Adventures of Juarez, Mexico, Missions Trip

Our adventure began on August 7th at 9:30 p.m., when we loaded up the bus in Warman, SK, and started our journey to Juarez, Mexico. The 14 of us started out on a journey that, in the end, knit all of us together. As I've had time to "decompress" from the trip, I never expected that I would long to go back to Juarez. I didn't anticipate that this trip would impact me this much. I will try to give you a glimpse of our trip through a few stories and a few pictures.

On our way down, we had trouble with our bus. We made it to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and had to stay there for the night. We had planned to travel to Colorado Springs our first day. We were leaking oil, and upon further inspection, our exhaust pipe was split in half, a fan belt that ran the back air conditioner was shredded, and the oil compressor needed a gasket fixed. We were able to get the first two problems fixed, and then continued on to El Paso, adding oil as we went. It finally was fixed while we were in Mexico. Our guys took the compressor off, Leonardo took it to El Paso to be reconditioned, and they reinstalled it. We had no trouble on the way home.

When we left Cheyenne, we picked up a family of 5 (and a baby on the way) that was hitch hiking to Denver. This was way out of my comfort zone. Mom told me too many scary stories about hitchhikers (thanks Mom!). They had just gotten settled when we stopped and picked up another guy. I kept thinking that they were crazy to pick them up. But it turned out to be the first opportunity that we had to witness to a group of people.

One of the hardest things to get used to while in Mexico was "Mexican time." If we wanted to leave to go somewhere at 10 a.m., we would be lucky to leave by 11. That was fairly frustrating.
We had a great time in Juarez. It was hard leaving the kids for that long. I knew that they were in good hands, but it was still hard. Next time we go, we are going to have to find a way to either take them along, or something.

One of the bonuses of this trip was getting to spend the night at my Uncle Mike and Aunt Linda's house in Garden City, Kansas. My Grandpa and Elvira (his girlfriend), my Uncle Dennis and Aunt Elaine, and my cousin Jason, all came to see Ryan and I. It was a very special time...short, but so special.

Here are some pictures of our adventures.

One of our stops on our way to Juarez was at the Focus on the Family facilites in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It is a neat place to visit. They have a great book store. This cross is made up of the different names of God all welded together. It was so beautiful.

We stayed at the El Camino motel in Las Vegas...New Mexico.

A view of the pool at our hotel in El Paso.

Getting into Mexico was quite an ordeal. We had gotten in the wrong lane going through customs at the Mexico border. We had to turn around, go back to the US, through US customs, and cross the border at another crossing. This picture was taken after we had butted in line headed into the US. See the chartered bus on the far right of the picture? That is where we needed to get to...across 5 lanes of traffic. We then had to take our luggage off the bus, walk through US customs, and reload the bus. The whole ordeal took about 2 hours, when we finally crossed into Mexico.

Our room and our roomie, Jodie! There are 5 rooms that each have a sink and double bunk beds in them. A hard adjustment for me for the first 24 to 36 hours or so. After that, it was home.

We had the chance to go to an orphanage called La Vid, which means The Vine. It is a heartbreaking place to visit, and at the same time it is an amazing place. These children can stay at La Vid until they marry. Other orphanages kick them out when the kids reach the age of 15 or 16. This was one of the highlights of the trip for me. The little girl in the white shirt is Naomi. I was hardly through the gates of the place, and she launched herself into my arms. It was all I could do to leave her there.

Rachel with Lolita, aka Lola.

Dallas with some of the kids.

Armando and Laura, who run La Vid. I asked her if the children called them Mom and Dad or Grandma and Grandpa. She said no but that the children call her "Beautiful."