As an FYM team we built a house for a family a few weeks ago. The money for the house was raised by FYM's and all the construction was done by our team. It was a great experience for the team. The family we built the house for have three children. They were renting a house but the rent payment was so high that they did not have enough money to live off after paying rent. This house was a huge blessing to them. They are so thankful.

I am sitting in the Brownsville airport because I just dropped someone off. They have free wireless and when you live in Mexico anywhere you can get wireless for free becomes a great place to hang out. I started reading the blogs the team wrote yesterday about their time here in Mexico. After I read about the first two a theme because apparent to me. The theme was that God is doingamazing things in the lives of the team members as well as in the lives of the Mexican's they are ministering to.

This revelation hit me kind of hard because for the last few weeks I have been wondering why I have fought so hard to keep this team here. One of the reasons the Mexico FYM team is still here is because God told me I needed to stay and fight to keep this team in Mexico. I have been obedient and I have dug my heels in the ground and stood. Some days it took every once of strength I had to stand but I did it. Because of that determination the plan the devil had to make Mexico FYM end did not happen.

I encourage all of you to look over the blogs of the team God entrusted into my hands and see what He has done over the past few months. Reading these blogs spoke straight to my heart. Hope is here and God is still in control. Enjoy!

http://www.abigailshoemaker.myadventures.org/

http://www.jenniferkettel.myadventures.org/

http://www.timeaszakacs.myadventures.org/

http://www.laurenhenderson.myadventures.org/

http://www.tamaraherbst.myadventures.org/

http://www.jillianandre.myadventures.org/

http://www.chadheap.myadventures.org/

http://www.jeannetaylor.myadventures.org/

I don't understand this fallen world we live in. It truly is a broken place. It seems so often that things are hopeless. However I have to remember we have hope. I asked God the question where is the hope in this world? Where is the hope in this life? Where is the hope in this situation? My prayer was, "please Father, help me I feel so hopeless." The situation felt like I was supposed to be holding a fistful of water and it was all leaking out the sides of my hand. My human strength, mind, and emotions said I could no longer do it. But God said, "wait, don't give up, there is hope."

Hope, I asked God where it was and He began to lead me through the Psalms. Psalms 23, He is with me in the valley. Psalms 91, He is my protector, shield, and defender. Psalms 42, I put my hope in God my Savior and my God. Psalms 43, I will praise my God my hope. Psalms 19, God is my rock and my redeemer. The thought then occurred to me that even though my heart is heavy today God should still be my hope. He will redeem this situation for His glory. Thank you God!

In Mexico it is relatively easy to find creatures of all shapes, sizes, and colors living in community with you in your house. The other day I found one of these little friends in the bathroom. He, the spider was black and large. With his legs stretched out he was around the size of the palm of my hand. He is not the biggest spider I have seen here but his size was noteworthy.

Normally when I find "friends" like this I find someone else to kill them because I struggle to kill something the size of a Michigan rodent with only a shoe. This time I enlisted the help of Chad one of the FYM's. After a brief photo session with the "friend" we were ready to eliminate his existence. Chad shoe in hand was ready. I stepped out about 10 feet away because spiders have been known to jump when they sense their life is in danger. Chad swung at the "friend" and made contact but not enough to kill him. The "friend" jumped to the left towards me and landed about five feet from me. I was stunned for a moment until I looked into his beady eyes. His eyes glared at me and communicated it was going to be his life or mine. One of us was going to die today and he did not want it to be him.

He took off in a swift run towards me ready to fight. I turned heal to toe and sprinted down the hall, screaming to Chad for help. All I could see flashing through my mind was a sci-fi movie I had watched where killer spiders were attacking people. The spider grew from being the size of the palm of my hand into being a 3 feet tall, killer determined to eat me. Within a flash it was over. I heard the comforting words of Chad saying the spider had been defeated. I was once again safe. Crisis was over and life went back to normal for everyone except the "friend."

Moral of the story: Fear puts things out of perspective.

I want to share some about my experiences from the past four weeks. Because so much has happened I will try to be brief. The way all this affected me was I went from going along doing my RA thing to leading the entire FYM Mexico team through a time a crisis. Week one: Hearing the news and tying to make sense of it; removing the team from Mexico for a few days to try and find out what was going on; being very thankful Scott (my boss at AIM) came down to help; debriefing the team when we still had little information; helping the team process the many thoughts running through their heads; and realizing I was the one leading the team.

