Mexico Mission 2005

Saturday

2006-07-22T15:02:00.000-07:00

Today has been a clean up day and a day to finish up the closets we have been building. We are all pretty sore, tired, but very pleased with what we have accomplished here at the orphanage of Casa Hogar la Familia. We have gotten more done on this trip than on any other. There is no question but that Signal Crest has made a difference in the lives of these special children. Just being with these children and giving them our love would have been enough but the physical gifts of a van, completely repainting and providing a bed and couch for the directors´apartment, building a set of closets for all of the girls and having the frame of a second one constructed. We have been been busy painting, scraping, weeding, cutting wood, painting flowers on the wall in the girls´ dorm, doing VBS each day, having a Methodist service with communion, taking the kids to the movie, providing the kids with "Christmas in July", giving the kids 19 suitcases of clothes, plus boxes of school supplies and kitchen and medical supplies. The response this year to the la Familia orphanage has been nothing short of overwhelming.

2006-07-22T07:32:00.000-07:00

Friday: Movie Day

2006-07-21T16:34:00.000-07:00

We left the orphanage about 9:30 for an hour and a half drive with the kids to a nearby town to see a movie. When we got to the theater it happened to be closed, not sure why, but the owner was there and agreed to open back up for us. Gave us half price tickets and gave everyone free cokes and popped popcorn for us. Obviously a very nice guy and he said he liked to do these things for some of the local orphanages from time to time. So we had our own personnal screening of Superman.

After the movie we went next door to a pizza place, ordered 10 pizzas and ate them in nothing flat. Back to Serdan at about 5:30. The kids really enjoyed this day as they very rarely get to leave the orphanage for any sort of an event and seeing a first run movie is really a treat for them.

Everyone is pretty tired and and made it back to the hotel. Even though we did not do much today, the effects of the week are showing and we are all slowing down. Everyone continues in good health.

Movie Day

2006-07-21T15:56:00.000-07:00

2006-07-21T09:42:00.000-07:00

2006-07-21T09:32:00.000-07:00

2006-07-21T09:23:00.000-07:00

2006-07-21T09:13:00.000-07:00

2006-07-21T09:04:00.000-07:00

2006-07-21T08:53:00.000-07:00

2006-07-21T08:32:00.000-07:00

2006-07-21T08:13:00.001-07:00

2006-07-21T08:13:00.000-07:00

2006-07-21T08:07:00.000-07:00

2006-07-21T08:06:00.001-07:00

2006-07-21T08:06:00.000-07:00

2006-07-21T08:02:00.001-07:00

2006-07-21T08:02:00.000-07:00

2006-07-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

2006-07-21T07:36:00.000-07:00

Thursday July 20

2006-07-20T16:52:00.000-07:00

After a hearty breakfast of mexican pancakes we got down to our two main tasks of the day: We worked on finishing up the directors´apartment and building the lockers for one of the childrens´dormatories. It took quite a bit of time for Glenda, Jill, Melinda, Robin,Vicky,Susan & Kathy to finish up the painting, scraping, and generally cleaning up the 5 rooms. The place looks super now and is ready for some new furniture that we have gotten them. A new sofa will be delivered tomorrow and we may get some tables and lamps tomorrow.

Caroline and Patrick worked on cutting wood panels for the interior of the lockers while Ed, Peter, and Addison worked on installing exterior panels. Chris Davis and Michael Deere worked on putting together and installing two clothes racks and shelves for two of the bedrooms. Barrett and Peter worked on completing painting the exterior doors to the Casa.

We also made ice cream again today, we made it yesterday, and it was a hit with the team and with the kids. Even in
We put Mark and Tim Goodson on the bus to Pubela and Mexico City early this morning and I expect they are in the U.S. by now.

We hired a couple of folks to complete some stucco work on the outside wall and repair the gate.

