Brynne, Jacob and I recently spent 10 days traveling and working at an orphanage in Mexico. This is the same trip Brynne and I took last year. I have wanted to blog so much about it, but at the risk of boring you to tears with my familiar words and lack of time to accomplish this in a timely manner I decided to share Brynne's post trip update that was e-mailed to family.

Little photo explanation is needed, but the first three show us with the kids at the orphanage (Brynne/Jacob) and at VBS (Elizabeth). The last photo was taken at the ranch owned by the director of the ranch and her husband. They showed us great hospitality in the form of a 2day retreat with the older kids from the orphanage and church youth group.

Brynne's words...
We are finally home. It was a great visit, possibly even better than last year, and I'm sorry it went by so fast! But it's always a nice feeling to be able to watch a TV show in English or flush your toilet paper. I enjoyed getting to see how much the kids have changed since last year. Not only have they gotten bigger, but you can definitely see a change in their personalities as well. My sweet Roberto is still just as sweet, but growing up a lot too. I felt like a proud mother just witnessing how mature he's become. The drive down was LONG, especially since all the 2nd timers were excited to get there! Fortunately, there was always a potty stop when we needed one and no one got car sick. Chichuahua City is the major city before you get to Cuauhtemoc, so we shopped and ate lunch there as well as visiting the Cathedral which was beautiful. There are lots of Taramuhara kids that beg in the restaurants/streets there, but it is difficult to communicate with them because they don't speak Spanish well. However, it seemed like we saw a lot less of them this year than we did last year.

At LGF (orphanage) we played with the kids and the men painted and cleaned off some mold in the girls' house. It is hard not to spoil these kids and one suitcase of our 3 suitcases and 4 bags had some of Jacob's old shoes, clothes, toys and a few other treats. My mom managed to over pack quite well, considering we brought more luggage than the one family of 5. I enjoyed reading with/to the kids out of my Spanish Disney princess story book, painting nails with the girls, playing volleyball, jumping on the trampoline, watching Sponge Bob / Power Rangers en espanol, and just goofing around. One thing that is very apparent is how much these kids enjoy playing. They maybe watch one TV show a day (except when Mexico is playing on TV!), and they don't have any video games or computers. They genuinely enjoy spending time with each other and running around outside. Hard to believe sometimes that people can entertain themselves without electronics.

We did VBS Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of that week at the church. I was in the music station again this year, but instead of just helping, I got to lead it! It was fun to be able to improve my Spanish and sing/dance with the kids. Just don't make me listen to those songs anymore! We had a great group, over 80 kids on the last day, ranging from 3-15. I would sign in kids, then they would rotate stations - art, music, sports, and Bible stories. At the end, we would pray with Fr. Gabriel, the priest at the church, sing our songs again, and have a snack. The kids were very grateful for everything and we got very attached to them, even though we only got to be at VBS for 3 days.

The last two days in Mexico were at the ranch. It was bittersweet leaving the little ones at LGF for such a long time, but it was nice to be able to talk to the older kids/teenagers and continue to bond as a team. We played lots of games, ate very well at ever meal and at the end of the first night finished off the day with a campfire. The guys camped out while all the girls slept on the floor of the bunkhouse. The second day was more playing and then a HUGE scavenger hunt that involved running / walking over a mile through rocks and sand as well as climbing up a mountain and back to find some clues. It was exhausting, but just what I needed to feel like I had worked off all those bean and cheese burritos! HA!! Overall, however, the ranch was much nicer then I had anticipated, and the horse/sheep/cow poop covering the ground proved to be more challenging for me that the outhouse! They really pulled out all of the stops for us, and the teenagers who got to get away form the chaos at the orphanage for a little while.

Those are really all the major points of the trip - God provided everything we needed and I would not have changed anything! It was a great experience. I hope I can do it for a 3rd time next year. Thanks for all your prayers! Enoy the pictures!
xoxo Brynne