Week two: Returning to Mexico and staying at a different AIM base then where we were; helping with a week long mission project; trying to find out more details; accepting help from the AIM family as they reached out to our disconcerted team; introducing the team to Tony and Kelly-American missionaries that live in Mexico and are helping us; looking for a house to rent; finding the house and working out the details; talking the team through everything; and watching as five team members leave; realizing once again the team is looking to me for direction.

Week three: Figuring out how to get rent money from a bank account is in someone else's name; working out house contract issues; cleaning and packing at the church where we were living; helping move the owner of the new house out and to another house; us moving into the new house; more talking through things and processing with the team; buying food so we didn't have to continue eating sandwiches all the time; opening a bank account so I can get money to pay for things; more meeting and conversations discussing what had happened.

Week four-last week: Picking up guests who were scheduled to come and teach the FYM's during our morning class time this week; teaching Erin and Jason how to shop for food; realizing I had no money for my new, FYM bank account; talking to people so money could be transferred; getting a budget that I did not know how to read; learning how to read the budget; running out of minutes on my phone from calling AIM people so much; getting an AIM cell phone so I can continue talking to AIM people; figuring out our schedule for the next two and half months; and last but not least writing this blog along with what seems like a hundred emails.

This list is a brief overview of my life lately. It has been somewhat exhausting but I am seeing a turnaround. The team is doing very well. Ministries to the Mexicans are going better then expected. The house we moved into is so nice and perfect for what we needed. I am adjusting to being the leader. Things are getting better but please continue to pray for the situation with Bob and for his family, the team as they adjust, myself that I will be able to fill this role God has placed me in.

I wrote this on Saturday.

Bittersweet is the only word I can think of to describe the feeling in the pit of my stomach this morning. As I shut the door to the van after saying goodbye to almost half of my FYM team. It has been around 2 weeks since this whole mess started. Today, I saw a very tangible reaction to Bob's failure. My heart is hurting as I lay here in my bed wondering if somehow I have failed these FYM's. I know I had nothing to do with the situation but still a small part of me wants to understand something anything Why is it so hard to see people leave??

I have invested 5 months of my life into helping these FYM's grow and today when they left it was hard. It was hard because I wonder if I lead them properly through the situation. I question if when they were looking to me for help and advise if they saw me or they saw Christ. I question if I somehow missed something I should have seen. I question the motives of their choices to leave and I pray that it really is God's will for their lives. Lastly, I question if someday I will stumble and my fall will cause others to stumble. I have so many questions, but so few answers. Nothing seems to make sense right now.

The one thing I have to stand on during this entire trauma is the fact that I know God has called me here for such a time as this. I need to refocus myself so I can minister by pouring God's love on to the students that are left. My prayer is that I am able to finish these next 3 months with a supernatural grace and love that causes the remaining students to look back on this time and see Christ. Pray that God will bless the ones that have left and He will give them the closure they need. Please continue praying for us as we make the transition into the new house and for our restructuring from losing half the team.

Today is the first day I have had to think or write since last Sunday. Everything down here has changed very drastically this past week. The man I have served under for two years has experienced a moral failure and the effects are rippling through many lives including my FYM team. In the matter of a few hours I went from ladies RA to leader of the entire FYM Mexico team. I am now responsible for fifteen people including two staff. I am in a position that I never desired but God must know that I can do it or He would not have placed me here. The team is looking to me for leadership and guidance. I am struggling to fill the new role I have been placed in.

Please pray for the team, my former leader and his family, and me. I currently am with the team at a different AIM base in Matamoros. This base is set up for short-term trips. This week we are going to help with a trip from Canada. We have some AIM staff from Georgia coming down that are going to help this broken team and myself process everything that has just happened. My main goal for this week is trying to find a place for us to live. The place we were living is no longer an option because of a safety reasons. We have found a different area of the city to live in that is near an American missionary couple. They are going to be helping the leadership of FYM as we try to rebuild and work though everything that has happened to the team. Please pray that we can find a house to rent that is big enough, and has adequate meeting, kitchen, and bathroom farcicalities.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS!!

As I walked past our neighbors house the other day I heard screaming coming from within. It is not unusual for me to hear screaming or even loud talking coming from houses as I walk past because the walls of the houses are thin and windows or doors are usually open. You can hear almost everything going on inside the houses. Normally, I do not pay attention to the noises as I walk the ½ mile trek from the church to Bob's, our base leaders, house. Today was different for some reason and I slowed my pace to listen for a second. The words were in Spanish so I did not understand much but I knew someone was in trouble.

