Van, Prison, Esther, and Colonias

So I just got back from being gone 10 days. Six days where spent in Matamoras, Mexico with the FYM (First Year Missionary) team there. All the interns and our RA Driver went down there to see the fruits of our office work.

We got there late the night of the 30th. So, we basically got everything unloaded and participated in a little dance party with the girl FYM’s there. Then we headed straight to bed. Becca & I where in a room with some of the FYMs Jill, Abby, Tamara, and a local that lives with them Alex.

We got up the next morning, Saturday, and headed to the prison. Where we visted people in their “cells”. The prison is nothing like an American one (not that I would actually know what an American looked like, but I’m pretty sure I have a good idea.) There are cells, but they are open during the day (I don’t know about at night) but they can bring whatever they want into the prison. Some have TV’s, hot pads, and other things like that. Also, the mothers bring their babies to jail, so that they can look after them. So, we spent most of the time in the prison talking with a women who had a baby and her friends that where around. This was Jill’s internship, so she had relationships with a lot of different women that we got to meet.

Then on Sunday morning we went out to the colonias, basically neighborhoods, and did relational ministry, visiting people’s houses. They call it their WOW (walk on water) ministry. They do this every Sunday morning, Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. On Sunday I went out with the granjas group. Which was basically just Chad. Caleb and me went with this group, it was a little disappointing because we spent 2 hours with this group and we had a visitor go with us that was a former FYM and she was trying to say her goodbyes to these people so she did not translate to us. So Caleb and I spent 2 hours in the dark and it was pretty much just boring. On Tuesday afternoon, I went with the group that went around the area where the FYMs live. This time it was great because this team was Tamara, Abby, Jessica, and Matt. The great thing about this group is that none of them are fluent in Spanish but their motto is “together we understand.” So, they were translating to Ashley & me very well, cause we went out with them. They went to several different houses. They gave clothes to a women who is 8 months pregnant, though she only looked like she was 4. Amazingly her husband and her are still together, they have two (adorable) kids together.

On Wednesday afternoon, Becca & I went with Chad and Abby to their internship. They intern at a Children’s home called Esther’s. They get there around 1 pm and then hang out with the preschoolers (the preschoolers have a classroom across the street from the home, while the other children go to school at the local school. Basically, they show these kids love and give them attention that they need and deserve. They were so cute. The minute I walked into the room, a little girl grabbed my hand and had me “help” her with a puzzle. I say “help” because she would dump the pieces and put the cardboard cutout in my lap and then put the pieces into it. The only help I was doing was holding the cardboard. We did that puzzle like 20 times. The kids would crawl all over us, and they wanted us to play cabollito, horsy with them, of course over and over again. We were there just tickling and playing with the kids until like 3:30
when we had to leave. It was probably the fasted 2 hours of my life.

In the weekday mornings we would sit with the FYMs during their classes. They were learning about spiritual warfare.

The other FYMs in Mexico that I didn’t work with directly where: John, Laura, Lauren, Jeanne, Timea, Jenny, and Ifoema. The Interns I didn’t mention where: Ashely K, and Seth.

The pictures are of: the Intern Team w. Driver, Our Prison Tattos (that you have to get to go in) and two pictures of cute little kids.