Hi family, friends, and members of FCCB,
Well, you will be glad to know that we are safely back home in Bellingham. Yesterday was our last day of work at the site, and we had the joy of building the walls of the house with the community members of Valle Verde. It was rewarding to see all the progress we made on the house throughout the last few days--from filling in the foundation, to pouring the floors, to finally building walls. We worked so hard, building on the house and building community.
After sharing a meal of carne asada and goodbyes with the community, in the evening we went out for dinner at the taqueria. Some of the youth tested out their Spanish skills by ordering at the restaurant.
Our trip home couldn't have gone more perfectly. We did have to wait for a long time at the border, but made it through without any issues. We ate dinner at a nice Italian place in San Diego and boarded the flight to Bellingham. We are home now and look forward to sharing more of our stories with you very soon.
Thanks for your prayers and support as we've been south of the border.
Lots of love,
Angela
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Day Four
We woke this morning to another beautiful day at the posada ....
sharing a meal of french toast and potatoes with the two other groups we are here with this week.
the Cline family and members of Trinity Lutheran are fast becoming good friends.
Off to the work site where today we poured the second cement floor (bucket by bucket by bucket!!!) and moved over 200 cement blocks which tomorrow will become the walls of the new home we are helping to build.
As we created lines to move buckets and blocks we were joined by the women, men and children in the community. The children were filled with joy today and a little bit of mischevious as buckets passed they quietly collected small amounts of cement to flip or squish in their hands to put hand prints on our shirts.
We have a few bruises, scapes and sore muscles...but are filled with pride at a job well done. We are a great team!!!
We shared another delicious lunch prepared by the women in the community and played games with the small boys....much laughter and giggling by all. No language needed.
Following lunch we took a walk to visit Catalina's (one of our beautiful new friends from the community who has been helped by Esperanza's generosity) casa. She was welcoming and gracious as she showed us around her home and patio garden filled with beautiful flowers. She is proud of her home and grateful for Esperanza. She tells us she will never stop working to help others in her community. As we left she told us we would always be welcome in her home and invited us to return again some day for a party. There were hugs and a few tears....
In the evening, we went to a place called Casa del Migrante, which is a house for migrants to stay when they are deported from the United States. We spent the evening sharing a meal with the men at the house and listening to their powerful, heartbreaking stories. Most of the men that we talked to had families in the United States. One man we talked to had lived in the States for over 30 years and had 5 kids. He spent two months in a jail in California after a minor traffic violation and has been in Mexico for the past week and a half. Another man we talked to was 27 and was brought to the US as a small child. He's a single dad and has a 5 year old daughter who is now living with her grandmother while her dad waits to try to get back home. When we first got there, it was kind of awkward because we were sitting at these picnic style tables with benches on both sides. We were sitting across from the migrants and it would have seemed rude not to engage in conversation. Some of us were a little nervous because we didn't know these men and we don't all speak Spanish. What we found when we sat down was that the conversation flowed naturally and the men shared powerful stories with us. There is a special table for those who wanted to talk and share stories, so no migrant was forced to talk with us. It was a powerful experience for us to listen to these men. The migrant house is run by Catholics and Brother William from Colombia gave us an orientation and talked to us about the house. Our conversation about immigration was political and thought-provoking. When we reflected on our experience this evening , there were tears and intense emotions for the injustice that is breaking families apart.
The evening ended with each of us writing in our journals. The week has flown by and tomorrow is our last work day. We have made good friends and though we are looking forward to our return home, we will be sad to leave this place. We really feel like we have made a difference and we have seen our actions change things for people.
Love you all!
Sharry, Angela, Cynthia, and Joe
sharing a meal of french toast and potatoes with the two other groups we are here with this week.
the Cline family and members of Trinity Lutheran are fast becoming good friends.
Off to the work site where today we poured the second cement floor (bucket by bucket by bucket!!!) and moved over 200 cement blocks which tomorrow will become the walls of the new home we are helping to build.
As we created lines to move buckets and blocks we were joined by the women, men and children in the community. The children were filled with joy today and a little bit of mischevious as buckets passed they quietly collected small amounts of cement to flip or squish in their hands to put hand prints on our shirts.
We have a few bruises, scapes and sore muscles...but are filled with pride at a job well done. We are a great team!!!
We shared another delicious lunch prepared by the women in the community and played games with the small boys....much laughter and giggling by all. No language needed.
