Day Two in the books

Hey All,
The students are just bedding down after a great day here in Mexico. This morning, we had an opportunity to take a tour of the Back2Back campus as well as a tour of Matt and Julie Coopers home and the recently completed medical center. We've had a chance to be a part of the construction of that building and it was great to see it up and running, complete with two medical exam rooms, two dental exam areas, and a digital patient record system which I hear is really advanced, even for hospitals back in the states. From there, we headed to church which, according to about 50% of the students, was the highlight of the day. Hopefully my pictures will upload so you can see for yourself the building and the experience, but it was a beautiful church at the top of a hill with a top notch worship team who sang back and forth in spanish and in english. The message was also translated in english and I think all of the students were touched deeply by that experience of worshipping next to people in a different language but singing to the same God. It was fantastic! After church, we had lunch with all the visiting teams and the children from Casa Hogar Douglas. Then we hoped on two separate busses for our afternoon project. Jonathan, Rachel, and Katie's group headed to a children's home named Imperio De Amor (Empire of love...I think) where they did a variety of things including cleaning their kitchen, building new shelves and organizing a storage closet, collecting water to use on the property from a not so nearby river, and of course, playing with the kids. I personally wasn't there but from all accounts, it was a great day. I hear there were some shenanigans involving jumping into some large barrels of water, but I'll let the students tell the story when they get back. Kara, Steph, and my (Jeff) group headed to a children's home named Monantial De Amor (Natural Spring of Love) to help pour a concrete wall behind the building to helpful solve some erosion problems that the building's foundation has been dealing with. The students worked and worked and never once complained or asked "when are we leaving?" I can tell that this blog is getting way to long, but just let me close in saying that the students are KILLING IT!!! Great attitudes, working heard, uniting with each other, and they're excited for the rest of the week. John, Kara, and D.C. arrived safely around 9:30p.m. We'll check in tomorrow! Enjoy the pictures!

-Jeff