07/26/2024
“He looks like a 5 year old took a 6 hour nap”
Today was another one for the books! What started out with some rain this morning at breakfast ended up being an incredibly sunny and hot day! We started with breakfast, which was another morning of flapjacks, chilaquiles, fruit, cereal boxes, eggs, and mushrooms with onions and cheese! Everyone got their fill, headed upstairs to change, and met our driver at the bus. Mike and I had to run to the store this morning to get more journals for today’s craft because we had so many more students than we expected! We hopped on the bus with our supplies, and headed to the church. We read through the blog comments that we had, and tried to hype everyone up for the day ahead! It was a first for a lot of us to have a morning of VBS and then have our clean up afterwards. Once we got to the church, we went right into worship with the kiddos, which lasted 55 minutes today! I think that’s a record set for longest worship time, and everyone kept asking for more! (Well, almost everyone. We had some ninos that wanted it to end because of how hot it was!) I was grateful to be able to be in there and seeing all of the students and kids giving it their all, dancing and jumping and yelling and perfecting the moves today! The students on the stage had gotten so hype that we were worried the stage was going to break!
Once worship ended, Damaris gave the message around sharing Gods word (which is where the journals came into play!) The kids came outside and colored their journals, giving lots of color to the plain brown outside! We quickly started to play games, and the kids were asking all of us for our names and phone numbers to keep in touch! It’s always so bittersweet to have it be our last day, and it was quite emotional to be seeing our students so invested in what was happening and doing everything they could to talk with them! These students remember us year after year, and it’s such a blessing to come back and see how much they have grown in just a year. Students pulled out their sharpies, let kids sign their shirts, and then the kids wanted us to sign theirs! We spent some time doing crafts, hanging out playing games, and giving our “autographs”. We served the kids their lunches, served the moms theirs, and then once everyone else was ready, we all sat down to eat together, which was a delicious stew with rice and tortillas! I know it seems weird to be eating hot food on such a hot day, but it definitely hit the spot!
One of the neighbors of the church introduced himself, and we found out he was from Canada and owned a drone and 3D video company! He graciously offered to get some photos and videos of our teams so that we could have that to remember our time with. After lunch, we went outside and got some photos and videos, which I have added to this post! We are so grateful for Myles and can’t wait to see what else he is able to do for our Mexico campus.
Once the photos were done, we quickly pivoted to our projects! Today was tent tear down, table and chair cleaning, and finishing the stucco and drywall upstairs! It was definitely a hot day, but our students powered through and hustled to get it done! We took our breaks, drank through probably four water tank bottles, and diminished our supply of liquid IVs. It took a couple of hours, but we were able to get the tent down, cleaned, and put away, while other students washed and dried every chair in the church! We took turns on who was outside on tent duty and who was in front on chair duty, so it seemed to go pretty quickly! Once we finished, Sergio (one of the dads at the church) had brought his horse over! Everyone who wanted got an opportunity to hop on and take a lap around the field. Everyone who got on had such a huge smile on their faces! We said our final goodbyes, exchanged instagrams and phone numbers, and got back on the bus. I saw a couple of tears being shed as we said goodbye, but also heard so many students say they wanted to come back next year! We know this trip is so impactful in so many ways, and the relationships formed are just one of the things we look forward to every year.
Once we got back on the bus, we read a couple of comments that were left later in the day, and everyone sat and relaxed from the long day we had. We got to the hotel, went upstairs and showered and slept, and came back down for dinner. Tonight was tortilla soup, potato tacos, beef tacos, and chicken and beef tacos! It was one of the best dinners we had all week. We parted ways before service, where Nataleigh and Zoe led us for our final night of worship. Mike jumped in to his message, which was all about a call to holiness. He spoke on how everything that has happened in the past has led us to this moment in time, and nothing was unintentional. He talked about how we preach about the good things that we as Christian’s can experience, but we don’t talk about the negative that can happen. It reminded us that sometimes in life, we will experience trials and tribulations, and both point to the glory of God. We ended the message with a song of worship, and then went to our rooms for discussions. God was showing off yet again tonight with the sunset, so we got lots of good photos of that!
We are spending time relaxing, resting, and preparing to head to the airport tomorrow. We are sad to be leaving PV, but ready to be back in Washington. We are looking forward to seeing everyone at the airport tomorrow night, and looking forward to a restful flight! Please pray for safe flights, ease through customs and the airports, and rest through it all. Buenos noches, and hasta luego, Puerto Vallarta!
