Friday August 19th 2011

Buenas tardes desde Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico. There has been a lot of traveling and moving around the past week or so sorry for the lack of updates. At El Monte, we had a work team from North Carolina come and do some work projects with us. We spent a good amount of time mixing and pouring cement for the palapa grande. The palapa grande is a big pavilion that will be used for hosting more events and camps. We already have a smaller one where a lot of the games, worship times and meals took place. But as the camps grow, there will be a need for a bigger area and this palapa will help us in that. Another big aspect that our organization and leaders want us short-term missionaries to experience is the cultural aspect of Mexico. So this past weekend 3 friends and I went up to Mexico City to experience a city with a population close to 115 million. On our first day we visited ruins of a different ancient pyramid city called Teotihuacan. Teotihuacan is an enormous archaeological site that has some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian Americas. Besides the pyramidal structures, Teotihuacan is also known for its large residential complexes, the Avenue of the Dead, and numerous colorful, well-preserved murals. The sites were beautiful to look at but what the ancient Aztecs practiced there was not. They built massive temples to their gods and made many human sacrifices at this location. We also experienced quite a bit of the city and met up with some of the other counselors that were from Mexico City. We saw sites including the Palacio National, Plaza de la Constitución, El Ángel de la Independencia, Basilica de Guadalupe, Estadio Azteca, Xochimilco, Catedral Metropolitana and Palacio de Bellas Artes. It was quite an eventful, long, but fun trip that I will never forget.

This week began Spanish lessons at a Christian family’s home in Cuernavaca. Part of the trip and program involves furthering my knowledge of the Spanish language. It’s interesting because many of the Spanish words I had learned in high school are not the words they use here in Mexico. So for the next few weeks, I will be learning much more Spanish and experiencing life in a Mexican home. This weekend is the wedding of my roommate Gerardo, the one many of you have been praying for. He has completely healed from his illness and will be getting married tomorrow.

And now for a little game I am starting called “You know you’re in Mexico when…”
You know you’re in Mexico when there is a traffic jam and its not because of traffic. It’s because a herd of donkeys, horses or cows choose to graze on the roads.

Billy

Saturday August 6th 2011

Buenos noches de Ticuman! Our last camp of the summer has just concluded and we are thanking the Lord for how many kids we have had at our camps these past few weeks and how many of those kids made a decision for Christ! This week consisted of great messages and worship along with pool games, a game of “Where’s Billy”, rugby, rock climbing, campfires, water balloon launches and, of course, mud pit games. I chose not to participate in the mud games because I was trying to let the gash on my foot heal and didn’t want it to get dirty. At least that’s what the responsible and smart person in me was saying. So I did very well in that decision, except, I didn’t know that others had already made a different decision about that. After the mud games were over with, all the girls chased me around the soccer field to throw me in the mud pit, but they weren’t successful. However, when the girls were rinsing off at the hose, a connection part in the hose broke free and I ran over to put it back in. With my back turned to them, all the guys gang tackled me and dragged me off to a big chocolaty splash in the mud pit. I just laughed and enjoyed it, because I knew they enjoyed throwing me in. In any case, I had to scrub my wound out really well for fear of going back to that crazy doctor at the clinic in town who seems to enjoy inflicting pain upon others. I think I did a good job cleaning it, because that wound is looking a whole lot better now and is finally healing. Yesterday, almost all of the counselors left the camps and it was really hard to see them all leave, especially because of the friendships I had developed with them over the past 3 weeks. But they are hopefully going to be at my roommate Gerardo’s wedding on August 20th. So I am looking forward to seeing them there. This past week we caught a giant tarantula in our apartments kitchen! He was crawling on the countertops and we took a container and trapped him. Later on we took him out to play with him and that spider is almost as big as my hand when it is spread out. It has to be one of the ugliest things I have ever seen, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to hold it. These next couple days we be times to recuperate from the camps and we already have a work team here with us from North Carolina that will be finishing some work in the apartment complex I stay in along with clearing out a bunch of trees on the mountain and various other projects. Us short termers will start work with them on Monday. I’ve met all of them already and they seem like a great group of people. Some other good news to report is that G, my roommate, is back with us at El Monte. He came back for the last day of camp and will be leaving on Monday. He is feeling quite a bit better, although still not at 100%. Thank you for your prayers for him, and I’m sure it won’t be long before he has fully recovered. So this next week will be a lot of working with the team from North Carolina and then the staff here wants me to better my Spanish, so next week I will be leaving for Cuernavaca to live with the host family and improve my Spanish. Reporting from the mountains of Mexico, this is Billy Beaumont, El Monte News.