Following lunch we took a walk to visit Catalina's (one of our beautiful new friends from the community who has been helped by Esperanza's generosity) casa. She was welcoming and gracious as she showed us around her home and patio garden filled with beautiful flowers. She is proud of her home and grateful for Esperanza. She tells us she will never stop working to help others in her community. As we left she told us we would always be welcome in her home and invited us to return again some day for a party. There were hugs and a few tears....
In the evening, we went to a place called Casa del Migrante, which is a house for migrants to stay when they are deported from the United States. We spent the evening sharing a meal with the men at the house and listening to their powerful, heartbreaking stories. Most of the men that we talked to had families in the United States. One man we talked to had lived in the States for over 30 years and had 5 kids. He spent two months in a jail in California after a minor traffic violation and has been in Mexico for the past week and a half. Another man we talked to was 27 and was brought to the US as a small child. He's a single dad and has a 5 year old daughter who is now living with her grandmother while her dad waits to try to get back home. When we first got there, it was kind of awkward because we were sitting at these picnic style tables with benches on both sides. We were sitting across from the migrants and it would have seemed rude not to engage in conversation. Some of us were a little nervous because we didn't know these men and we don't all speak Spanish. What we found when we sat down was that the conversation flowed naturally and the men shared powerful stories with us. There is a special table for those who wanted to talk and share stories, so no migrant was forced to talk with us. It was a powerful experience for us to listen to these men. The migrant house is run by Catholics and Brother William from Colombia gave us an orientation and talked to us about the house. Our conversation about immigration was political and thought-provoking. When we reflected on our experience this evening , there were tears and intense emotions for the injustice that is breaking families apart.
The evening ended with each of us writing in our journals. The week has flown by and tomorrow is our last work day. We have made good friends and though we are looking forward to our return home, we will be sad to leave this place. We really feel like we have made a difference and we have seen our actions change things for people.
Love you all!
Sharry, Angela, Cynthia, and Joe
Days 2 and 3
Hi family, friends, and members of FCCB,
Well, the last two days have been very full! So full we've barely had time to post anything on our blog! Sorry if you've been worried, but please be assured that we are all safe and doing fine. Here's a little bit of what we've been up to the past two days.
We have done A LOT of manual labor in the past two days. We've been working at the same site where we were on Monday, where our task has been to move fill dirt into the foundation of the house and pour a cement floor. The system that Esperanza uses to move dirt requires team work and everyone participating. At the beginning of each day, a large dump truck has driven by and dumped a huge mountain of dirt right in front of the house. Our task has been to move that dirt into the foundation of the house by filling buckets half full and passing them down a line of people. The last person in the line dumps the dirt where it needs to be and a second ling of people returns the bucket to those shoveling. It feels so good when we get a rhythm going and we see the dirt mounds shrinking. We also got to pour the floor, and our next task will be to start on the walls. It's so cool to see all the progress we've made. Singing loudly has made our work seem less intense.
We have had a lot of fun getting to know the community members as well. There are some adorable kids in the community that like to have water fights with us when it gets too hot out, and some of the ladies in the community have been teaching us some phrases in Spanish. It's been awesome to work in the same place all week so we've had a chance to get to know them!
Yesterday after work we went to a girls' orphanage which is run by nuns in the area. When we got there, a lady named Marta gave us a tour. When she finished that she took us our back and told us that the girls would love to challenge us to a game of soccer. So we ended up playing soccer with them for over an hour! We had such a good time and the girls just lit up. There was one girl named Perla who fell in love with Sharry and wrote her name on her hand. It was so cute. One thing interesting about the orphanage was that most of the girls have one parent or a relative living, but their families are too poor to support them, so they stay at the orphanage. There are usually 60 girls living there, but when we visited there were only 15 because the others were "on vacation" visiting their parents.
We had a calm evening tonight and didn't go anywhere, which was nice because we were tired from all of the work and field trips we've done so far. Instead, we headed down to an ice cream shop that's pretty close to where we're staying and got ice cream and soda and walked around a bit. When we got back from ice cream, we discovered that the power was out in the whole city. Fortunately our place has a gas stove and we were able to prepare dinner. The house next door to us got their power back a few hours before us, but at 9 pm, it was super dark here and we had no lights. The neighbor came over and asked if we would like to borrow a lamp so we could see. She then proceeded to hook up an extra long extension cord from her house down to our kitchen. It helped so much because we were trying to wash dishes in the dark, which was becoming frustrating because it was so hot and dark. When we got the lamp, it just made us so happy. The way the Mexican community comes together for one another has been impressive to us, and that lady lending us the lamp was just one of the many ways we've seen hospitality on our trip.
Anyway lovely people, it's bed time. Hope you are doing well and we look forward to sharing more about our experiences when we return.
