FDC Interns

A picture of my roomate, Joca, and I, in the Migrant Resource center (mentioned in a previous post).

Can you believe that February is almost over!!??

Some slight new updates-

I have begun to take the reigns of more responsibility of my job here at Frontera de Cristo: as the "Mission Education Facilitator", I organize the schedules of groups that come to visit us, and then serve as their tour-guide/babysitter/translator/friend/leader while the groups are here. Just this past week I have started putting together schedules for groups who are coming down to join us, and it is definitely a whole new line of work for me....but so far I really like it.

I've always loved my own calendar, now it just has 7 different colors instead of 2.

As I'm sure many of you have seen in the news, the border of the United States and Mexico continues to be a very dangerous place for some people. CNN reported yesterday or the day before of 53 killings within a 72 hour time span in Ciudad Juarez. I can assure you all, that the most violence I see here in AP is between the stray dogs. Drugs are obvious, as are corrupt members of the police, and military presence, but I'm not in any danger here.

I went to a church service on Saturday night, and while a lot of the service was praise band singing, asking for money and donations, and announcements about some famous guy who's coming to preach, the sermon began like this,

"Who wants to see a drug free Agua Prieta?? Who wants to see a peaceful Mexico??"

The next step is just to make that happen.

I would love to answer ANY questions that readers of my blog have, please leave me comments and ask away!!

Workin'

It has most obviously been a while since I have posted- my only
 excuse is that I am now consumed with puppy training         --------------------------> and have no time for blogging.

Though that's not exactly true.

It's time that I start sharing, little by little, what I am actually doing here in Agua Prieta, Mexico. As I said before, my job responsibilities are finally worked out, and as I am here longer, I will become more and more "in charge" of the groups and their scheduling.

Today however, I am filling in for one of my roommates at the Migrant Resource Center, one of the ministries of Frontera de Cristo.

The migrant resource center is a building located at the very entrance of Mexico- it's the first building that anyone walking into Mexico sees on their way into the country.

The goals of the center are pretty clear: to provide assistance to recently deported migrants. The goals and other information are also on the Frontera website, at: http://fronteradecristo.org/en/migrant-resource-center/32

However, the center has been able to help many people. This is due to several things, but the most namely is the Border Patrol's manner of deporting recently caught migrants.

The United States Border Patrol has recently (since July or August), been implementing Operation Streamline, an operation that sends all apprehended migrants in Douglas to Tucson to be processed, charged, and deported, and then deports them to a city near here, named Nogales.

Because there have been basically zero "fresh" migrants coming through Agua Prieta, our days at the migrant resource center have been spent hoping that policies change and more people will come who need our aide.

The Migrant Resource Center provides food, clothing, water, and coffee to migrants in need, and is also the source of information for migrants looking to continue on, whether that be to home, or back to the United States (which for many migrants, is home). The center is also the hub of information linked to CAME, Grupo Beta, DIF, and the Mexican Consulate (more information about these organizations to come later).

Pictures of the Resource Center are on their way as well, in the meantime, I hope everyone is enjoying warmer weather at home! I for one had to put on a sweatshirt today, of which I was not thrilled :).

Festiniños pt. 2

Here is the video that I spent a week putting together, showing a little of what we did at our evangelism celebration.

The video says:

We want to invite you to...

"Hello little friends!! We are very happy to have you here. I hope that everyone has a great time. Are you ready? Are you sure??"


Festiniños!

Where we dance...

and we sing...

and we learn more about 'our' Jesus.

We have fun with the clowns.

....and his name is Jesus!!

Thank you to all who participated, helped and attended.

Festiniños

This past weekend (which was already almost a week ago) was the church's attempt at mass-evangelism...and it went spectacularly well. Soon I hope to have a video done of pictures and video that I took during the 3 time/2 day event.

The weeks have still been passing by so quickly; even though there aren't groups here with FDC at the moment, I've been spreading my time around meetings, devotionals, working at the Migrant Resource Center, and as of yesterday, house-training a Labrador puppy-which is a job that I love so far. (Thanks for the tips Mom and Dad).

I keep promising to post more when we get internet at home...and that promise is still true. We simply just haven't gotten internet yet. Which is now more frustrating than it is an inconvenience, as we have all the parts (modem, wires, etc), but no signal.

Life in Agua Prieta hasn't been quite as cold as Iowa, so I hear, but we did have lows in the single digits the past 2 nights, and I'm currently without a shower as our hot water pipes froze up last night, though the cold water still works fine.