On the Missio Dei

A new beginning not the end

We ended our mission here this time but not for good. What we accomplished here will live on with the family and others that we have touched and who have touched us on this journey. I know I said this earlier in the week but "THANK YOU" all for allowing us to be here to do this work. For those of you who wanted to come but could not for one reason or another this year, think about coming to CPC next year in Piedras Negras to experience what we did.

We all felt a calling to be here this week even though it was for all different reasons. We were unified this week through the good and the bad. We were blessed and we offered blessings.

I am so thankful for my week with every person on our team and every person at CPC and at our new home. It made a difference in my life and I pray that our house will be filled with laughter and we will be here to do this again.

The Cisneros Family in front of their new home

Last day of our build where we gave the keys to the homeowner and said our prayers for their new home

Thank you for following along with us on our mission. We appreciate the prayers and felt them every day.

Jade Paunovich

No one saw him coming

All of a sudden there was an empty space on the roof panel where no one was standing and we started yelling to fill in and then he was there.....Senor Sanchez. No one saw him walk up, all of a sudden we just noticed he was there like an angel sent from God. Senor Sanchez walked over two miles to get to our site and worked along side of us all day. 

It was another amazing day. The day started when we got to the site and the roof panels were delivered. We all helped take each panel off the truck and then picked up each panel and brought them to the house so that Mitch White, Vaughn Paunovich, Chip Crumpler and Jim Ponder could lift them up over the house and place them on top. They are very heavy and you have to be very careful so they do not break but we had the whole team handling the panels so everything went great. The first team up on the roof to put in all the bolts were Mitch and Taylor Ponder. I was up there with them as they drilled in all the edges of the roof and they did a really great job. The second team up was Jacob Iler and John Mounts. Jacob and I rocked out the drilling. He did all the hard work but we had a rhythm and we knocked it out quickly. John was doing all the bolts with Jim Ponder and they stayed up until the entire roof was done. 

The rest of the day was spent "chinking", which is putting rocks and stones and broken concrete into the holes where the roof is curved and then sealing it with concrete. Then we have to spackle with the SPC  and finish all of the windows. We got it done. Our home is finished! We talked about calling this place a "worksite" these past four days but now it is a home. 

Tomorrow is the ceremony where Caleb White, our construction coordinator and a mighty fine one at that, will hand over the keys to the family. Each member of the team will get the keys in their hands and be able to say a few words to our family. They opened up today and called us their Amigos. The baby was so cute today and let some of us hold him. He was walking around on Caleb's arm for a long time today.

It was a good day. I am thankful for this time that we all had to share with each other and this family. I am blessed for being able to do this with my husband for the first time together and it has been great. I am so proud of everyone on our team, most especially our teenagers. They all just pressed on today and worked so hard.

I am looking forward to see how we all interact, connect and impact each other tomorrow. I do not think we will need any translation tomorrow. I think we will be able to feel the love of each other and from God. 

Here are the photos from our day!

Our mixers Pedro and Jimmy

We are so thankful for Phillip Iler who is Bo's son and works on staff for CPC.

Mitch Ponder spacking the windows

 Vaughn Paunovich putting on the finishing touches to the room

Jim Ponder and Bo Iler finishing the "C" wall

Bryanna Sierra, John Mounts and Bambi the dog

Senor Sanchez hard at work

Our neighborhood friend Gordo. He asked for the three of us to be in the photo with him. Too cute!

Our families little girl and baby boy

Caleb and the baby rocking out in the cowboy hat!

So sweet! 

It has been a long day. We are looking forward to our dedication ceremony and have invited Senor Sanchez to share it with us.

 

Singing in the Rain

Yes, I really said "singing in the rain". We started our day with pouring rain during our circle time and breakfast. However we were blessed once again with cloud cover for our morning work. Today as I mentioned yesterday was an emotional day for us. We read the names of all of you who have supported us on this mission and read your blessings for this new home and this very grateful family and placed them into the walls. We then poured the concrete along the top of the entire house to bond the house together. It is hard to be here and try to explain to you what we are feeling today. In our devotion tonight we talked a lot about faith and what that means. We used these words to describe our day - Full, Passion, Touching, Real, Lacerme (Tears). We made a real connection with our family today. They are trusting us and trusting Jesus to provide this house for protection and shelter for their family.

