Mexico: March 2008 Archives

As the official blogger of Team Mexico, I feel that it is my duty to inform you that we have all arrived safe and sound in beautiful Upland, Indiana. We arrived around 1:30 am (that would be 11:30 pm in Mexico), and after a long day of travel including a delayed flight in Charlotte, we are all safely back (with all of our luggage). PRAISE GOD!!!!!!

 

I would just like to say (before I go to bed in time to get up for my 8:00 class tomorrow morning), that I have thoroughly enjoyed being the team blogger and hope that all of you have enjoyed reading my little ramblings. I would like to say though, that if you know someone who was on the trip, please, please, please talk to them about their personal experiences because I am positive that everyone is coming away with something different. In fact, even I have a few stories to share that I wasn't necessarily willing to post for the whole world. Please be patient with us as we process what God did through/for/to us while we were gone. We really do want to share with you, it just might take us a while to put everything into words. And again...THANK YOU A MILLION TIMES FOR YOUR PRAYERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There is absolutely no way any of this could have happened without all of you! Be blessed!

 

- Emily

It is hard to believe that we are already in the midst of our last full day of work. At the beginning of the week, we thought our time would last forever, but suddenly we are nearing the end. Work today has been very good so far. We seem to have a lot of people coming through and have been keeping busy all morning. It feels so incredibly good to be able to help so many people. The auto refractor that I talked about has been fixed so yesterday and today we have been able to move people through there quite rapidly. There is still a grand need for patience as the pickings are getting slim. However, God is so good, and there have already been several times today in which He provided the perfect pair of glasses.

 

I realize that I am beginning to sound redundant, but PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE pray for health!!!!!!!! Today two girls stayed back at the hotel because they are sick. Last night we were calculating, and we determined that there are only about 5 or 6 team members who have not had some sort of illness since we have been here. Many are feeling better now, but everyone is kind of on edge wondering who might get sick next. Your prayers are not only appreciated...they are NEEDED!

 

Something else that you can continue to pray for is our relationship with our translators. Yesterday I was caught off guard when I was working with one of the Mormon translators. I had turned around to bend some glasses, and when I turned back around, the Mormon was giving a tract to the Mexican man. I was a bit resentful because I kind of felt like the Mormons were taking over our mission. Actually, something we've all been thinking about this week is whether or not the love of Jesus is being shown to these people. Our desire is to do His work while we are here. As we talked about this last night, someone pointed out that God is big enough to use anything that we do for His glory. I guess we just need to trust that His will is going to be done.

 

Last night our after dinner debriefing time was really excellent. People had the chance to share several good things about the day, as well as frustrations. It is so encouraging to know that we all share the same frustrations. God has truly blessed us through every member of our team. Today we have been even more unified in our work. I feel like God is being so good to us, even amidst all of the sickness and frustrations.

 

Tomorrow is a half day of work, and then we plan to visit an orphanage in the afternoon to deliver all of the toys that we brought with us. It should be good. Saturday is a day of resting and more exploring, then we head back to beautiful Upland on Sunday. This may be the last time I get to write (I have no idea) so I will just take this opportunity to say again Thank you soooooooo much for your prayers. Please keep them coming!!!!!!

 

- Emily

(Written Wednesday the 26th at 6:30 pm)

 

The days go so much faster when we are busy! Yesterday we did around 1200 people, and today was a little over 1000. It was really great. Today we even gave glasses to a 98-year-old woman! It has been good to feel really productive the past couple days.

 

One thing that we need a lot of is patience. As we begin to run out of glasses, we are having to distribute pairs that are a little less than stylish. Some of the people are quite obviously unhappy with what they receive. Please pray that we will be patient with them and they with us and that nobody will be discouraged.

 

Also, one of the biggest things you can continue to pray for is health and strength. Several team members are still ill and others are echoing the sentiment of one team member who said, "My stomach is asking permission to get sick so I am taking it easy." It is hard to work when one feels miserable, let alone work joyfully. Please pray.

 

Our time here is not spent solely in work. Last night we had a fiesta grande for Melanie's birthday, complete with cake from a local pasteleria and a piñata! It was great fun! Our Mexican hosts even made a special drink from rice and milk. They are such a blessing to us! They have been so kind and generous, always bending over backwards to keep us comfortable and well-fed.

 

Tomorrow is our last full day of work so it will be interesting to see how much we get done. John has said he is very proud of us. Please keep us in your prayers!

 

- Emily

I took a brief break from work at the auditorium to walk down the street to an Internet cafe. Today is Day 2, and already we are greatly encouraged! Today seems to be going much better. For one, we are all much more confident in our jobs, but for two, there are a lot more people here today. Praise God! There were even people lined up outside the door when we arrived this morning. We feel a lot better about things when we have stuff to do. God is so good!