I figured it was probably one or both of the two girls that live at that house because it sounded like their mom yelling. These girls are only six and four but they are both very intelligent and have the sweetest hearts. Often when they see us walking by they run out to give us hugs. This afternoon as I slowed my pace I thought of what must be going on inside of them as their mom was screaming at them. Just hearing the anger in her voice made me cringe.

I heard a smack and then a soft whimper. I knew that they were not only getting yelled at but also they were also getting hit. My heart sank to the pit of my stomach and felt nauseous. I was standing here listening as my two, sweet, little friends were getting beaten because their mom was having a bad day or she was drunk. There was nothing I could do. I felt so helpless. I wanted to run in that house and defend the little girls but I couldn't. In my human strength there was nothing I could do. It is not a crime in Mexico to hit your children so I could do or say nothing.

It was making me sick standing there and listening so I continued walking. My heart was overwhelmed with so much compassion for these girls. I asked God what I was supposed to do. I am here to help people but in this situation when it seemed like the girls needed me I could do nothing. God stopped me mid sentence and said. "Why can't you pray for them and love them?" I started to explain that is a good idea but I wanted to do more. He stopped me again to remind me that prayer is one of the most powerful tools I have as a Christian. Just because I could not run in there to defend them with my human strength does not mean that I can't be defending them with my prayers.

This past week we had four visitors. Three guys came down from Indiana and my brother Gabe. Because they were here we decided to change our schedule to help them with contruction. Our normal week is meet together in the morning for worship and class then in the afternoons we go out and do different ministries. This week we helped with construction of the church. It was a good change of pace for the group. They all worked very hard and we did more then Bob ever imagined we could. It was a great week of physical labor. Included is a pictoral guide of our week.

Note: Sorry the pictures all ended up weird when I posted it before. Hopefully you can actually see them now.

Cleaning up around church

Preparing to put cement down. In photo: Jeanne, Gabe

Adding sand and rock

Gabe and Jenny waiting to add water.

Jeanne moving cement

Timi and Erin pouring cement.

Finished project-job well done.

Since coming down here as staff last year I have been trying to get Miss Stephanie Pack to come down here and teach one of our weekly classes. Last week all my hard work paid off and Miss Pack, one of my teachers from Bible College, came down to teach the FYMs. Miss Pack is someone that I respect greatly. My first year in college she taught my English class. From that class we developed a mentoring relationship. She has taught me a lot about people, ministry, and life. She is part of the reason I am involved in missions. This experience for me was a time where I was able to hopefully give back to her as she saw one of her former students in active ministry.

Our week started off with a Monday airport run to pick her up. Her flight was to arrive at 7:00pm. I left Mexico around 3:00pm because I needed to have enough time to get across the border and then do a few errands before I went to the airport. Around 5:00pm Miss Pack calls me and says, "I am in New Orleans." My mind quickly calculated that New Orleans was nowhere on the way to Mexico so something must be wrong. There was a problem in Houston. A storm was over the airport so they could not land. She ended up in New Orleans for a few hours then she arrived in Houston at 9:00pm.

Her next flight had been delayed from the storm and was leaving in 20 minutes. She ran through the airport and arrived at her gate only to find out they had delayed the flight another hour. She called me and let me know because I was still patiently waiting in Harlingen at the airport. With all the changes she would make it to Harlingen around 11:00pm. I was getting a little tired when 11:00 rolled around but I was excited to see her and that seemed to give me some energy.

Around the time her flight should have been arriving the she called me and said she was still in Houston but she was leaving in just a little bit. Now the flight would arrive at 12:30am. When 12:30am arrived the screen changed and arrival time became 1:00am. I was watching the clock by this time and five minutes before 1:00am the loudspeaker came on in the airport and the arrival time got pushed back to 1:30am. I was really tired by this time but I stayed awake and at 1:30am, after traveling for 13 hours, Miss Pack finally arrived in Harlingen, TX.

Little did we know that our next adventure was just around the corner. We went to collect her bags and after watching the same 5 bags go around the carousal a few times we decided her bags were not there. We filed a claim with the one agent left in the airport. Around 2:00am we were finally ready for the hour and fifteen minute drive to where I live in Matamoros.

As soon as we crossed into Mexico the Mexican border guards stopped us. I pulled off as two men approached my truck. I unrolled my window and began to answer questions. He then asked for my information and the information for the truck. He compared everything and it all checked out so he let us go. All this was strange because entering Mexico has a red light, green light system to determine which cars to search. I got the red light but normally they look in your car and say okay then you go. I have never had anything like this happen. It was now 3:00am but a least we were on our way again and had only twenty minutes left.

