the last one.

last night, well early this morning ... the bus rolled into the church parking lot. it was 1.00am. a few parents and i walked out from the church building to greet our tired friend and family.

but to my surprise the bus emptied rather slowly. actually, it wasn't really a surprise, i sorta half expected it.

they eventually all came out.

hugs.
hand shakes.
shoulder shots.
a few tears.

they're home. where they belong. back with their families.

we'll meet on friday to share some more stories, and talk about where we go from here.

that's it for now. the clean-up begins.

.adam

well ok - one more.

it's now 12.11am, aug 10th. here i am, a bowl of popcorn, and racing thoughts.

alone.

i guess the word got out that the train was delayed. thanks goes out to all those who passed the word along. i was worried that when i got to the church at 11.35pm, that the parking lot would be full of angry parents.

but to my delight,

i was alone.

now we await the tired faces and the never ending stories.

also, thanks for making this blog useful, without you - yes, you! - there would have been no point.

.adam

latest (and hopefully last) news ...

i just got word from fred or nicole (whoever had their phone ...) that they'll be back here at around 1.00am.

so see you all then ... let's hope and pray they get through the border nice and easily, and that once they get back to the church, that they'll find all their luggage with the same amount of ease.

also,

pray that God may allow all the leaders and the youth a full measure of rejuvination throughout the rest of the night - especially for those who have to return to work in the morning (i know there are a few ...).

.adam

train has arrived!!

i just checked the amtrak website -

their train was 1.5 hours late, and has arrived. i'm awaiting confirmation that they are loaded on the bus and enroute home.

they'll arrive roughly 3 hours from when the leave the amtrack station.

.adam

delayed train - even more so ...

amtrak is now reporting that the train will be 1hr-25mins late - from it's original 8.45pm arrival time. so it is expected to be in seattle after 10.00pm ... which means that the busload of the team will be rolling into abbotsford around 1.00am.

good news is that all their luggage has made it back safe and sound and is waiting at the church for their return. rudy & jocelyn are in great spirits, a little tanned, and glad to be off the road and enroute to the comfort of their own home.

when they first opend up that trailer with all the luggage - i nearly passed out - the stink was of a 1000 forgotten gym socks.

i personally will not be there until 11.00 or 11.30ish to meet those who did not get this message.

see you all tonight ...

.adam

delayed train

the train has been delayed coming into seattle.

it was originally scheduled for 8.45pm, but will now arrive at 9.36pm in seattle.

it is a 3-hour drive from seattle back to the church, so they should in theory be back here at the church around 12.45pm.

we apologize for any inconvenience.

i will try to post any updated information here.

thanks.

adam.

God's grace

Yesterday, on our way to our church site, the construction team van missed our turn off. The driver/leader said, "There is a reason for this" and the kids all agreed. It is difficult to manouver the trailer so turning around was a challenge---an opportunity--totally safe showed up at the intersection--the driver took a sort of U turn. The kids said, "did you see the police?" Oh no, sure thing the lights went on and they were after us. The next day I heard that another team from NY were witnessing this, they knew we would be in big trouble, the list of offenses was going to cost us money and time at the station. They started to pray, they were very afraid for us. The police took the license and registration, went to his vehicle. The team prayed. He came back and said we had to come in to the station. I asked for my license back, he would not give it. We had to follow him. He went back to his vehicle. Desperately I asked the kids to pray again and I burst into prayer that he would give me my license back. He came back to the van and gave me the licesnse and registration. He asked where we were going. I said Casa Hogar and said the pastor's name, Martha. Oh, okay. We left rejoicing and able to carry on the Lord's work at our site.

Rudy and Jocelyn are very grateful for your prayers. We sense the presence of God as we travelled down. We know that God intervened and heard our prayers during this police situation as well. Praise God for all the answers to prayers.

We are building relationships with our partnering church. They love us! We love them! God is good. Please pray for a child with a sore throat, a leader with a cold, three children with neck strains. And please pray for today's events, we are going with our church into town for tacos. Sharing a meal with our brother's and sister's in Christ. The enthusiasm of the team is remarkable. The whole camp talks about that group of Canadians from Living Hope.

We are declaring His glory among the nations!

Love in Christ's name,

Bless you all from everything!