Vamos a cantar, con la musica del cielo, vamos a cantar, alegres porque escuchas cuando cantamos para exaltar Tu nombre.

Billy

Monday August 1st 2011

Buenos Dias and Happy Birthday to my wonderful mother!! (I originally wrote this post on Saturday, but haven’t been able to post it because we have been without power for the past 3 days). So we are glad that it is finally back on and happy to get new routers to get the Internet working again, since the lightning fried the old routers. Another week of camp has gone by and it has been the busiest one yet. We had 38 campers here with us this week. We were astounded at how many showed up for the camp and are thanking the Lord for every one of them. About half of the kids we had were “street kids” as they’re called here, which means they pretty much live on the streets with little or no home to go to. All of those kids will have a special place in my heart and it’s again, another tough thing to see these kids go back to what they have, or don’t have for that matter. But that is the reality of the extreme poverty here in Mexico, but you can’t help but want to take them home with you. I know this week has made a tremendous impact on their lives as well as the rest of campers in attendance this week. We played a lot of the same games including pool games where I chased the kids around on a blow up crocodile, mud games, great praise and worship and a new game where the kids and to find us counselors and staff as we hid in the Mexican jungle at night. I do have to admit I was a little cautious about going too deep into the woods because of all the creepy crawlers they have down here. They have black widow spiders, Mexican beaded lizards, scorpions, rattlesnakes, all of which are extremely poisonous. Not to mention all the other animals, tarantulas, snakes, fire ants, spiders, chiggers and other bugs roaming the property down here. So it made for an interesting night hiding out in a tree in the dark. Oh, I forgot to mention that the night before we played a similar game where the kids found every counselor that was hiding except for me which, according to the counselors and staff made me some sort of celebrity somehow. I didn’t get it, but a few kids even asked for my autograph, which I thought was pretty funny. So anyways, the next night we played the game again, only we had to make animal sounds for the kids to find us. I choose to be a gorilla, which is why I hid in a tree. I made sure my noise that I made was the loudest out of all the staff and counselors and the next day everyone on El Monte property told me they could hear my gorilla noises. During the game, it was like it was the campers mission to try and find me. I was loud enough that quite a few of them did find me and they were super excited when they did. That game was probably the most fun of the week. On a not so great note, there have been quite a few robberies over the past few weeks at camps in the area. A camp a ways away from us was robbed while people were at the camp and a couple weeks ago, Paul & Roxanne’s (the couple I had been in contact with prior to coming here) house was robbed in broad daylight. Their house is only about a block away from my apartment here on El Monte property and the robbers took quite a few things. Even though we have a fence around the entire property, it’s not enough to stop anyone from getting in, which is a bit unsettling, but we are taking refuge in the fact that we know God will watch over and protect us and are thanking Him that no one was hurt and that “replaceable things” were the only things taken. Also, please pray for my roommate Gerardo. There has been a virus going around camp the past week or so and he had gotten it the worst. It was a stomach virus, but his spread to a throat and mouth infection. His mouth is swollen with soars and he can’t swallow anything. He has spent the past few nights at a doctor in town’s house and has just recently been transferred up to Mexico City for more treatment. It’s quite a bummer, not only that he is sick, but because he is one of the organizers and camp directors. He was really looking forward to these camps and was only able to participate in one of them. He is also getting married on August 20th and has all of that on his plate as well. I just found out that he is going to be staying up in Mexico City until then, to get better and be close to his fiancée. I probably won’t see him until then, but pray that he is able to fully recover quickly, especially in time for his wedding. And as far as my wounds from the mud pit go, most of them had healed up this week except for a gash on my left foot. I probably should have had stitches but didn’t. This past Monday we went into the medical clinic in Tucumán to have it looked at to see if it was infected. The doctor wanted to clean out the wound and make sure there was no bacteria in it. Let me just tell you right now, how painful that was….OW!!!! She injected a needle 6 different times directly into my gash, which by the way, hurt very bad at even the slightest touch. So she injected something to numb the pain of her scrubbing out the wound, but I think I would have rather just dealt with that pain and skipped the shots all together. I mean she stuck me good and it went down deep. And once the needle was in my foot, she moved it around in there. Talk about painful. I almost passed out from the pain and went white as a ghost after the 4th or 5th shot. But I made it through it and they didn’t have to amputate a foot or anything, so that’s some good news. It is healing now and should be completely sealed over within the next few days. All right, that’s all to report from the mountains of Mexico.

Happy Birthday Mama!!

Billy