Where to begin...

So many e-mails!!!  My phone has decided to stop downloading my email, unless I specifically refresh my inbox...so I have a lot of catch up to do today.
Totally worth it though.  Mexico was amazing!!!  It's hard to sum it up in a quick sentence, but in short, it was really a week of doing God's work!  I want to share more with you about Cuirim House, what a day looks like there and the testimonies of the people who run it , but today I thought I'd tell you about a family we worked with.  The best thing about the outreach at Cuirim House is that the work we do really opens doors for the church to be a light to the community.
This is Gabriella and her sons Daniel and Angel.  The boys' dad is out working at the factory.

They migrated up to Nogales from their small town near Navajoa, which is actually where the church in Nogales has started sending their own mission teams.  I can promise you, it's more than just a coincidence.  But back to their story.  Gabriella's little family was trying to reach the border in search for a better life, but like most who attempt this, they ended up stuck in the slums of Nogales.  Only the Lord knows how they made it as far as they did.  Navajoa is about an 8 hour drive, so making it to Nogales is nothing short of a miracle.  We weren't even scheduled to work on their house, but the site manager heard of their need and was on the ball and sent our team right over there.  They squatted at this shack, and we were able to greet them their first week in town, paint the inside and outside of their house (a whopping 2 small rooms with dirt floors and cardboard/pressed plywood/metal scrap walls), as well as give them a cement floor.  I've never actually seen a place so destitute - no water, a toilet stuck in a mound of dirt outside the house, nothing to cook with or on.  

If you're like me, you might wonder how much of a help concrete and paint can really be.  I learned that paint on the outside of the house can extend the use for an additional year.  We paint the inside of the houses a light color so that scorpions are easier to spot.  And the concrete goes a long way during the 2 weeks to a month of monsoon season, when it rains nearly every day.  You can imagine the muddy mess that happens to dirt floors on the sides of mountains when the rains come.  Even though it might not seem like much, it opens the doors for the church to come in and really minister to these people.  The pastor of the church actually came and helped us on the day we did concrete, which is very meaningful.  The way it all worked out was truly God ordained.  We had been planning all week to throw a party for new moms in the neighborhood so that we could give them some gifts and celebrate them - something that is completely foreign to them.  We were able to invite Gabriella and give her some necessities for the house and her babies!  It was really neat to be there for them and hopefully give them a little bit of hope!  
There is so so so much more to tell you - I'm just bursting at the seams to share, but that's it for today.  Time for me to look at some more emails!!