most of the Real Life gang
the border....
Angel....
Lynette Blincoe, Steven Weikel playing with Angel
Ensenada Outreach Center....So a lot of my family and friends are expecting me to blog about my trip to Mexico, but I'm having a difficult time finding a good starting place.
The entire trip was magical, amazing, inspiring, heartbreaking, exhausting, uplifting, joyous, sad, miraculous, quiet, small, loud, enormous, beautiful, haunting, achingly humbling, bitter, and sweet...basically indescribable.
The facts are this:
1. I went to Ensenada, Mexico with a group of kids and adults from Real Life Christian Church.
2. We split up into two teams and in four days we built two houses.
3. I laughed a lot.
4. I cried a lot...ok a WHOLE lot.
5. I fell in love.
6. I had my heart broken....repeatedly.
7. I put a roof on my house.
8. I hit my thumb unbelievably hard with a hammer.
9. I literally left my blood on the rooftop of that home.
10. I had an intense moment with God on said roof.
11. I made many new friends, some lifelong.
12. I left a bigger piece of me then I would care to admit in Mexico.
13. Trae King is cool.
14. Katelyn Maurice and I would make mad mischief if I weren't a responsible wife and mother.
So one week ago ago I, along with others from Real Life Christian Church, boarded a plane heading for San Diego . Everyone was quietly excited and anxious as we boarded the plane. I was feeling a bit out of my element and frankly, old. I was traveling with a bunch of teens and I honestly began to wonder what my place on this trip would be. I was nervous and wondered if I would even have anything to say to these kids for an entire week. We made it to San Diego after a long day of traveling where Doug Forehand (our lead minister), and two other guys from our church Bucky Osborne, and Jim Green were there with large white vans. We piled all of our luggage and ourselves in and headed for our hotel. The next day we met up with others from Virginia churches and headed in a long caravan of white vans to cross the border into Mexico.
I had been told that crossing into Mexico was a fairly painless process and coming back out was a little more complicated. We approached the border and I got a bit nervous. There were armed men standing @ the border gate just hanging out in case anything troublesome were to occur. And when I say armed, I mean really large machine gun style weapons...Slightly intimidating (only slightly). Doug and Bucky were in one van, Jim Green and Nona Kim were in another. Our group from Real Life had been split into two vans and there were a couple more vans filled with the other people from different churches. We were ready to roll and start this trip.....
And for the first time in the eight years our church has been doing this trip (I know, right???) all of our vans were asked to pull over rather than driving straight through the border and into the country! I probably would not have been nervous except for the fact that my friend Sherry who has been on this trip almost every year made a comment about this being unusual. Up ahead I saw Doug talking to a border guard and I quietly snapped his picture. I was seriously afraid it might be the last time I ever saw him! A border guard approached our van and asked to look inside and our van driver, Larry King completely freaked me out by getting out of the van himself and opening the door for the guard. Inside I was screaming to myself, "Larry..Get BACK in the van." The whole process was extremely intimidating. Fortunately we were cleared to go forward and we all crossed the border in Mexico safely and relatively drama--free.
We continued on to Ensenada, Mexico which was approx. one and a half hours south of the border. We passed Tijuana on our left which was a bit creepy. It's surrounded by this wall and just looked run down and scary. The further down the coast we drove the more scenic it became. We were hugging the Pacific Ocean for most of the drive and it really was quite lovely. Every now and then you'd get a reminder that you weren't in America--the armed guards @ all the toll booths, the little girl, obviously homeless, sitting on the side of the road. We were, for the most part quiet, as we all took in the scenery. We made it into Ensenada, Mexico at about 5:30 that afternoon. I was tired and hungry, but excited to have reached our destination safely and ready to start work.
We unloaded all of our bags @ our base camp, Ensenada Outreach Center. Our rooms were actually really nice. Typical dorm style with bunk beds and shared bathrooms, but clean and very welcoming. There were 140 of us @ the camp for the week and the energy was exciting. We headed in for a quick meeting welcoming us to EOC and then had our first dinner together. The families we were building houses for had been brought to the camp for introductions. My team found out that evening that Lydia and her daughter Kenya, whom my team was building a house for were not there. I was disappointed that I wasn't going to meet Lydia that night, but learned she would be on the job site the next day. We did meet the other family that the other Real Life team was building a house for and their adorable boys, Angel and Enrique. I was very nervous about approaching the family @ dinner. My Spanish speaking skills consist basically of what I have learned on Dora The Explorer. I was nervous about how I would communicate with these people....How I would get across the message that I was excited and thrilled to be given this opportunity? I decided t play it safe and approach the kids, who by this time, had gotten up and started mingling around camp, playing, ping pong, and foozball. I approached Angel who was 8 and said "Hola." He responded "Hola" This was going good I thought to myself. I had brought pictures of my kids in my wallet...mostly in case I missed them and needed to see their faces, but in that moment, I decided to pull out the pictures of Stella, Ashlyn, and Quinn and show them to Angel. I pointed to Stella's picture and told Angel her name and he asked how old. I told him 8 (I knew my Spanish numbers up to 10), next Ashlyn's picture, and finally Quinn's. He took the pile of pictures from my hand and flipped through them over and over. He smiled and pointed and repeated their names after me. It was very sweet. I was able to communicate to Angel that these were pictures of my kids. It was a nice quiet moment and I felt for the first time that maybe I did belong there in Ensenada and that things were going to be fine...maybe even better than fine....
