Julia
Aug 01, 2008
Hola amigos y padres,
Today the entire missions team spent the morning at the Puerto Vallarta municipal dump. My first view of the dump was a few days ago when only the VBS team went for the Sunday service at the Baptist church, Pan de Vida (bread of life), where Kevin Spence from Severn Church was teaching. It looks like a massive plateau rising above the government housing around it. The trip to the dump today was to remind us of our purpose here and of the poverty just miles outside of the upscale ocean city like town I visited the night before, and boy was it effective. We actually went up beyond the houses on top of the dump and onto some of the newer trash piles. Some of the workers up there were so poor they just salvaged anything large enough to build a 6x6 foot house. They worked just as some of you probably did as kids by collecting plastic bottles or cans and selling them wholesale. The most striking characteristic though is the smell. It is so much worse than the dump at burns crossing. The water is black and I just wanted to hold my breath for as long as I could before I had to breath again. We left to go down to Pan de Vida for one of the children’s programs. The children were served breakfast and we got a chance to sit down and talk/play with them. The looks on their faces when Clare wanted to teach them a bible verse or Stephanie went to pick them up and dance with them was priceless. One of the local ladies named Damaris who has been the most gargantuan blessing to us as a translator told them the story of Jonah and the whale complete with sound effects and hand motions while all of us looked on with enchanted faces. The day was so much more than I ever imagined it to be and left us with such a drive and an encouragement as to our purpose down here, especially for the construction guys who have been looking at nothing but mud, cement, and sunburn all week long. God has been so good to us here and I at least wake up excited every day to go and play soccer with the locals, or teach them to sing jesus loves me, or haul mud around (well, less excited about that last one, but still pretty psyched). Hope you are all doing well back home. Love,
juliA
Today the entire missions team spent the morning at the Puerto Vallarta municipal dump. My first view of the dump was a few days ago when only the VBS team went for the Sunday service at the Baptist church, Pan de Vida (bread of life), where Kevin Spence from Severn Church was teaching. It looks like a massive plateau rising above the government housing around it. The trip to the dump today was to remind us of our purpose here and of the poverty just miles outside of the upscale ocean city like town I visited the night before, and boy was it effective. We actually went up beyond the houses on top of the dump and onto some of the newer trash piles. Some of the workers up there were so poor they just salvaged anything large enough to build a 6x6 foot house. They worked just as some of you probably did as kids by collecting plastic bottles or cans and selling them wholesale. The most striking characteristic though is the smell. It is so much worse than the dump at burns crossing. The water is black and I just wanted to hold my breath for as long as I could before I had to breath again. We left to go down to Pan de Vida for one of the children’s programs. The children were served breakfast and we got a chance to sit down and talk/play with them. The looks on their faces when Clare wanted to teach them a bible verse or Stephanie went to pick them up and dance with them was priceless. One of the local ladies named Damaris who has been the most gargantuan blessing to us as a translator told them the story of Jonah and the whale complete with sound effects and hand motions while all of us looked on with enchanted faces. The day was so much more than I ever imagined it to be and left us with such a drive and an encouragement as to our purpose down here, especially for the construction guys who have been looking at nothing but mud, cement, and sunburn all week long. God has been so good to us here and I at least wake up excited every day to go and play soccer with the locals, or teach them to sing jesus loves me, or haul mud around (well, less excited about that last one, but still pretty psyched). Hope you are all doing well back home. Love,
juliA