Lots of love,
Angela
Well, the last two days have been very full! So full we've barely had time to post anything on our blog! Sorry if you've been worried, but please be assured that we are all safe and doing fine. Here's a little bit of what we've been up to the past two days.
We have done A LOT of manual labor in the past two days. We've been working at the same site where we were on Monday, where our task has been to move fill dirt into the foundation of the house and pour a cement floor. The system that Esperanza uses to move dirt requires team work and everyone participating. At the beginning of each day, a large dump truck has driven by and dumped a huge mountain of dirt right in front of the house. Our task has been to move that dirt into the foundation of the house by filling buckets half full and passing them down a line of people. The last person in the line dumps the dirt where it needs to be and a second ling of people returns the bucket to those shoveling. It feels so good when we get a rhythm going and we see the dirt mounds shrinking. We also got to pour the floor, and our next task will be to start on the walls. It's so cool to see all the progress we've made. Singing loudly has made our work seem less intense.
We have had a lot of fun getting to know the community members as well. There are some adorable kids in the community that like to have water fights with us when it gets too hot out, and some of the ladies in the community have been teaching us some phrases in Spanish. It's been awesome to work in the same place all week so we've had a chance to get to know them!
Yesterday after work we went to a girls' orphanage which is run by nuns in the area. When we got there, a lady named Marta gave us a tour. When she finished that she took us our back and told us that the girls would love to challenge us to a game of soccer. So we ended up playing soccer with them for over an hour! We had such a good time and the girls just lit up. There was one girl named Perla who fell in love with Sharry and wrote her name on her hand. It was so cute. One thing interesting about the orphanage was that most of the girls have one parent or a relative living, but their families are too poor to support them, so they stay at the orphanage. There are usually 60 girls living there, but when we visited there were only 15 because the others were "on vacation" visiting their parents.
We had a calm evening tonight and didn't go anywhere, which was nice because we were tired from all of the work and field trips we've done so far. Instead, we headed down to an ice cream shop that's pretty close to where we're staying and got ice cream and soda and walked around a bit. When we got back from ice cream, we discovered that the power was out in the whole city. Fortunately our place has a gas stove and we were able to prepare dinner. The house next door to us got their power back a few hours before us, but at 9 pm, it was super dark here and we had no lights. The neighbor came over and asked if we would like to borrow a lamp so we could see. She then proceeded to hook up an extra long extension cord from her house down to our kitchen. It helped so much because we were trying to wash dishes in the dark, which was becoming frustrating because it was so hot and dark. When we got the lamp, it just made us so happy. The way the Mexican community comes together for one another has been impressive to us, and that lady lending us the lamp was just one of the many ways we've seen hospitality on our trip.
Anyway lovely people, it's bed time. Hope you are doing well and we look forward to sharing more about our experiences when we return.
Lots of love,
Angela
Monday, August 16, 2010
Primer Dia (First Day)
Hi friends, family, and members of FCCB,
We've only been here one day and we've already made meaningful connections across language and cultural differences. This morning we ate breakfast with the two other church groups and got an orientation of the work of Esperanza International. We headed to the community of Valle Verde with our new friends from Trinity Lutheran Church in Lynnwood, WA. We spent the day building walls for the foundation of the home.
As with anything new, some of us felt a little awkward not knowing what work we could help with. As the day progressed, we all found our niche and things felt really natural to us. We worked along side the members of the community, shoveling sand and gravel into buckets to be mixed into cement. Some of us participated in the "bucket line," where we passed concrete in buckets from the mixer to the foundation where it was needed.
After an amazing, delicious lunch made by the community members, we visited the Tortilleria (tortilla co-op), which was sponsored by Esperanza. The ladies that work in the co-op showed us the process for making tortillas in their small shop.
Later in the evening, after a bouncy van ride, we made our way to the border. It was an intense experience to see the division between the two countries. (Specifically the fence that the United States has built.) On the fence, there were hundreds of white crosses representing those who have died in their attempts to cross the border. It was also inspiring to see how the Mexican community has come together to make their side of the border beautiful. They've put in a nice park and created murals on the wall. Our side just looks barren.
We ended our evening with a great dinner and a time of song and reflection. All the youth enjoyed volleyball and basketball around the posada as well.
That's all we have for tonight, family. Thanks for your continued thoughts and prayers.
Love from Tijuana,
Angela, Heather, Andrew, Austin, and Erin
We've only been here one day and we've already made meaningful connections across language and cultural differences. This morning we ate breakfast with the two other church groups and got an orientation of the work of Esperanza International. We headed to the community of Valle Verde with our new friends from Trinity Lutheran Church in Lynnwood, WA. We spent the day building walls for the foundation of the home.