For those of us who have been on a mission previously in Piedras Negras we had an even more emotional day. Bryanna, Vaughn and Phillip went to their house from 2009 and 2010. These houses are actually next to each other and they are related. We had our whole team there in the vans and the grandmother came over and hugged everyone with tears in her eyes and called us "Angels sent from God". Bo, Jacob, Caleb, Phillip and I got to visit our family from last year as well as our brother Senor Sanchez. We had the pleasure to meet our families husband, who could not be with us on our build last year. He circled us up for a prayer and half of us had tears in our eyes when it was over. We felt it. The faith, the hope. the giving, just the passion for learning and giving more to Jesus. Senor Sanchez is someone that came to us and I believe was sent to us from God to help us last year not only spiritually but manually. He could finish a house on his own faster than our whole team I believe. There is something about this man that you feel when you are next to him. There is a possibility that he may join us tomorrow and our whole team will get to feel that and that brings me great joy.

We had a great day. I hope you enjoy these photos. 

Mitch saying a prayer before we started placing the honorary bricks and letters in the walls of the home

Niko placing a brick into the walls

Mitch placing his names into the wall

Bo with the family, Franciso and Olga

Taylor Ponder shared with us the hope that Jesus would bring light to the darkness in this place

Our wonderful Health Coordinators, Stacie and Bethany Mounts who have kept us hydrated and healthy

John Mounts bringing us concrete

Jacob and Mitch finished pouring their concrete first!

Bry and Vaughn's family from 2009 and 2010

Bo, Jacob, Caleb and my family from last year. Joseuf went right back to jumping all over Caleb like it was just yesterday that we were there with them

Tomorrow the roof goes up! We are almost done with this house and we cannot wait to share it all with you.

Three words.....

Amazing, amazing and amazing. That is how I feel after our day today. For those of you who do not know our routine, we get up and start our day at 6am with circle time and breakfast. We start heading for our worksite around 7:15am and head back for lunch and siesta at 12:30pm and then back to work at 3:15pm until we are done with our tasks for the day or 7:30pm. We were blessed again today with cloud cover for our morning. We can never explain how big this is for us not having the beating sun on us while we are doing this work.

We had an amazing afternoon today. Everyone worked hard. We have so many people on our team that just DO. They do not stop they just fill in where they are needed and do what needs to get done. There is no better word than amazing. We accomplished a lot today and it shows. I could sit here all day and tell you great stories of impressive people standing out and shining today but I would never get to my siesta and I need it after our day today.

Thank you again for praying for us on this mission. It is giving us the strength to do what we were sent here to do and it would not be without all the support and prayers from our families and friends. Tomorrow is going to be an emotional day for our team. We will be putting the honorary bricks and prayers that you have given us into the walls of this new home and pouring the bond that will keep it all together.

Chip Crumpler making sure everything looks straight!

 Jim Ponder, my wall captain who never stops and his sons Elliott and Taylor definitely take after him

John Mounts and Taylor Ponder did such a great job. John went around and made sure everything on the walls were perfecto!

We made a cross with stones on their front steps into their home.

Taylor Ponder and I pouring concrete into the windows. Taylor did such a wonderful job. After one we were knocking them out quick.

Niko and Dominick. Local boys that were so helpful. I cannot believe there is a boy here with the same name as my son. It made me feel at home.

Me and mi esposo at the end of the day! 

Day 2 complete! 

Day 1 Team Accomplishments

What a day our team had today. We were blessed with cloudy weather in the morning. Something that does not happen here in Mexico very often. In fact we were told that Piedras Negras was in the news for being the hottest city in Mexico. It may have gotten to 109 degrees today but we are hoping for some cooler weather.

What we saw today was so many people being flexible and filling in where they were needed. We have tremendous leadership and what was said in our devotion is we saw leaders today where we did not realize we would see leaders and we saw the leaders being followers and letting others lead. It truly was an amazing day. I am always in awe of our teenagers. They are pulling their weight and also bringing something to the family that is needed to connect us even though we have the language barrier, the kids find a way to communicate and show love.

We have a lot of work to do but now we know it will get done and we will make lots of lasting friendships along the way.I hope you enjoy these photos from Day 1.

Our mom Olga and her daughter

Our first block wall. 

Our fearless leader

Our spiritual hulk

Bryanna wall B captain and Caleb our amazing construction leader

Taylor smoothing out the SPC

End of day 1. Tomorrow more blocks and SPC