Saying Goodbye to Juarez

We said goodbye to Juarez this morning.
  
Even though we haven't known this city that long, it has a special place in our hearts. It's the city where so many refuse to go because of the danger that it represents. But to us, it's a place where we were able to make a difference, where we made a dozen kids smile, where we gave a family hope and most of all, where we shared the love of Christ in a tangible way.  God was able to work through us, a group of inexperienced college students without much Spanish knowledge, to bless two families with brand new houses. How cool is that!
  
We kept the same schedule as the work days and got up at 6:30.  Scott experimented with the coffee maker again (we could have a whole blog post about our kitchen mishaps!) and got 1 pot of coffee made that was quickly claimed by staff.  We ate breakfast and then cleaned the church we stayed at in Juarez. Kelly, Heather and Brandon helped split up all of the extra food and dishes that we had from the week and we boxed it all up for Maria and Martha.  

Maria and Martha had no idea that we were coming and were so surprised with the boxes of food.  The smile on Maria's face was huge!  It was so much fun to surprise them with it.  Baleigh's jacket had been left at the work site, but she chose to left it there after finding a pretty dirty dog curled up on it.

We crossed the border in El Paso instead of crossing in New Mexico last year. The crossing took longer, but it was a lot closer to where we had been building than the New Mexico border.  It took about an hour to get across the bridge, but the border patrol officer was really nice. He was collecting all of the passports to check them and mentioned that our van smelled like feet.  We didn't have the heart to tell him that there was a good chance it was us and not the shoes by the door.  (After 4 days without showers while working in the desert, even deoderant wasn't really helping anymore). 

We went to the Casas compound to help them prepare for the upcoming year of building.  For the past 7 years, we have helped them assemble all of the electrical, painting, roofing supplies etc, that they use throughou the entire year.  It's a way that we can give back to a ministry that serves those around them in so many ways. Some of the guys also worked on chipping wood.  It was hot today! The students did great and we're proud of them and their hard work and cheerfulness! 

After shopping at the Casas gift store (we all now look like a gang with matching T-shirts), we went to a church in El Paso that has showers.  In under an hour, we had all 36 people through 5 minute showers.  An ice cold shower has never felt that good!  It was great!  All of us feel better, look cleaner and smell so much better!  Although, the Mexico dirt has a way of clinging to you and there's a very real possibility that you'll still be washing dirt off in a week. 

Dinner tonight was the annual food fest at Golden Corral.  The Casas leader who works with us and their families come with us for dinner and we get to treat them after all of the work that they did for us throughout the week.  It's a good chance to relax, play games and enjoy time with the new friends you made during the week and enjoy lots of really good food!

Tonight, we're back at Paseo Church in El Paso for the night.  We're up and moving at 6am tomorrow with a trip to Chick-Fil-A for breakfast.  After that we'll be back on the road for Michigan!  It'll take us the better part of a day to get through Texas, but the rest of the drive goes faster.  We're all looking forward to being home with our own beds and warm showers, but we wouldn't give up this week of spring break for anything!

As we're driving, I'll be able to post some more of the stories from the week and the memories that we have.  Thanks for reading this blog throughout our trip!  We're looking forward to telling you more about it in person in a few days :)