Summer short term Mission Project

I, Robin, got to spend 2 amazing weeks with students from all over Mexico reaching out to the people in Acapulco. There were 40 of us in all and each day the students would split up into their small groups of about 5 and go to the same location to meet people and share the gospel. I got to go with one group in which we met a group of break dancers of which 8 came to know Christ. I also had a great time getting to know the students better and sharing our excitement for the coming year.

Tacos with friends...

A typical restaurant for delicious tacos and good fellowship!

Just a picture of us!

We took a tour bus of Puebla with the building group. Half way through it began to rain and got really cold! Not the most ideal tour but by the end the sun came out and we had learned more about the city that we are living in!

Kim's hobby-photography

One of Kim's hobbies is photography. A few weeks back she invited Claudia, Fabi, Charo and Mayte over for a "photo shoot"... a thousand pictures later they called it a night. Thankfully we have a digital camera!

David Griffin uses his "skills"

David, "You're a Genius" Here is the master builder at work!

George sharing "4-Spiritual Laws"

George, Vania and Charo went downtown and shared the 4-Spiritual Laws with people. We also visited families whose children had attended the Summer Vacation Bible School to invite them to come to the church and see if they had any questions. About 20 people received Christ during their visit.

Boys are boys...

What can we say??

Robin celebrates his 28th Birthday

25 Friends came to celebrate Robin's 28th Birthday!! The theme was "Robin"... clever huh!? From a Robin piñata, a Robin cake and masks... we had a blast... Happy Birthday Robin!

Charles & Jackie sharing in Puebla...

We had the opportunity to hear from both Pastor Charles and Jackie while they were here. Charles spoke at the church that we are attending, Maranatha, and Jackie shared with the staff women. We were encouraged by them both!

School supplies for boys!

God provided enough finances to give each boy in the orphanage supplies for the upcoming school year that was to begin that next week! The boys were so excited to receive their gift! There were lots of smiles, hugs and kisses right before we said goodbye and took a group picture!

Soccer with the orphan boys..

Can you imagine a few 28-70 year "gringos" playing soccer with kids 10-18 years old. Guess who won!!?? Apart from the fact that Mexican kids grow up on the soccer field and play as many days as permitted, the team with Robin WON!!! We had a blast on the make shift soccer field with buckets and t-shirts as goal posts. With five minutes left to play, the first team to score took the win. With Robin's agility and soccer skills, he passed the ball to one of the boys who heroically made the winning goal!!!

The chicken dance...

The 42 boys introduced themselves, sharing their name, age and grade in school. They ranged in age from the 49 year old guy that the other boys called "grandpa" that had mental disabilities to a 4 year old little boy whose mother had passed away and whose father did not have enough resources to take care of him.

After meeting each boy, one of them to our surprise boldly stepped out to share his dancing skills! George, Nancy and Jackie, one by one joined him to share their own dancing talents which brought smiles and laughter to all the boys! Imagine how funny it must have been for them to learn the "chicken dance!!"

All-boy orphanage...

After dinner we pulled out the school supplies that Claudia and I had gone down town to purchase to give to the 42 orphan boys. We set up an assembly line after dinner to pray for each boy and fill the bags with the notebooks, rulers, pencils, pens and erasers which they would be able to use for school which started that same week.

Where is the fuse box?

We quickly found out that all of the computers throughout the office were run by one fuse. Right Kevin?? Sometimes it is better to let people know that you are turning off a fuse first.... hee hee! thankfully no information was lost that could not be recuperated! We were surprised to see that this office was a former house that was split in two and that we only had two fuses to run the whole building. Kevin and the guys, with their "skills" added 4 more fuses and put in 8 electrical outlets for the new office space!

Building walls...

First thing was first... putting up walls that closed off the garage doors. We had to be creative since the mail box is installed in the garage door. A nice window made into the wall took care of that issue as well as providing for additional lighting and ventilation!

Looking for building materials

The five months that we have been here helped as we had to explore Puebla in search for the necessary building materials. It is hard to imagine with a Home Depot nearby, that we could not find dry wall and some of the electrical gadgets that we needed for the project. That goes to show that houses are built different here! But, thanks to Robin's internal GPS skills we were able to find everything that we needed without getting lost which is more than we can say for when Kim was driving (right David?!) As you can imagine with Robin...we had some fun during the process of looking!

Charles & Jackie Kindle celebrate 49 years!

The day that the building team arrived, August 7th, was Charles and Jackie Kindle's 49th Wedding Anniversary! We had a welcome dinner and a delicious chocolate cake to celebrate with them!

Making room for new office space

As the National Team met here in Puebla we realized that we needed more office space. In August we would be receiving at-least 4 more staff to work in the already cramped office. The dream was to transform the garage space into usable office space where the Human Resource Team, Operations Team and Accounting Department would be located. Here is a picture of the garage before being remodeled.

Friends from Ohio travel to Puebla...

Pastor Charles Kindle wrote to me a few months back asking if we had any building/construction needs here in Puebla. I quickly responded back to let him know that we did have a need and it would be such a blessing to have a team from OHIO come to Puebla.

On August 7th, a team of 7 people representing four churches came to Puebla for two weeks to transform the garage in the National Office into much needed office space.

Thanks Charles & Jackie Kindle, George & Nancy Bradley, David Griffin, and Kevin Dahmen and his daughter Kelsey for serving us here in Mexico in this way!