Homemade Goodness

With all of the snow today, we closed our office at noon and I decided to make homemade Chicken Noodle soup. It actually turned out really good. I also made chocolate covered apples that look like pumpkins. They are really cute and were really easy to make. We are supposed to
get close to 20 inches of snow tonight so I may have to make more goodies if we close the office again.

A Mi Me Me Me Gusta Teposcolula!

We just got back today from our trip to Oaxaca. We had a blast! The base was a ton of fun and we learned a lot about missions and unreached people groups. Here are a few facts that I found interesting:

• 1.9 billion people (27% of the world) have never heard the gospel
• $370 billion are given to a "Christian" cause (that's 2.25% of the worlds average total income)
• Out of that $370 billion, only $22 billion gets sent to foreign missions and out of that $22 billion, only 1% goes to the unreached people groups, 87% goes to the parts of the world that have already heard.
  

I found it all so interesting. I don't know why it really stuck in my mind but I have been thinking about it since I heard it.




Other than learning facts about missions we visited a village named Teposcolula for 3 nights. We had a great time getting to know the people and just fellowshipping with them. The guys and girls split up during the days to do separate tasks. The guys spent their time helping the pastor start the bathroom. They dug a 9 ft. hole that was to be filled with cement for the foundation. While the guys were doing that, the girls spent the time inviting people to the movies we were showing (Facing the Giants & Fireproof). We also went to the schools in the area and taught them health and a very little bit of english. We got to hand out the Prayer Turtles that the children's ministry made at VBS. It was really cute to see their faces when they received their turtles, and they got even more excited to see the little notes inside of them.

On Friday we had our free day in Oaxaca City. We got to go to Monte Alban. This was an Aztecan City that is supposed to be build in 200 B.C. Brandon thought it was great. it was interesting to see. That night we went into town and shopped at the market.

All in all, I feel like the trip went well and all the students seemed to enjoy their time.

We have been pretty busy this week with the mission trip coming up. We are taking a team to a base called Global Frontier Missions located in Tlaxiaco. Oaxaca is in the southern most tip of Mexico. There are about 155 different people groups and out of the 155, 30 are still considered to be "unreached" with the gospel. This makes Oaxaca the biggest concentration of people in North, Central and South America. I love visiting Mexico. Every time I go I feel at home. The people are always very hospitable. It always amazes me to see how little they have and yet they are still content. It really makes me think about how much Ido have to be thankful for and how much I have and how many times I am not content in the things I have. Even though I have been a few times, it's still a life changing experience every time.



We had a and all day training this past Saturday and we had a lot of fun. We did team builders and had a lady named Gwen come and teach our team how to make balloon animals.

Life has been going well in our home. We have been pretty busy recently getting ready for mission trip next Saturday. We have been trying not to get too stress out over little things. We are really excited for the trip. Our team has now dropped from 10 to 9. One of the girls going has the swine flu and will not be able to travel out of the country with us. The rest of the team is doing great. We have our all day training tomorrow. I am excited to see how we all come together as a team.

Other than the mission trip we have been keeping ourselves busy. Last weekend we went to a corn maze with the Purvises. We had a blast and it was really fun to play with Tre. Here are some pictures from the day.