Mexico and the Orphanage April 14-19, 2009

Well this last spring break Paul, Emma, Jacob and I headed down to La Mission in Mexico with a Child's Hope Foundation to work for 4 days at an orphanage. The experience was awesome, Paul and I worked at the new nursery being built, we mix cement, plaster and mortar for the workers. I even got to plaster some of the walls, worked on rebar and I also got to lay mason stone. It was great to feel so useful and helpful. We slept in bunk houses with our family and other families as well. (Well we kind of got stuck in the teenage and preteenage boy room, boys are kind of stinky). Every night we had a large bon fire to have kind of fireside with all the families and talk about our experiences of the day and the things we were learning. It a was great to have this time to reflect on our lives and how much we are blessed to have families. I discovered on this trip that we don't need very much to be happy and that we are extremely blessed and that we need to give more for other to have better lives.

Jacob was usually right by our side the entire time trying to get in on the action of building a building. It was difficult work and usually we had him help out with running things around for us. He did slip away to play soccer or basketball with the orphan boys.

Emma spent her entire time playing with the little girls, especially the one who were about two years old and younger. She wants a little sister so bad!! She asked many times while we were there if we could bring one of the little girls home with us. We were wishing we could of.

I did finally brave a visit to the nursery, I had been trying to avoid seeing the little babies. I was afraid of how I was going to feel seeing these little innocent babies with no mommy to love them like I loved my babies. I finally worked up enough courage (and a little prompting from Paul) and made my way down to the nursery. I was able to hold and play with each one of them. They ranged in age from 4 months to almost 2. When I finally left the nursery I went back to my bunk and cried for a while. It is a very strange feeling holding a child who you know has no one to be thier parent and find yourself thinking "why not me, why can't I just take them". Trust me, if the Mexican Government would allow the adoptions to Americans I would have been going home with a little girl. I prayed alot on that trip for strenghth through the emotional ups and downs. It was an eye opening and inspirational trip, one that I want to repeat again and again. Sometimes doing the hard things are worth every minute of the pain and joy.

WE all loved our trip there and we are planning on going in the fall again with the kids. Both Emma and Jacob ask all the time when are we going back... I can't wait until the other kids get old enough to go too.

By the way Paul and I were horrible at taking pictures so we asked a friend of ours to go take some pictures for us, these were kind of all we ended up with....I promise when we go in the fall we will be better at getting pictures of the all the kids.