How great is our God! Just returned from a two week trip to Rancho 3M in Guadalupe, Mexico. My church, Redeemer Church, was able to send two teams down there on consecutive weeks, and some of us were able to stay for both weeks! So thankful that God provided me with the needed resources and time to be able to take this trip to serve the children at the Ranch. The children are so precious and I got to interact with some awesome people from my church and among the interns and staff. It's pretty difficult to summarize two full week into one blog post, but I will try by describing some of the things we did while we were there as well as sharing some of the highlights.
Projects
One thing that we did every day was organized crafts and activities with the kids. Melissa did a great job heading this up with a different craft for each day, and the kids loved it! The rest of us, who didn't have a work project on a given day, took turns helping with the crafts and just spending time with the kids. There was quite a few work projects that were completed between the two weeks. These included: taking down some interior walls that were dividing classrooms (while conserving the materials), cleaning some of the outer walls of the school, putting up fencing around the school, cleaning, sheet-rocking the rooms of the new middle school building, painting playground roofs and picnic tables (the kids use these tables to do their homework on during the school year), and cutting and stacking wood to be used in the wood burning stoves to provide heat in the winter.
Highlights
On this trip (at least for me) there were no "earth shattering/life changing/sky opening up" moments, and, just like with almost anything, there were things that were difficult. However, there are several things that stick out to me as highlights even beyond the fun of hanging out with the kids each and every night (which was awesome). I will share some of those here. Walks to the cross: On both weeks we were able to walk up to the cross on a nearby hill with all the kids. The view of God's creations is quite amazing from up there.
Worship Night: The interns who worked at the Ranch this summer were some pretty awesome people. One night they invited our team to join them in a worship night so several of us did. It was a really refreshing night of worship, and it was also really cool because one of the Mexican staff members joined us so there was worship in both Spanish and English at the same time.
Del Rio: Once we all go to go to the local "Del Rio" (similar to a 7-11) and buy some sodas and snacks.
Church: Each Sunday we attended the church service in the chapel located on the Ranch.
Now I will post a few more pictures of our time at Rancho 3M. If you would like to see them all, check out my facebook page!