It´s been a very successful but very tiring day for everyone. We all feel like this has been a very successful trip so far and have accomplished a great deal.

pictures

2006-07-20T16:21:00.000-07:00

2006-07-20T15:30:00.000-07:00

Thursday July 20

2006-07-20T14:46:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 7-19 evening

2006-07-20T13:17:00.000-07:00

Wednesday evening we gave all of the gifts to the children that were purchased by the Signal Crest congregation. Every year as you might imagine, this is a very happy time for the children, some even crying. This continues to be a great way for all of Signal Crest to share this time with the children of the Casa Hogar la Familia orphanage.

Part of the group went up Mt. Pico Orizaba, their trip up was interesting but the trip down was exciting, had to do with a vehicle breakdown. A couple of extra hours was spent waiting for a replacement truck to be sent.

Mexico Mission 2006

2006-07-10T04:48:00.000-07:00

Sunday July 16

We all arrived safely in Mexico City, boarded the bus for Pubela and had dinner at Priscila Rojas mother´s house. After dinner we reboarded the bus for a two hour drive to Serdan where the orphanage is located. We arrived about 8 pm, tired but happy to be here.

Monday July 17

The orphanage is about a 10 minute walk from the hotel. We began our day at 8 am with breakfast with the children of Casa Hogar la Familia. There are 23 children presently at the orphanage. After breakfast we organized into work teams. Our primary tasks for Monday were to repaint several of the Casa´s outside walls, some of the windows and doors, repairing cracks and holes in the directors´apartment and organizing VBS, the gift bags for the children that were purchased by the Signal Crest congregation, and the 30 some odd suitcases full of clothes and other things.
Monday is also market day in Serdan and some of the team took the opportunity is wander around the various stalls. Vicky organized taking the kids to the market to buy them new shoes for school in August. Glenda put together the VBS program for the kids.
Tuesday July 18

Yesterday we finished the outside walls, doors and windows, and spackling all of the rooms of the director´s apartment. Today we started painting the apartment rooms, (6 rooms), and started cutting panels for the construction of 24 closets for one of the dormatories. We also played several intense games of football (soccer) with the kids.
Following today´s VBS, Mark had a service for the children and team members. The service´s message was that no matter what happens God will always be there for you. We ended the service with communion for everyone. We then celebrated Barret´s (Susan´s nephew) , birthday with two cakes, one cake is for the traditional way Mexican´s celebrate by having the birthday boy´s head pushed into the cake.

Wednesday July 19 Morning

We are continuing to paint the directors´apartment. We are also cutting more shelving for the closets and completed taking all of the kids to the market, they now all have new shoes. We´ve made ice cream for them for an afternoon snack.

Half of the team has taken a trip up to Mt Pico Orizoba, the second highest mountain in North America. The orphanage is at 8000 feet, Mt Pico is 18,000 feet and the folks going up the mountain , by jeep, will go to about 14,000 feet.

pictures (finally!)

2005-06-08T10:13:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the delay in posting the pictures - the internet was out here in Serdan til yesterday. But below are four pictures with links to four sets of pictures, one each from june 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, the last 4 days of the team here. Enjoy!

Summary of things we accomplished

2005-06-07T06:54:00.000-07:00

Since we lost the internet connection on Wed. , along with telephone service I will try and summerize some of our activities the last couple of days we were there.

During the week, Susan Parks sketched out a mural and organized the painting of it with several other group members helping her. It was basicly a 5 day effort but what a beautiful picture of the mountains of Serdan in the background with a field of butterflies in the foreground.

On Sat. afternoon we finally finished taking all of the children to the market. They were so pleased with themselves by having the opportunity to pick out things that they wanted. This is such a great thing to do for these children who have almost no personnal items.

On Wed. night Lee Matthews put together a vespers program that was quite nice and the children sang some hyms and several of the childrens played the flute for us. Afterwards it was "Christmas in June". This is now an event that the children have come to look forward to. All of the bags of donated toys, clothing, and personnal items were handed out and then kaos rained and all of the children opened the bags and began to pay with the toys, compare with each other what they got. It was bedlum for a couple of hours.

We paid to have a stocco crew fix one of the back storage buildings and to repair many of the cracks in the stocco in the main building. We had planned to paint this on Saat but things just became too hectic. Fortunately, the repair work at the casa is such that things that we can not do, wejust leave instructions for the next team to continue our work. A team from Texas is coming to Serdan in two weeks.

