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