Mexico Mission

Tye and I joined a crew of High School & College kids from Columbus, Indiana for a mission trip to Mexico.  Led by some old friends from college, we traveled in planes, trains & automobiles across the Mexican Border. In Piedras Negras, we stayed & worked on the "Vida Nueva Mission" (www.vnmi.org). There they have an orphanage, a preschool, a clinic, a community kitchen, a dorm & more.  Our days were spent framing a small school, demoing lots of concrete, cleaning, organizing & painting.  At lunch time we'd cook & serve lunch to almost a hundred hungry neighborhood kids. In the evening we'd walk up to the neighborhood park to play pick-up basketball games with teens & swing with the kids. On our last day, we drove up to San Antonio to see the Alamo, the Riverwalk Mall & got a good night's rest in a hotel before flying home. We worked really hard in the blazin' heat & got a ton of work done on the Mission. Other highlights: we went taranchula hunting, led worship, swam in their homemade "pool" & had a blast with the group.  Speedbumps: one of our guys got bit in the face by a spider & his eye swelled shut--not a taranchula. Another student smashed his finger between a concrete wall & a sledge hammer. Twenty bucks got him an x-ray, a day in a hospital bed, pain meds & 5 stitches.  Let's hear it for the Mexico health care system! But overall--it was a great trip. For more fun details...check out our pictures, Tye's $4 Mexico Makeover & Taranchula Hunting Footage!