Jocelyn

It's Wednesday

they call it Hump Wednesday because it the hardest day of the week to get out of bed and feel the energy. everyone is fairly tired by now. including Fred. thus being, Fred did not give me anything to post this morning so i'm going to try to upload some pictures for you all to enjoy.

well unfortunately the connection will not allow me to upload even one pic... but i tried.

thing are going well, the construction team (that's my team) with the help of some guys from the church got an entire floor poured on monday and yesterday we mixed up a bit more cement and made some small landscaping type stuff. i'm told sport and vbs are going very well as well. more an the tomorrow from fred. chapel has already begun so i need to get going.

signing out

Jason

tuesday morning in mexico

Here am sitting in a camping chair at 6 in the morning wondering how I am going to even come close to doing justice with words when trying to describe how sweet this trip has been so far. The only phrase I can think of right now is blown expectations.
You see we as leaders always have expectations on these type of trips. We desire the kids to
behave and be respectful. We want to build good relationships with our team mates as well as
our Mexican brothers and sisters. We want to see the kids dive into God and experience His life
changing presence in there lives. We had these expectations as leaders, but we knew we had to give them to God and say, "Lord have your way, Lord we give this trip to you, take it for your Glory." We prayed this and we trusted God would show, You guys have been praying and trusting that God would do this as well. Well let me tell you, it is Tuesday morning, we are not even half way through the week, and God has done what he does so well. He has blown our expectations out of the water.

He has done this on almost every level that we could have asked for. The kids are relatively happy, they have had awesome attitudes and have been willing to serve no matter what. Tons of kids have done acts of service for the team such as cleaning out our toothbrush spitting bucket
without being asked, and carrying down a massive hill our coolers full of food. Yet this is
just the start. We have had an amazing start to our relationship with the local church here.
They have blessed us so much, we are having so much fun with them, and we have tried to do what ever it was that was they needed us to do. It is like we are a long lost group of friends from
North America and they are welcoming us home. It has been so awesome so far.

The last thing I want to share is how God met us spiritually in our team. Last night we had
a bit of a different chapel were the speaker talked about the idea of pretend Christians.
He said that when we are kids we are oblivious to pretending, we are who we are and we act how we act. But some where along the line we get hurt, or scared, and we want people to like us
and accept us. So what do we do, we start pretending to be who we really are not. With this
statement of truth came the speakers main point. Pretend people have pretend relationships. If
we are not real with God and with each other we can never have a real relationship with either one. He then called us to make the next step in our faith walk. To get real with God, and let me tell you, It was amazing. So many of the kids came down to the front with tears in there eyes just hungering to be real and experience more of God. We broke off into small groups after this and shared with each other, lifting our hearts to God in prayer. It was a break through moment for so many of the kids and I was so privileged to be there to witness it. After we shared and prayed together we went back up to the chapel for a time of worship. We stood there just praising God together staring into the stars and it was here that God showed us again he was with us. We were looking into the stars and suddenly blam blam two shooting starts shot across the sky and it was like God was shining down on us. That was a cool thing for me because I have never seen that before. I heard one member of the group say that they were praying "Lord I wish I could just see your face" and just after she said that the stars shot across the sky. She said it was like God was telling her that He is shining all around us and that He is calling us to follow him with everything. It was amazing, the whole week has been amazing so far and we still have half of it to go. We are excited to see what else God wants to do.

So once again thank you all for reading this blog update. Keep us in your prayers because your
prayer is our victory. God is doing so much but we need protection because the enemy will
try his best to knock us down, so please keep praying. Thank you guys for all your support
and love.
Blessings
Fred

Monday Morning mission day one.

Wow, what a ride it has been so far. We as a team have now been here for two days and we have been having the time of our lives.
We showed up at camp on Saturday night, got set up, and then had our first chapel. The speaker was challenging the kids to imagine what there lives would look like if they lived them according to what God dreamed for them.
After the chapel we broke off into our small groups where we had many challenging conversations with the youth while they wrestled with this idea inside of them.

The next day we were woken up nice and early by incredibly loud Mexican music and one of the
camp deans doing some improv rap and singing. That definitely helped some of the youth get out of bed.
After breakfast we piled in the vans and tried to find the church that were working with. We ended up being about half an hour late due to getting lost about five times. But hey the Mexicans were fine with that and the kids got to experience four wheeling in Mexico (in a 18 passenger van, I don't even know why we tried to drive on that road lol)

The Mexican church service was a very powerful experience. As we walked through the gates and heard the singing and rejoicing we could feel the presence of God all around us. The church was so welcoming to us and we had an awesome time worshipping with them in song and dance. We had such a good time that after the service we ended up hanging out with the youth of the church and the pastor for the whole day. We went to the beach and did some body surfing with them and played some soccer. Both the youth and the church members seemed to really enjoy that.

