Here are more pictures of my time in Mexico so far. 

I bought fish at the out-door market one Saturday!

                                                     

                                                          

                From left to right below: Josie, Josh, Paisley, Me

                                                            

                                          More Tienges...

                         


                       My friend, Monte, at one of the orphanages we visit.

                                         
                                Mexico Caravan Ministries

From left to right: the green building in the back is Eddie and Maggie's house, the big blue building in the center is where us interns live and where all the church groups stay (sleeps around 100), the smaller blue building on the right is the Nationals' Office where people come from all around Tijuana to apply for a house. 

                                                 

This is the house we build- a simple 12x12 plywood structure. We all took turns living in one for 2 weeks at a time over the summer:

The kids always help us build! : )

  Progresso: one of the neighborhoods we build in often

           Action shot of Josie...our wonderful lead intern. : )

Go, send, or disobey.

I would love to hear what you all think about this. Please post your thoughts! : ) 

"Esperanza, Esperanza, Esperanza"

Update:
Well, things are going great here! Since the last time I given you an update quite a few things have happened: 1. I have been camping in La Bufadora for a night with the staff (so much fun and such a great get-away for all of us to talk around a campfire and share what the Lord is teaching us), 2. I have led my first build (I had a lot of people praying for me and it went really well!), 3. and I just moved into a casita (a small house like the ones that we build for the Mexican people) for a two week stay with two of the girl staff in Maggi and Eddie's courtyard. I can't believe the summer is nearly over and we just said goodbye to the staff that are only here for the summer months. Fall break is coming up at the end of August and we all are looking forward to having 2 1/2 weeks off!

Story Time:
"Driving Senora Patti"
So I thought people only sighed "Martha, Martha Martha" because of Marsha off of the Brady Bunch but the other day I discovered that it really is just ME. It was my turn to stay back from building and drive Patti, a national who works in our office (and only knows me by my Spanish name, Esperanza), around to several interviews with nationals who are applying for houses. Well, Patti doesn't speak English and I'm sad to say my Spanish is still horrible so the drive was slightly humorous as I had to go off of her directions and hand gestures for every turn and we have a van full of national's that don't speak English either. After several little mishaps that led to laughter this one brought them all to tears laughing at me. After the first interview of the day we all loaded back into the van, got our seat belts on and I started the car and took out the parking break (kind of a long drawn out process for me) and was about to drive when I suddenly realized I had not taken off the steering wheel club. I looked sheepishly over at Patti and sad "oops...Lo Siento (sorry)", and as I turned the car off to unlock the club they all laughed and Patti sighed "oh, Esperanza, Esperanza, Esperanza".

Prayer Request:
Man guys....God is really convicting my heart of how little I come to His Throne BOLDLY. There are so many reasons for this: doubts, fears, stubbornness, and pride...or just getting stuck on what is unnecessary. I am reading through Hebrews. There are so many reminders scattered throughout but here is just one: Hebrews 4:16 "Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need". Please pray this for me! That God would continue to convict and draw me to Him. That my doubts would fall away and that I would run to Him every day throughout my day with my EVERY need.

Ah....today I feel more at home in Mexico than ever. I finally found my local Mexican church! This morning with fellow staff members, Sarah and Nate, I set out to find the church that I discovered on Sovereign Grace Ministries website before I moved down here. My second Sunday in Mexico I spent 2 hours trying to find it and the service was over by the time we got there.  Well, this morning we met with success. The service was amazing, the people all welcoming, the worship sincere, and there are a couple of people there who speak English and will tape a translated copy of the sermons for us! Hopefully, we won't need it for too much longer as we are all eager to improve our Spanish. Thank you all for your prayers that I would find a good church down here! If you would like to check out the website here it is: http://www.ccotay.org/main.html

Ok, as promised....here are a few pics.

My fellow staff members:

The Tianguis (out-door market): 

I will load more later! The line for the computer is just too long! 

A moment at last....

Hello everyone! This is a long update since it took me a while to get on here. I've divided it up into sections for those of you who do not have the time to read it all! Thanks for visiting my blog.

 Pictures to come!!

In Christ, Martha

UPDATE:

THANK YOU all for the sweet notes of encouragement I have received for the last 4 Sundays!!!

I am absolutely LOVING my time here in Mexico. I'm exhausted ALL THE TIME but God is good and He is stretching me in ways that are, well, much needed.:) The first week here was our orientation week. We spent from around 8am to 10pm everyday sharing life stories, praying for each other, taking personality tests, gift tests, and learning style tests, and praying for each other some more. : ) That week was emotionally grueling but I loved every minute spent getting to know all the other interns in such a prayerful setting. The following week we jumped right into building. There are NO WORDS to describe my lack of skill in the area of construction! Let's put it this way: by week two and house number 6, I STILL found myself sniffling and crying over a stubborn 2x4 that refused to give under my relentless sawing efforts. I have never been so sweaty, so tired, so sore, so bruised, so clumsy, or so FILTHY in all my life! The Spiritual challenge for me lies in the constant battle to pull my mind in gear and accept Grace from the Lord to complete tasks....or to just fail at them and try again. God is so good. 

2 Corinthians 9:8

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.

Last week we had Staff Retreat. Seems a little soon for that, right? Well, I dare you to say that after 2 weeks of building in MY body. : ) We spent the week up in Lake Arrowhead camping outside a sweet couple's house that support Caravan Ministries. Again, we spent a lot of time in prayer, a lot of time sharing, and we also had a great time of fun and refreshment. That's it for me with the breaks until the end of August! :/

STORY TIME:

Who can tell me what the numero uno rule in Mexico is? That's right....don't drink the tap water! Well, my first day here I brewed an entire pot of coffee for the dorm and a few guests that happened to be staying the night. It was some good coffee and everyone appreciated my generosity. It took me two days and many trips to the bathroom before I realized that I brewed that delicious pot of coffee with tap water. Ah....praise God the staff is full of grace. They thanked me for cleaning out their system and said that it could have been worse (I guess that the heat from the coffee maker gave us all only a mild case of the runs. :)) 

SCHEDULE: (may be boring for some of you:))

Okay, I've been told not to go long on these updates but this time it's unavoidable because of my procrastination. I apologize. I want to give you a quick run-down of our days which will help you understand why time on the internet is such a rarity for me. : ) Sunday afternoon our church groups get in normally around 3:00pm. Monday - Friday we wake up at 6:30 am, devos at 7:00 am, breakfast at 7:30, and we all meet with the group for our morning speaker at 8:00. The meeting is normally out by 9:15 and from there we take our separate church groups out into Tijuana to build their sponsored house. We normally arrive back at the dorms around 5:30 pm to re-load the trucks for the next day's work. Once we're done we can eat dinner. Most of the church groups that we work with during that day will treat us to whatever they eat for dinner (a huge praise for use!). A couple nights a week we have evening meetings at 7:00pm. In addition to that we have our weekly staff book study (we are currently reading "The Cost of Discipleship" by Dietrich Bonhoeffer) at 6:30am on Thursdays, our weekly staff meeting on Wednesdays, and our staff prayer meetings on Monday and Friday morning at 6:30am. After the church groups leave on Friday morning we clean for the next group and complete whatever chores we have assigned (we're all responsible for different things but the chore list is ever-changing!). We have Saturdays and Sunday mornings off. Internet is only allowed on our days off and phone calls are limited to 20 min. per person, per day. 

PRAYER REQUEST:

Please pray for unity to  continue among us staff. We live, eat, sleep, and work together all day everyday. I am amazed at how sacrificial these wonderful hermanitos and hermanitas are to each other and me....it is my prayer we will continue to grow in Christ's love for each other!