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Today was a full and rich day of ministry for the team!
We began bright and early at our team meeting, followed by having a delicious breakfast. We loaded up the vans and set off right away to drive about 40 minutes to a community centre that the ministry built over the last year in a local village community. El Refugio hosts a breakfast program for the community every Saturday and has done numerous house builds with other teams for families that live there. We arrived and were instantly greeted by eager kids and moms awaiting for the program to begin. Shawn shared a bible story of the lost coin and used a coin in a big bowl of slime as an object lesson. Eden and Avea had done a great job at preparing these bible stories and the kids LOVED having the opportunity to get their hands in it. The girls from the house helped us to lead some games and songs. We fed the kids and moms pancakes, bananas and oatmeal! They were to happy to interact with us and just be together as a community. The local pastor uses this community centre as a church and cares for the building and his community well. We continued to play some water balloon games with the kids which was a big hit, no surprise at all!
Randy and some of the girls rode their horses to the outreach centre, as they keep their horses at a barn not too far away. They gave the kids a horse rides as the team gave out more food hampers to the families. Overall the team really enjoyed our time at the outreach centre and could see the joy from the families and the continued connection with El Refugio reinforced more and more.
We set off from the community and stopped to have a picnic lunch with the girls in a near by park. We then continued on with our ministry day as we headed to a women and children's rehab centre. We arrived and did a similar program to the morning outreach centre and loved interacting with the women and children there. We split into 2 groups, playing games with the kids and having a testimony prayer sharing time with the women. Trudie stepped out and was very vulnerable in sharing her testimony with the women which sparked them sharing some of their stories as well. The workers at the rehab prayed over the women and although there was a language barrier, the team was moved by the power of the prayer, which made for a very powerful spiritual time together. Meanwhile the team kept the very energetic kids entertained with some fun games, more water balloons and duck duck goose!
We shared some homemade peach crumble and cookies with the women and kids, thanks to Wendy's baking skills earlier in the week, and then said goodbye and headed back to the house.
While we were at ministry in the afternoon, Scott came back to the house and continued helping with the new pool construction. By the time the team returned the ground was levelled and sand had been spread and the pool was set up and ready for framing for the deck to go around! The girls are anxiously excited for the pool to be filled with water so swimming can begin!
Tonight was a special celebration as it was Randy's birthday! We ate smoked pulled pork tacos (yum!) and had devotion time around the fire where Trudie shared her powerful story again with the whole group. We were able to hand out gift bags we had prepared for the girls and they were so excited about some of the gifts and toys inside. The fiesta finished with a beautifully made birthday cake, decorated as a fisherman in a boat made out of Oreos because Randy likes fishing. Mexican tradition is that you take a bit out of the cake before you cut it and someone pushes your head into the cake. Randy came prepared with a full face helmet so that his head would be cake free, however his 17 year old girls wouldn't let him stay clean and had plates of whip cream ready to pie him in the face when the moment was right. Tamara got caught up in the mix and whip cream was pretty much everywhere.
The team finished the day around the campfire with conversations and laughter. We are reflecting about our time here as tomorrow is our last full day in Ensenada. We have cherished the relationships and time we have spent here and are so thankful for this time.
Thank you for your prayers! Please be praying for us on Monday as we have a long travel day home!
**Note some of the faces in the photos below have been blurred for security reasons
