Pictures of Monterrey

I thought you might like to see what Monterrey looks like. The city itself is very crowded and the houses are built out of cinder block and sit right next to each other- no real yards. Once you get out of suburbia and into the actual city, everything looks dirty. As a general rule, people drive like crazy- any rules are merely guidlines : ). Culturally, the city is very americanized with many familiar restaurants and businesses such as McDonald's, KFC, Blockbuster and Wal-Mart. Mountains surround the city and make for a spectacular view when the smog doesn't cloud them out.

2 Teams Down!

We said goodbye to our second team - Bethel PCA from South Carolina - on Saturday. We did lots of renovations on the new building of one of the local church plants, Cumbres Del Rey. Basically, it was one big open room that used to be a boxing gym. We walled off a large portion of it for the sanctuary (I learned how to dry wall) and did lots of painting and cleaning. The final outcome was pretty impressive, if I do say so myself. Another team will be coming at the end of July to finish it off- more painting and installing carpet and the like.

We have this week off and then will have three straight weeks of VBS and then I get to come home!!!!

Please pray for perserverance and endurance as I try to finish off the summer strong!

Here are some pictures from this past week of construction- feel free to ohh and ahh over the "extreme makeover" : ).

Before

After (Notice the beautiful, yellow wall in the background)

Our wonderful drywall and painting crew

The whole group got together for a day of shopping and sightseeing

Pictures From the First Team

Sorry it's taken so long to put up some pictures- but here they are!These are all from Casa Hogar where we worked with Pinewood PCA.

These are all the kids eating lunch. There's about forty of them in all.

This is me and Dante, my favorite baby. He smiled at anything and everything : ).

And this is the Pinewood team- they were really fun to work with!

I wish I had all the pictures of us painting- cuz we did a lot of it- but I don't have that memory card at the moment. Just imagine all of the above people with yellow paint splatttered all over them : )

One Team Down!

Well, my first team left this past Tuesday, and I was a lot sadder to see them go than I thought I would be. One of the most surprising pleasures I've encountered during this internship is that I actually do enjoy meeting new people. I made really good friends out of complete strangers in just a week! God has been working in mysterious ways- touching my heart and making big changes spiritually, emotionally and psychologically.

I'm actually writing from a Best Buy in Texas right now : ) We just finished helping a 2-year missionary family move- so now we're running errands : ) The next team arrives on Saturday and we'll be working doing ronovations on a local church plant- Cumbres.

Some praises I've had recently are: a decline in homesickness and an actual enjoyment in the work God is doing through me and the things he's teaching me.

An update on housing- the Mexican family I was staying with went out of town for a week, so I am now at the Craig's- they are a long term missionary family from New Jersey.

Thank you all for supporting me and praying for me- I appreciate you all so much!

God Bless,

Stephanie

Hey Guys!

Well, 2 days ago our first team arrived. They're a PCA Church in Jacksonville, Florida. We've been doing some light construction work at the Casa Hogar Orphanage. The heat has been incredibly brutal. Being able to hang out with the kids at the orphanage has been a really cool experience. (Sorry no pictures yet) A big answer to prayer was that my homesickness has finally started to subside. Please continue to pray for that though, and also for health- so far I haven't gotten too sick, but the odds are against me.

Some things that God has been teaching me-

• What missions is all about (He's really been redefining my definition of missions)
• Reliance on God
• Flexibility

Sorry there aren't too many details, I'll try to write more when I'm less tired : )

Blessings, Stephanie