The entire trip was magical, amazing, inspiring, heartbreaking, exhausting, uplifting, joyous, sad, miraculous, quiet, small, loud, enormous, beautiful, haunting, achingly humbling, bitter, and sweet...basically indescribable.
The facts are this:
1. I went to Ensenada, Mexico with a group of kids and adults from Real Life Christian Church.
2. We split up into two teams and in four days we built two houses.
3. I laughed a lot.
4. I cried a lot...ok a WHOLE lot.
5. I fell in love.
6. I had my heart broken....repeatedly.
7. I put a roof on my house.
8. I hit my thumb unbelievably hard with a hammer.
9. I literally left my blood on the rooftop of that home.
10. I had an intense moment with God on said roof.
11. I made many new friends, some lifelong.
12. I left a bigger piece of me then I would care to admit in Mexico.
13. Trae King is cool.
14. Katelyn Maurice and I would make mad mischief if I weren't a responsible wife and mother.
So one week ago ago I, along with others from Real Life Christian Church, boarded a plane heading for San Diego . Everyone was quietly excited and anxious as we boarded the plane. I was feeling a bit out of my element and frankly, old. I was traveling with a bunch of teens and I honestly began to wonder what my place on this trip would be. I was nervous and wondered if I would even have anything to say to these kids for an entire week. We made it to San Diego after a long day of traveling where Doug Forehand (our lead minister), and two other guys from our church Bucky Osborne, and Jim Green were there with large white vans. We piled all of our luggage and ourselves in and headed for our hotel. The next day we met up with others from Virginia churches and headed in a long caravan of white vans to cross the border into Mexico.
I had been told that crossing into Mexico was a fairly painless process and coming back out was a little more complicated. We approached the border and I got a bit nervous. There were armed men standing @ the border gate just hanging out in case anything troublesome were to occur. And when I say armed, I mean really large machine gun style weapons...Slightly intimidating (only slightly). Doug and Bucky were in one van, Jim Green and Nona Kim were in another. Our group from Real Life had been split into two vans and there were a couple more vans filled with the other people from different churches. We were ready to roll and start this trip.....
And for the first time in the eight years our church has been doing this trip (I know, right???) all of our vans were asked to pull over rather than driving straight through the border and into the country! I probably would not have been nervous except for the fact that my friend Sherry who has been on this trip almost every year made a comment about this being unusual. Up ahead I saw Doug talking to a border guard and I quietly snapped his picture. I was seriously afraid it might be the last time I ever saw him! A border guard approached our van and asked to look inside and our van driver, Larry King completely freaked me out by getting out of the van himself and opening the door for the guard. Inside I was screaming to myself, "Larry..Get BACK in the van." The whole process was extremely intimidating. Fortunately we were cleared to go forward and we all crossed the border in Mexico safely and relatively drama--free.
We continued on to Ensenada, Mexico which was approx. one and a half hours south of the border. We passed Tijuana on our left which was a bit creepy. It's surrounded by this wall and just looked run down and scary. The further down the coast we drove the more scenic it became. We were hugging the Pacific Ocean for most of the drive and it really was quite lovely. Every now and then you'd get a reminder that you weren't in America--the armed guards @ all the toll booths, the little girl, obviously homeless, sitting on the side of the road. We were, for the most part quiet, as we all took in the scenery. We made it into Ensenada, Mexico at about 5:30 that afternoon. I was tired and hungry, but excited to have reached our destination safely and ready to start work.
We unloaded all of our bags @ our base camp, Ensenada Outreach Center. Our rooms were actually really nice. Typical dorm style with bunk beds and shared bathrooms, but clean and very welcoming. There were 140 of us @ the camp for the week and the energy was exciting. We headed in for a quick meeting welcoming us to EOC and then had our first dinner together. The families we were building houses for had been brought to the camp for introductions. My team found out that evening that Lydia and her daughter Kenya, whom my team was building a house for were not there. I was disappointed that I wasn't going to meet Lydia that night, but learned she would be on the job site the next day. We did meet the other family that the other Real Life team was building a house for and their adorable boys, Angel and Enrique. I was very nervous about approaching the family @ dinner. My Spanish speaking skills consist basically of what I have learned on Dora The Explorer. I was nervous about how I would communicate with these people....How I would get across the message that I was excited and thrilled to be given this opportunity? I decided t play it safe and approach the kids, who by this time, had gotten up and started mingling around camp, playing, ping pong, and foozball. I approached Angel who was 8 and said "Hola." He responded "Hola" This was going good I thought to myself. I had brought pictures of my kids in my wallet...mostly in case I missed them and needed to see their faces, but in that moment, I decided to pull out the pictures of Stella, Ashlyn, and Quinn and show them to Angel. I pointed to Stella's picture and told Angel her name and he asked how old. I told him 8 (I knew my Spanish numbers up to 10), next Ashlyn's picture, and finally Quinn's. He took the pile of pictures from my hand and flipped through them over and over. He smiled and pointed and repeated their names after me. It was very sweet. I was able to communicate to Angel that these were pictures of my kids. It was a nice quiet moment and I felt for the first time that maybe I did belong there in Ensenada and that things were going to be fine...maybe even better than fine....
Love you Donna!
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