the year donald started to travel

prior to our marriage donald hadn't traveled much. a senior trip to colorado, a few vegas trips to visit his brothers and that was it. he had otherwise not been more than five hours from kansas city at any given time in his life.  i, on the other hand, start to feel kind of anxious and unsettled if more than six months have passed since i've been on a plane.  

we honeymooned in california, but after that travel took a backseat while we worked on our budget and settled into married life. for the next year and a half we stuck close to home and the only traveling we did were some weekend trips to st. louis, the lake, branson and bolivar. but that was then, and this is now.

in the span of three months, donald's travel life will be revolutionized. in july we took a big trip to new york city. it was a rather intense five days of exploring and living it up in the big apple. i was in my happy place. donald enjoyed the trip too, even though it was pretty far from his comfort zone [which is the 4'x4' area in our living room surrounding his recliner].

then last weekend we flew east again for a trip that was a little more his speed. jacob, nickie, donald and i went to north carolina to visit jenn and tyler. the pullens and i have made this an almost annual event, but it was donald's inaugural journey. traveling with friends is one of my favorite things, so this trip was bound to be a winner. and jenn is always the hostess with the mostess, planning a food menu [in advance, of course] that had both of us very excited.  

after our customary first stop at the mellow mushroom for pizza, we spent a big chunk of our long weekend at the talton's lake house. we played games, ate lots of delicious things and enjoyed all of the fun lake toys. 

now the big kicker will be in october when donald leaves the country for the very first time. we're going to mexico with my mom and a group from calvary to work with some missionary friends there. i'm excited to literally show him the world!

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my mexican birthday

our first full day in mexico just happened to fall on what i consider to be a very special day. i woke up to a house full of birthday signs, hung by my very favorite mom. after breakfast we got to work and spent the day on some projects at the wgm guest house in saltillo. my mom and i constructed some window screens, then helped out the painting crew. and that night i was given a super fun birthday cake.

the rest of our week was spent at one of my favorite kinds of places...camp. since my affinity for summer camp is no secret, it seemed quite fitting that this is where we were able to work for the week. the camp is located up in the mountains, about an hour away from the city. we were helping to prepare for family camp, which meant cleaning, building bunk beds, pouring a sidewalk, deconstructing a fallen retaining wall, replacing a water heater and a bunch of other odd jobs i've already forgotten. of course we also managed to squeeze in some necessary mexican culture...specifically churros and fried corn. they were delicious.

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me gusta mexico mucho

i have returned from a great week in the land of sombreros...complete with guacamole, churros and an infinite number of trips to the super chico for be-light.

we did quite a bit of manual labor at the orphanage...the main projects were:

• painting, moving and installing a playground for the kids [which involved, among other things, lots of hole digging and the risk of being impaled by rebar]
• cleaning up the property, removing thorny brush and shoveling rock
• putting the finishing touches on the new bedrooms and bathrooms for the kids [resulting in "the incident" - daryl and i accidentally getting high on some serious paint fumes...now that's what i call a memory]

we accomplished much more than we thought would be possible in one short week, but the highlight was most definitely the kids. they are fun, loving and pretty hilarious...listening to them laugh is one of my favorite things.

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to mexico i go

a week from today i'll be heading back to the 'house of joy' orphanage in san pedro mexico. i was there last october, just two weeks after they officially opened their doors. on that trip our team of five helped make their new house a home by painting the interior and having fun playing with the seven kids who lived there. we also heard some sweet stories about our new friends ruby and lizeth, and spent a lot of time cracking up at little aneth's laugh.

our team has grown to nine and it sounds like the orphanage has grown to seventeen! the plan this time is to install ceiling fans in the interior, build a playground outside and create a fire-pit with a seating area on the property. we're excited to see how the building has progressed in the six months since we've seen it, but we're even more excited to see our friends again! [one can only hope that our serenading drunk friend will pay us another visit]

after our last trip, heidi [our fearless leader] made a 2010 calendar with pictures from our visit and sent it to the kids. our april trip was already marked and terry [the missionary] tells us the kids are counting down the days! here they are looking at the photos and anticipating our arrival...

although, if i'm honest, i do have to say that one of the driving forces behind my desire to go on this trip has to do with the guys that sell fried dough out of their pickup trucks...it's mmm mmm good.

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what makes a little girl smile

this is lizeth, she is eight years old. i met lizeth and her two younger sisters a few weeks ago on a trip to mexico.

lizeth is a serious little girl. before coming to live at casa hogar de gozo she had a lot of responsibilities. her mom went to work very early in the morning and did not come home until very late at night, so lizeth was in charge of taking care of herself and her sisters most of the time. she made sure they were dressed and fed, if there was food to be had that day. recently the three girls were invited to come live at the orphanage run by a couple named pedro and zoila.

during our visit, we noticed that lizeth and her sisters had pretty bad cases of head lice. so when we went shopping to get some toothbrushes, toothpaste and some other items to leave for the kids, we picked up some lice shampoo as well. to be honest, i wondered if it would even make a difference, knowing that it would be difficult to get rid of the lice altogether. before we left, we made sure zoila knew what the shampoo was for and we said our goodbyes.

yesterday our team received an e-mail from the missionary we traveled with. he wanted to tell us this story. last friday lizeth was looking in the mirror with a smile on her face as zoila fixed her hair for school. zoila asked her why she was smiling so big and lizeth said, "this is the first time in my life i do not have any head lice and the kids can't tease me anymore!"

it doesn't take much to make a little girl smile.

on that same trip i also met ruby. she is eighteen. when we were visiting i had a very hard time getting ruby to let me take her picture...and now i know why. ruby has a bad front tooth and recently told zoila that she is really embarassed about her appearance and smile. it will cost $950 american dollars for two years of braces to fix her teeth. to me, that's a lot of money...but to ruby, it's unthinkable. i want to help change ruby's life, and maybe you will too.

