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!