On Friday we spent the day in Pubela, a city of just over two million people that is aobut a two hours drive from Serdan, at an amusment park. Again, it was a great feeling to watch the children race from ride to ride. This park is brand new so this is something that the children have not done before. We left and went to a mall food court where the kids each had a good old Mexican McDonald's Happy Meal. The team memebers got to decide on a variety of different typical American fast food opportunities. The mall we went too was one of the most upscale malls I've seen, I'm not a shopper but better than Hamilton Place and perhaps like Lenox Square of Phipps Plaza in Atlanta. It was good for the children to see perhaps the high end things and let them think about the fact that they can (with out help) one day perhaps also shop there. For now they got a tremendous kick out of just riding up and down the escalators.

Sat was a catch up day, finishing up activities and packing up. Several of the team; Chris & Patrick Davis, Susan Parks, Beth Yetter, and Charley Spencer took advantage of the Mayor of Serdan's offer of a trip up to the base of Mt. Pico. Serdan is about 8,000 feet. We rode in a pickup truck up the mountain to about 12,000 feet or so and some of us hiked almost to the glacier on the side of Mt. Pico (Mt. Pico is the highest mountain in Mexico and the third highest mountain in North America at 18,405 feet. It was a great trip up the mountain and I think everyone would like to have th opportunity to spend more time around this beautiful and imposing mountain.

Sat. we also left the directors (Jose and Ana Laura) money, about $750 for 5 of the children: Danial, Pablo, Neri, Angelica, and Cesar to go to a two week music camp. Daniel, Pablo, & Neri all play the flute; Angelica the clarinet, and Cesar the trumpet. They all played for us during the week.

Sat. we had to say goodbye to the children and it was a sad time for all of us. Planning for next year has already begun.

we're back

2005-06-06T12:10:00.000-07:00

We arrived back at Signal Crest this past Sunday at about 10:30 pm, very tired but again with another successful trip completed. We left Serdan at 6:30 am , picked up the Tatoxcac (Brainerd UMC) team in Pubela and arrived at the Airport in Mexico City at about 11:30. Everyone's documents were in order, and we took of at 2:20pm. We had a very uneventful flight, arrived in Atlanta ahead of schedule, cleard customs without a problem, boarded our bus and were back on Signal Mountain.

Since I was unable to post anything the last couple of days we were in Serdan, I will be backtracking to catch everyone up to date. Also we have several hundred pictures to add to the blog that will be added by Kyle Garrett in Serdan towards the end of the week.

Friday, June 3

2005-06-03T20:57:00.000-07:00

Charley called me tonight and asked me to update the Mexico Mission Team blog. (Actually I already typed this but it went into blog-cyberspace somewhere and I can't find it.) The Casa Hogar has not had telephone or internet service for the past 2 days, hence no update from Charley. All is well, however!!

Yesterday, Thursday, another productive day. The entire team was invited to visit Alltech (Charley has mentioned Alltech before), and an agreement was reached with Alltech for them to hire some of the older children from the Casa on a part-time basis before they leave the Casa (at age 16) for additional schooling elsewhere. Neri is the first to enjoy this and will start work soon. He will be going to Puebla when the new school year begins.

Also yesterday, the new basketball goals arrived and were installed. A crew of local men spent 2 days doing some stucco work on the cracks on the building, (resulting from an earthquake a few years ago). The garden was weeded and new flowers planted.

Today, June 3, the Mission Team, the children, and the directors of the Casa Hogar, traveled by bus to Puebla to an amusement park (Charley said it's smaller than Lake Winnie which made it easy to keep an eye on everyone). They spent several hours there and had a grand time! Then it was off to McDonald's for a late lunch/early dinner before returning to Serdan this evening.

Tomorrow, Saturday, some of the team will travel, courtesy of the Mayor of Serdan, to Mt. Pico, the second highest mountain on the North American continent. Charley has been trying to get there for the past 2 or 3 years, so let's hope he enjoys it!! Team members Jill & Beth Yetter, Chris & Patrick Davis, & Susan Parks will accompany him. Lee & Chris Matthews, Leah Mitchum, Glenda Huntzinger, and Vicki Davis will stay at the Casa and finish up some painting. Usually the last day is spent preparing for the fiesta, but this year they had the fiesta on Tuesday, so tomorrow should be more relaxing and low key.