Later on the pastoral family joined us at the camp for a partnership worship service. We had worship in both Spanish and English as well as having a Mexican meal together. After the service we tried to be culturally appropriate by inviting the church family back to our house (a bunch of tents in a circle) saying Bienvenidos mi casa y su casa (welcome our house is your house) They seemed to like that. We then went around and had a sharing time as a group about what God was doing in and around us and anything that was stirring in our hearts. This ended up being such a cool time of fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We shared openly and I was surprised by some of the things said.
You could tell that some of the youth were really being impacted by the things happening around them.
God is working and I am so excited for the great things that are to come as we start today our
first ministry day. We as a team are waiting in excitement to get on board with what God wants to do with us in this week. I know its going to be awesome.

For those of you who are reading this I want to invite you to pray right now for us.
Pray that the Lord would open the hearts of both the youth an d the people we are ministering to. That they would be able to experience what God has for them in what ever way they need it,
that they would grow in his love and truly have a passion to declare God's Glory amongst the nations.
Also please pray against distractions that can hinder people from coming to God with everything.
This is especially needed for our worship times. Lastly pray that God would be glorified in
using us and that this would be a trip remembered by both Living Hope and the church we are working with. Thanks for all your support back home, we wouldn't be here with out it.
Blessings
Fred

First post/Almost there!

Good Morning Everyone! were are almost there!

So far our story has been one of God's faithfullness. We have had nothing but a smooth ride so far. The border crossing went well, we arrived at the station on time. The trip on the train was long but eventful. It was filled with laughs, games, and miraculously a whole group of teenage kids sleeping and being quiet for longer than an hour.

The kids seem pretty excited so far. There has been alot of talk about what we are going to do in Mexico and every one has a really positive attitude. I have seen some cool things from the youth already. One cool thing was when two girls decided to put there serving hats on and go a clean up the garbage on the train. That was a pretty cool thing to see. Another cool thing is just how gelled the group has been so far. There hasn't really been any cliques or rude comments so that has been nice.

I can describe the mood of the group as expectant. Expectant for new things, sights smells, people. But mostly an expectancy for what God is going to do in and around us. We have committed the trip to him and we are ready for an adventure.

Thanks to all who are reading this. Keep us in your prayers

Signing off. Fred

good bye ...

this morning at 4.30am, all 34 youth and adults met at the church to do the final preparations and start the journey.

at 5.30am the bus and van left.

both crossed into the states without issue.

at 8.15am, the bus found its way to the amtrak station, thanks to sid vandermolen, and delivered its cargo.

i left with them all lining up at the washrooms.

adam.

4.5 hours to go.

well, it's 11pm, the day before the team packs up. i have done everything i can possibly do to make sure this team is ready.

all forms are filled out and filed.

the van is packed.

the bus is there.

it's all ready to go.

my prayers are with the team as they travel almost 2500 km's south to ensenada, and as they give of their time in a church called 'casa hogar,' and as they grow in each other, as well as in God. i pray for fred and his leadership, that everyone may instinctively follow him. i pray for the rest of the leaders that they might be able to follow God's voice. i pray for the youth on the team that they might be able to experience life in a way that they've never been able to before. i pray for the team as one unit that they might be cohesive, that they might be effective, and that they might spread the name of Christ to His nations.

now, i hand over all things leadership to fred.

as well, i thank him from the bottom of my heart for taking this challenge on, for jumping in with both feet, while i remain home, awaiting the birth of our first child. fred - i could not have found anyone else better to lead this team.

to the team i say: God Bless!

to the people at home i say: keep praying. keep coming back here for updates.

adam.

two more days to go !!!

It's tuesday morning, 9am. Almost 30 degrees outside already. I think our team is being prepared for some warmer weather down there. The forcast for the area is calling for similar temperatures that we're experiencing now. check out this site for the weather forcast for Ensenada http://www.wunderground.com/global/stations/76050.html.

And they're not allowed to wear shorts.

This afternoon, a van will come from maple ridge, a van that Rudy and Jocelyn will drive with all the team's supplies and luggage. Pray that they might find safe travel.

This evening, the team has to drop off all their luggage, which will be packed up tomorrow. >> this serves as a reminder to them as well - be at the church between 7.00 and 9.00pm tuesday night. <<

In just a short 44 hours, the team will be arriving at the church - 4.30am, on thursday morning - to do their final preparations, and then leave.

That's just a little update for now.

Keep checking back for more stuff that the team is up to!

adam.

Welcome to the Mexico Missions Blog site!

This blog is meant to communicate what the team is doing and show some pictures, so that you can experience this trip (in a little way) along with them.

I ask that you continue to pray for this team, read though the posts to find prayer requests and concerns, as well as the joys!