Mission Accomplished!

We are home from Acuna, Mexico! What an amazing trip! Carly and I both left a part of our hearts there and plan to go back next year. The people were all so wonderful and the children just took our breath away! I couldn't have had a more perfect experience ministering to the people there. We sang, danced, laughed and yes, cried for three days straight and I wouldn't trade a minute of it. We have tons of pictures, but I am still in the process of downloading them. Here are a few to enjoy.

Playing ball in the street with a few local children (Carly far right, green shirt)

Carly sharing a hug with a child at one of the orphanages.

Carly with a child that she played with at the clinic. This child was so taken by Carly's love and spirit, she gave Carly her bracelet that she was wearing. Carly hasn't taken it off...

While in Acuna, we went out into the streets and invited children and families to come to our location for food and games. That really took me out of my comfort zone. I'm not a real "door to door" kind of person, but everyone was so nice. They would laugh at my southern accent trying to speak their beautiful language and hug me just for trying. The children would start talking and trying to tell me about their world, and I would just smile as I tried to understand, hopefully offering hope. We visited a medical clinic where our amazing medical team, headed up by Dr. Cheri, witnessed a miracle right in front of their eyes. An older lady who had shut her hand in a window had severed the tendon on her middle finger. She was in extreme pain and couldn't bend that finger or her wrist. Because no medication would help, Dr. Cheri offered to pray with her. As they were praying, Dr. Cheri was holding her injured hand and it started to open and close with no pain at all. Truly God working in her life. We visited two orphanages. Both of which we gave out toys to the children and stayed a few minutes and played. They mostly enjoyed our digital cameras. We would take their pictures and then show them. They loved that! A highlight of our trip was being able to go inside a prison and give medical attention to the inmates. Because our team was kind of large, the medical team attended to over 60 inmates in the two hours we were allowed in and the rest of us prayed for each inmate individually as they left. What an amazing time! Before we left, the missionary asked if we would sing with them. So I led the team in Amazing Grace and Hallelujah as some of the inmates and most of us wept. It was incredible. To thank us for visiting them and helping they blessed us with a song. We clapped along while they sang an old familiar hymn in Spanish. The language was different but the heart was the same. It was awesome! Yeah, I cried. As we left, an inmate gave Carly a drawing that he had done in his cell. It was really nice and she was thankful for the opportunity to see what not many people get to see, but what God sees everyday. After a wonderful church service with the missionary where Pastor Mike served it up, we went back to the street to the "Cardboard Village". This is an area of Acuna where the people have nothing. We set up our Cooking for Christ tents and fired up the hot dog cooker! These children started coming out of the woodwork! The mission team in Acuna set up speakers and started playing music and they rushed the streets to see the Americans. We danced in the streets with them, sang songs, performed a skit showing them the love of Christ and had a puppet show for the children. The smiles on their faces are etched in my heart! They went home fed, with a glimmer of hope and knowing the lawnmower song! I don't care who you are. That's fun!
We thank everyone for their prayers and contributions! We couldn't have done it without you and your support! I believe we made an amazing impact on the people of Ciudad Acuna, Mexico, and I know they made an amazing impact on me! God is good.