 

Of course, there are still prayer requests. Several people are still sick so please be praying for them. Also, one of our auto refractors bit the dust this morning so we are down to 3. That is making everything a lot slower. I am not sure if it can be fixed or not, but please pray that we still be able to help a lot of people.

 

Yesterday when I was reading from the Spring Break devotional, the reading was all about having the right motives for service. I realized that that was definitely something I needed to examine in my life. Please pray that we will be working with the right attitudes, that we will be able to show Jesus to everyone we interact with. Please pray for strength and energy and an outpouring of love and joy from God. Your prayers are keeping us going here. Please do not ever stop praying!!!!! Well, I guess I had better get back to work! Much love from team Mexico to everyone at home!

 

- Emily

(Written Monday the 24th at 6:30 pm)

 

Well, today was the official day 1. It was exhausting and overwhelming and confusing and even a little frustrating at times, but it was also a good day. We had breakfast at 7 and arrived at our worksite around 8. Things started a bit slowly, but they gradually picked up. About 8 people started on the auto refractors, and the rest of us were pickers or fitters. Though apprehensive at first, I think we all gained confidence as the day went on.

 

One unfortunate thing (and something you can pray about) is that due to some political issues, the city will not be able to bus people in to the clinic. Consequently, not as many people can come, and today was much slower than we wanted it to be. We had 628 people out of the expected 900. Some of us spent quite a bit of time standing around. In some ways, it was nice to ease in to things slowly, but in other ways, we really want to help as many people as we can while we are here.

 

Another prayer request is for health. Our cooks here are wonderful, but the food is not agreeing with everyone. Several team members are rather ill. Please pray for healing for them and continued health for the rest of us.

 

A really big praise today is for our translators. They were invaluable! In the morning, we had some Mexican students who were really excellent. In the afternoon, we had a group of young Mormon men (from America) who were in the middle of their 2 year missionary service commitments. It was really interesting to talk to them and some people even got into some theological discussions. So, praise God for our translators and also please pray that we will be able to show the love of Jesus to everyone whether they are the Mexican patients or our translators.

 

God has been good to us so far, but there is still a lot of week left so we will definitely need His help to get through it. Thanks for your prayers!

 

- Emily

Happy Easter everyone! I think that most of us on the Mexico team would say that this has been an Easter unlike any other. We had originally planned to go to mass this morning, but we were unable to get a ride to the church. We are surely learning about flexibility! Instead, we all sat outside in the Mexican sun (or shade for those who got burnt yesterday!) and had our own little worship service. We sang some worship songs, read the Resurrection story and a few team members shared their testimonies. It was a really great way to celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord and Savior!

 

Around 11, we headed out to the worksite. We spent about 4 hours there setting up all of the tables, chairs, boxes of glasses and other equipment that we will need to start work tomorrow. Oh, wow...Tomorrow! We have approximately 21, 800 pairs of glasses to choose from and so many people to help. Today we had one last practice run for picking glasses, but I am not sure that any of us are yet feeling extremely prepared. We will REALLY  appreciate your prayers tomorrow as we put everything that we have been working towards to the test. Tomorrow there will be real people behind those unseeing eyes, real people that we have been sent here to help. Please pray for peace and patience and a good memory for remembering all that John has taught us. It is rather a daunting task ahead of us, but we know that this is a good work we will be doing.

 

Right now it about 4 here. I am sitting in an Internet cafe quite near to the building where we will work. We have been given the afternoon off to explore the market a bit more. This is our last day of rest until we were work from 8 am to 5 or 6 pm starting tomorrow. I am really scared, yet I know that it will be good to dive into the actual purpose of our trip. Thank you sooooo much for your continued prayers!!!!!!

 

- Emily

(Written Saturday the 22nd at 10:45 pm)

 

Today was rather a full day but most assuredly a good one. We were so thankful for the chance to sleep in as breakfast was not until 10. After very little sleep and much traveling, we all slept very well. After breakfast, we headed in to town for a day of exploring and shopping. It was a lot of fun to see the market with all of the exotic foods and sights and smells. We also got the chance to wander through several gorgeous churhces. Though some of us got a little sunburnt and a little dehydrated, it was a beautiful day to be outside exploring.

 

We were exceedingly conscious of our Americanness today. Every where we went, we stuck out like a sore thumb. It is such a strange feeling to be the minority. Our hosts here seem so honored to have us. Tonight we received a tour of the local fire station. All of the bomberos (firemen) were standing at attention when we walked in and were still at attention when we left.

 

The biggest praise for today was the bonding time we had as a team. Though we had a few weeks of training together, a lot of us felt like we were basically traveling to a foreign country with complete strangers. Today was a fabulous opportunity for us to get to know each other better before we have to start working together. It looks like God knew exactly what we needed!