As with anything new, some of us felt a little awkward not knowing what work we could help with. As the day progressed, we all found our niche and things felt really natural to us. We worked along side the members of the community, shoveling sand and gravel into buckets to be mixed into cement. Some of us participated in the "bucket line," where we passed concrete in buckets from the mixer to the foundation where it was needed.
After an amazing, delicious lunch made by the community members, we visited the Tortilleria (tortilla co-op), which was sponsored by Esperanza. The ladies that work in the co-op showed us the process for making tortillas in their small shop.
Later in the evening, after a bouncy van ride, we made our way to the border. It was an intense experience to see the division between the two countries. (Specifically the fence that the United States has built.) On the fence, there were hundreds of white crosses representing those who have died in their attempts to cross the border. It was also inspiring to see how the Mexican community has come together to make their side of the border beautiful. They've put in a nice park and created murals on the wall. Our side just looks barren.
We ended our evening with a great dinner and a time of song and reflection. All the youth enjoyed volleyball and basketball around the posada as well.
That's all we have for tonight, family. Thanks for your continued thoughts and prayers.
Love from Tijuana,
Angela, Heather, Andrew, Austin, and Erin
Sunday, August 15, 2010
We're here!
Hi friends, family, and members of FCCB,
Just to let you know, we have arrived at the posada, the place where we will be staying this week. Everyone traveled well and our journey has gone as planned so far. :) We will update you all tomorrow to let you know what we experience. For now, we are just glad to be here with each other, ready to go to bed.
~Angela
PS: We were greeted as we got off the plane in San Diego by friends Lynn Yurovchak, Ann and Jessica. (They are part of our church family too.)
Just to let you know, we have arrived at the posada, the place where we will be staying this week. Everyone traveled well and our journey has gone as planned so far. :) We will update you all tomorrow to let you know what we experience. For now, we are just glad to be here with each other, ready to go to bed.
~Angela
PS: We were greeted as we got off the plane in San Diego by friends Lynn Yurovchak, Ann and Jessica. (They are part of our church family too.)
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Mexico Mission Trip BBQ
Hi Friends and Family of FCCB,
Our trip is now just 4 days away! We leave this Sunday! Last night we met for the first time as a whole mission team (minus Mallory who was unable to attend). Joe Nyberg fired up the BBQ and grilled us up some delicious hot dogs, and we went over some last minute details for our trip. Several awesome people joined our team within the last two months and it was fun for me to watch the faces of my friends light up when they realized who would be going on the trip. Below you will hopefully find a few photos taken last night at the BBQ if I am successful at posting them! ~Angela
Our trip is now just 4 days away! We leave this Sunday! Last night we met for the first time as a whole mission team (minus Mallory who was unable to attend). Joe Nyberg fired up the BBQ and grilled us up some delicious hot dogs, and we went over some last minute details for our trip. Several awesome people joined our team within the last two months and it was fun for me to watch the faces of my friends light up when they realized who would be going on the trip. Below you will hopefully find a few photos taken last night at the BBQ if I am successful at posting them! ~Angela
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| Mexico Mission Trip Team |
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| Our yummy food! |
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| Meeting Agenda and Photos of Esperanza Work! |
Monday, August 2, 2010
Counting down the days!
Our trip is less than two weeks away now!! We are all getting very excited and looking forward to our work with Esperanza! Some of you have been wondering who is going on this trip, which started out as the youth trip and is now an intergenerational trip including some really awesome adults! We will be meeting up in TJ with two other churches from the Seattle area who are also bringing intergenerational groups, so we'll fit right in! Here's who's going from our church:
Austin Lehn, Ellen Clark, Graham Wallace, Tim Davenport, Brian Hoffman, Mallory Sandoval, Erin Schick, Allegra Ritchie, Joe Nyberg, Sharry Nyberg, Evan Ritchie, Cynthia Pottle, Heather McKendry, Andrew Holcom, and me (Angela Pahlow). All in all there are 15 of us. We appreciate your prayers for our whole group!
~Angela
Austin Lehn, Ellen Clark, Graham Wallace, Tim Davenport, Brian Hoffman, Mallory Sandoval, Erin Schick, Allegra Ritchie, Joe Nyberg, Sharry Nyberg, Evan Ritchie, Cynthia Pottle, Heather McKendry, Andrew Holcom, and me (Angela Pahlow). All in all there are 15 of us. We appreciate your prayers for our whole group!
~Angela
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