Day 1

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico...a place of contrast. This picture shows the landfill where many families make their living and find their food, while in the back ground you can see the land of plenty where those with money come to play. It was with the children of the Dump that we went to work.

The next few posts are going to be a recap of our trip to Mexico with each post written by a different team member.

Dear Everyone,We have gotten some sleep...well some of us have. We went to church today and it was just like the Venue, but in Spanish. We knew all of the songs but one. Tomorrow we are cleaning...bathrooms, basketball courts and cutting some grass...if we can find our way back to the church. Just kidding! The weather is great...about 80...yes we are suffering for Jesus. Seriously tomorrow we will be suffering. Ok, well tomorrow´s update will come from Dan. Hard to tell what that will be. Thanks for your prayers.
For the team,
Ann