I drove through the quiet downtown answering the few questions she had about the buildings. She noticed some police cars and asked what they were doing. I explained they give tickets for traffic violations and that I had never been pulled over. Within one minute of those words leaving my mouth a police car was behind us with his lights on. At this point I was really wondering how something as simple as picking up someone from the airport could turn into all this.

I unrolled my window as the first officer approached. He asked me if I spoke Spanish and I said not really. He looked annoyed and then went back to his car. I was hoping he was just going to let us go. Then another officer approached the car and began to question me. I told him I was a missionary and I was coming back from the airport that is why I was on the road. He kept telling me I was speeding and he was going to give me a ticket. When I asked how fast I was going he said I was going 50mph and the speed limit was 30mph. I knew I was not going that fast because I had just looked at the speedometer and it said 35mph. I tried to argue with him but it was to no avail and I finally left with a speeding ticket. The time was now 3:20am. We traveled the remaining ten minutes and FINALLY arrived where I live at 3:30am. I was exhausted. I gave her the quick tour, found her some clothes to wear (she had no luggage) and we both went to bed.

Tuesday morning came along sooner then I wanted. I was still tired when I woke up. We, Miss Pack, and I opted to not attend our FYM group morning worship and sharing time so we had a little longer to sleep. However, 10:30 rolled around and soon I was introducing Miss Pack to the FYMers. The hour-long class flew by and before I knew it lunch was over. The FYMers went off to their ministry locations and we headed back to collect Miss Pack's luggage from the airport in Harlingen, TX. On the way to get the luggage I stopped and paid my speeding ticket so Miss Pack got to experience the Mexican Police Station. I think she enjoyed the experience so maybe it was worth the $12 I had to pay.

The rest of the day was uneventful. We arrived back in Mexico around dinnertime. We talked with the FYMs about the afternoon ministry and Miss Pack got to know the group better. It was a nice time of fellowship. Later that evening we had our Spanish class which we have every Tuesday and Thursday night. Miss Pack enjoyed it and she said it was amazing how similar French and Spanish are. She speaks French and she actually understood a lot of Spanish. I was impressed.

On Wednesday we had class, lunch, then went to the jail for ministry in the afternoon. Three of the female FYMers go to the jail twice a week to do ministry. It is a neat opportunity for them because they get a chance to disciple and talk about God to many women in the jail. Miss Pack was unsure what to think when we pulled up to the parking lot of the jail and three people with machine guns greeted us, but once she got into the jail she was fine. In the jail Miss Pack had the opportunity of sharing and loving on one of the woman in the jail who speaks English. I enjoyed the experience of getting to sit back and watch as my mentor was sharing Jesus with this woman.

On Thursday we had class and then I got to spend the afternoon with Miss Pack. It was a great experience for me. I was able to talk with her and she ministered to my heart. The time of her being here has helped me to put a lot of things back in perspective. I began to see things from a total different angle and I got wise counsel on how I could improve my leadership abilities and myself.

Friday brought the end of our amazing week of classes. I was sad the classes were over because when she teaches she brings the Bible to life and I have not heard her teach since I was a freshman in college. Friday afternoon she went with some of the FYMers to minister at a private, upper class, English speaking, school in Matamoros. Twice a week we have a team of five FYMers that go to this school and help. They teach a first grade and PE class, tutor students, love on the kids, and help with anything else the staff needs. This is a time for the FYM's to practice operating in the gifts and talents God has given them; apply the new things they are learning from our classes; reach out to the community; and establish relationships with people.

Miss Pack jumped in along side them and helped them teach the first graders. I think she enjoyed the experience even though it is a very active class. The first thing she said to me after exiting the school was she had never seen such a wild group of children and the FYMers helping with that class is something a paid teacher would not even want to do. That shows me that God must be working in all this because the FYMers are still going back. God is using them in a unique way to reach the upper class of Matamoros.

Our Friday evening consisted of dinner and then what we call "girls and guys night." We divide the girls and guys then we have separate Bible study, fun activities with them. I lead the night for the girls and I had asked Miss Pack to share whatever was on her heart with them. Our fun thing was she made cookies with them and then in the Bible study she talked about being a woman of influence. The girls of course loved it and it was a nice time for me to be able to relax not worrying about preparing the Bible study.

On Saturday morning I took Miss Pack back to the airport. It was hard for me to say goodbye because I might not get to see her again until the summer. I did enjoy her visit very much. She defiantly impacted the team in a way I never could. They were challenged to grow and most of the embraced that challenge. I am thankful she took the time to come down here and give of herself to the entire team even if it was only a short visit.