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una semana en mexico

our small but mightily hilarious team of five just returned from a week in san pedro mexico. [which is outside hermosillo for those of you with stellar mexican geography skills.] there is an orphanage there called casa hogar de gozo which just opened two weeks before our arrival. right now there are seven children from three families living there, so we spent the week helping them make their new house a home. we painted all the interior rooms with fun, bright colors and gave the doors and windows a fresh coat of paint. there is still work to be done, but eventually they hope to house fifty to sixty children here.

this is lizeth, the mexican jumping bean

this trip also provided one of the funniest mexican experiences ever. one evening we were sitting on the porch chatting and laughing while the kids played around us, when a man in a cowboy hat appeared out of nowhere and joined the group. he joined right in the festivities and started singing to us. at first we assumed he must be friends of the couple that runs the orphanage, but we soon realized he was just a random drunk man who wandered through the gate and onto the property. he was the friendly sort, though we didn't understand a word he said. he entertained us for about twenty minutes until the police came and kindly offered him a place to stay for the night. here is a bit of his little song...

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the finale

yes it's true...the summer of fun is officially coming to an end. i realize it's a bit of a stretch to refer to the early days of october as part of summer, but that's the way it goes.

it's been a fabulous few months. i spent a lot of time with people i love and i enjoyed them immensely. i often found myself talking with a friend and being a bit overwhelmed at how glad i am that we met. i have some fun, inspiring and lovable friends for sure!

one thing i wanted to do this summer was to simply be available and be generous with my time. sometimes that meant just spending time with someone, and other times it meant helping out with work, kids or other tasks. the summer finale is that kind of opportunity. tomorrow my mom and i are heading to mexico with three other people from calvary. we'll be helping some missionaries there who are working to transform a facility that has been used for summer camps in the past into a full time home for kids.

i think  people often wonder what the point is to short term mission trips. why not just send the money directly to the missionary or project and let them use it to buy materials, hire workers, etc? it's a good questions, and one i ask myself on occasion, but i do think there is a reason. part of it is for our own benefit, so we can be a part of something bigger than ourselves. like this cademan's call song says...

He doesn't need us, but He lets us put our hands in

so we can see, HIs love is bigger than you and me

it's also because people are people, not just numbers. you can send money, but money can't give a kid a hug, and sometimes that's what they need. our last night in honduras the kids did a drama to a song called "child of the street". here's the chorus...

i don't need money, i don't need compassion

what i need is love, i am a child of the street

when you travel somewhere, whether across the world or across the street, you're showing people that someone cares for them and that they are not forgotten.

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my mexican adventure

the first thing i learned in mexico is that the desert in the winter is COLD! i wore two pairs of pants and four shirts every day...which may have been a bit obsessive, but i was just trying to stay warm.

this trip was with organized by a friend from college and we worked with a ministry called tapestries of life that i was really impressed with. the work they do is very well planned and organized and they seem to be very good stewards of the things they have been given.

four of the days were spent working on the orphanage they are building, which is called the casa de las gemas or the house of gems. everything they do and use to build this home for the children is quality. steve [the founder] has a thousand and one stories about how supplies, funding, and volunteers have come together at just the right time. 

the construction days were a lot like my days at habitat. we all divided up to work on a bunch of different projects. some guys put the ceiling up in the big atrium area in the middle of the building, there was a tile crew, and some others did some drywall mudding and sanding. my friend spencer and i were in charge of painting one of the rooms that will eventually house 13-15 year old boys [okay, technically spencer was in charge and i was the assistant to the head artist]. castle ministries, which is the organization i went with, has sponsored this room so they wanted a castle theme. not to brag or anything, but our room blows the other rooms out of the water. i can say that because most of the talent came from spencer, so it's not really bragging.

my stone wall

the grand entrance

on wednesday we took a break from construction for mercy day. on this day we purchase a lot [and i really mean a lot] of food to hand out in an impoverished neighborhood in mexico. we handed out groceries for over 250 families, and toys and stocking hats to lots of kids. it's humbling to know that some of these families may not have eaten in days and this food really is an answer to their prayers. the few hours that we are handing out the food is organized chaos, but again the tapestries staff had a plan for everything. we also handed out quality food...each family received beans and rice, meat, cheese, onions, tomatoes, carrots, peppers, eggs, bread and toilet paper.

we also rang in the new year while we were there, though our celebration was pretty low key. 

the whole gang: castle ministries and the wisconsin crew

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