 

-Emily

(Due to limited Internet access, I will not be able to post exceedingly often. However, each time I post, I will try to publish a few entries. This one was written on Friday the 21st at 7 pm)

 

Thanks to YOUR prayers, we have arrived here safe and sound along with all of our luggage. Praise God! Today was sort of an intense day of traveling (I suppose any day that begins at 2 am is intense). Most of us have gotten very little sleep and our first real meal was the lunch that we had when we arrived here around 5. (From now on, all times will be Mexican, which is 2 hours behind Indiana). We were all most grateful for the food and devoured it hungrily. We were quite surprised to learn that this meal was only lunch, and dinner would occur around 8. Hopefully we will find some room in our stomachs by then. Our airport adventures were relatively uneventful so after a slight hold up in customs and an hour and a half bus ride, we arrived here at Hotel San Jose in Santiago Tianguistenco, Mexico. The weather here is beautiful as is our view of the mountains which is something we most definitely do not get in Indiana!

 

On our first flight this morning, I remembered that it was Good Friday so I decided to read the Matthew account of the crucifixion. The thing that stuck out to me today was when Jesus was in the Garden praying "Not my will but Yours be done." In a way, I kind of think that should be our prayer for the trip. I feel like I have not yet had time to process my expectations for this week, but maybe that is good. Maybe God is calling us to completely let go of any expectations and just let Him do His thing.

 

Another cool thing about the Matthew account is the way it ends. A dear friend pointed this out to me in a note right before we left: After Jesus makes His incredible sacrifice for us, He ends with, "And surely I will be with you always, even to the end of the age." That is such an encouragement for me at least as I am still dealing with a LOT of anxiety and apprehensiveness. In genral I think the dominant attitude around here (besides exhaustion) is excitement tempered with nervousness. May Jesus continue to remind us of His promise to remain with us.

 

Thank you for your prayers!!!!!

I thought I'd take a little break from my packing frenzy (or what is supposed to be a packing frenzy anyway) to give everyone a small update on our travel itinerary. We are slated to leave Taylor at 2:30 Friday morning to drive to the Indianapolis airport. The first part of our group (Austin, John, and the Lions members) will fly out at 6:45 am. They fly to Detroit, then Mexico City and should arrive there around noon. The rest of us (all the Taylor students, led by Arlene and Brad and Kelly Yordy) fly out at 8:05. We travel from Indy to Phoenix to Mexico City with an ETA of approximately 2 in the afternoon. From Mexico City we will take a bus to Santiago Tianguistenco. Basically, in a little less than 24 hours, we should all be in Mexico!!!!

 

As you may have noticed, leaving at 2 doesn't give a lot of time for sleeping tonight. I think most of us plan to stay up until then and then grab a few hours of sleep on the bus/in the airport/on the plane. Perhaps you could pray that we will all be rested by the time we actually have to start working. Also, I would venture a guess that my room is not the only one that currently looks like a war zone so wisdom for packing is also still a prayer request! ;) 

 

Right now I am still having trouble realizing that this is actually going to happen. I have a feeling that it isn't really going to hit me until we get on the bus. I know one thing that I am trying to pray is that God will really open each of us up to the things that He wants to show/teach us while we are gone. Wow...it is so close! Thank you sooooo much for your prayers!!!!! We can't wait to see what God is going to do with us!

 

- Emily

It is so hard to believe that we will be en route to Mexico in less than 30 hours! 16 Taylor students, 3 Taylor leaders, and 7 Lions Club members (including our fearless leaders John and Arlene Clester) will be spending our Spring Break in Santiago Tianguistenco, Mexico providing eyeglasses to people who need them. The plan is to set up shop on Sunday, and bright and early Monday morning, the people will be lining up to receive their glasses. Members of our team will be running auto refractors (machines that test eyes...they look kind of like some sort of weird video game), picking glasses with the correct prescription, and fitting the glasses on the people. Ideally, we are going to put glasses on over 5000 people while we are down there. Wow!

5000 people...I guess that kind of puts things in perspective. Lately I've been feeling kind of apprehensive about this whole trip, being a little worried that I'm really going to mess something up or that maybe I shouldn't even be going on this trip. But when I think of basically giving sight to over 5000 people...well, that certainly seems important. I think it is going to be really awesome to be able to see such tangible results of our work.

We would love it if all of you would really keep us in your prayers from now until we get back. Please pray for wisdom as we pack, for safety and health in our travels, for team unity, and for the people we will minister to down in Mexico. Also, please pray for peace for all of us. I guess I'm speaking for myself, but I'm betting that a lot of the team is kind of nervous/apprehensive about the whole trip. Your prayers will be so greatly appreciated!

Stay tuned for more updates...

- Emily Fox