Sunday, they will be off to Mexico City where they will meet up with Mike Feely's team, and travel back to Chattanooga together.

Charley will fill you in on other details when they return (unless he finds a computer first!).

Kathy Spencer%

June first

2005-06-01T09:10:00.000-07:00

We had a very productive day yesterday. Glenda again organized VBS and most everyone was available to help her. The kids did decorations for the fiesta that we had latter on in the evening.

Vicky finished organizing all of the stuff we brought down and Glenda and Vicky have set up a schedule for taking the remaining children to the market to purchase clothing, ect.

Jill, Beth, and Chris Davis worked on the roof putting down sealant while Lee, Philip, and Chris Matthews worked on repairing the basketball goals.

We only had a few hours of work before we had to begin to get ready for the fiesta. Glenda and Vicky went to the market to purchase all of the decorations and folks pitched in to help prepare the food. We had about 110 folks in all. The mayor of Serdan came along with teachers from the local school and representatives from Alltech, the multinational company that is located here in Serdan.

Louise and Leah have been assisting with VBS, playing with the children. Susan has practically completed a new mural with the help of Louise and Beth. Janet Evans from Brainerd has continued with her hair cuts.
The Fiesta last night was a great time. We had a marichai band and all of the kids were dancing and just having a blast. We had a good
Today we are finishing up the basketball goals, a group of folks are stoccoing one of the back buildings and we paint that building tomorrow. Vicky and Glenda have been weeding the flower garden and will probably be buying more flowers later on today.

The children are all doing well and have been extremely happy to see us.

more pictures from day 2 (fiesta!)

2005-06-01T08:22:00.000-07:00

Pictures from Tuesday afternoon and the fiesta with representatives from Alltech, the mayor´s office, the kids' teachers, and more!

pictures from day 2

2005-05-31T11:16:00.000-07:00

Here are pictures from our second day in the Casa Hogar. Click below to go to more pictures.

Tuesday in Serdan

2005-05-31T05:37:00.000-07:00

Our team had a very successful day yesterday. We organized ourselves, figured out what broke on the way here, what things we need to buy, ect.

We have all of the children´s gift bags ready now. we will give them out on Wednesday night. All of the clothes, towels, sheets, shoes, ect that we brought down we will give to Jose and Ana Laura (the directors of the orphanage) later on today.

We had a very successful first day of VBS yesterday. Chris Davis read a story in Spanish and the kids all did a small painting on a plastic cross. One little girl kept painting her cross over and over until she showed it to Glenda that she had gotten it to her liking.

The soccer goals we ordered came yesterday so we had a pickup game with the boys. Clearly, it is their national game as they made us look particularly bad.

We started some painting yesterday adn will probably complete that and begin painting & sealing the roof of the casa today. Some minor plumbing needs to be looked at also. Susan & Chris Davis now have to figure out to install new basketball goals after successfully removing the old ones. This is much more complicated than it sounds.

we started taking the kids to the market yesterday to purchase some clothing, candy, ect. They were very excited to be able to buy something that they picked out. We will continue with this for the next couple of days until we take care of all of the children.

Although, I focus someone on the individual tasks that we are doing or trying to accomplish, we get as much done just being with the children here. The children all know us and were tremenously glad to see it. It is just a joy that is hard to explain to be here and see them and know that not only we that are here but every member of Signal Crest is helping these kids through your gifts, thoughts , and prayers. Without a doubt each and everyone of us at Signal Crest is making a difference in these childrens´lives.
Charley

Photos from Day 1 in the Casa Hogar

2005-05-30T15:36:00.000-07:00

Here are photos from our first day in Ciudad Serdan, Puebla, Mexico, at the children´s home. Click on the picture below and it will take you to a slide show of all the pictures. Enjoy!

2005-05-16T05:00:00.000-07:00