Team Unity (by Janelle Hay)

Our Nutty Leaders

 Although a little nutty, Wade was our amazing team leader. Wade and Karen make a wonderful couple. Not only did we have a hoot with them but they are beautiful people with a heart for missions and a willingness to serve the Lord in whatever ways they can and in whatever country they are in. I wanted to publicly thank Wade for all the effort that he put into making the trip go so smoothly and for the example they were to us. 

Here is our team of fifteen from Trinity Baptist, Sherwood Park at the mission.

One thing that I loved about this week is that there were other teams from Alberta and California at the mission and everyone worked together and even spent their free time together.

Here are some of us in the back of the truck on the way to the Macadamia orchard... notice that we have a few extra team members.

 Once the nuts are ready, they fall to the ground. Some are green but most of them are brown and can be partially buried in the soft soil or hidden under the dead, prickly leaves. Picking up the nuts requires careful searching. Although they are easy to miss, every nut is valuable. These nuts are a source of income to provide for the needs of the children at the mission.

You may be wondering how a tropical nut can live and thrive in the dry soil in Mexico. The story is written in Charla's book but basically, it is a miracle. Macadamia nuts are a tropical tree native to Australia. It took years of experimenting and but these trees have built up a resistance and are hardy trees that can survive here. Bees had to be imported to pollinate the trees but they died in transport from the stress. Although very discouraged the people of the mission continued to pray. Seemingly, out of nowhere, God sent swarms of bees.

 It takes about eight years for the tree to begin producing nuts but each year after that they produce more and more. I believe that God is blessing the mission through the bountiful harvest.

Yes, those are the hard Macadamia shells on the road. No part of the nut is wasted. Even the bad nuts are used to get rid of pests.

Harvesting Macadamia nuts is quite the process.  The mission is slowly getting the equipment they need to crack these extremely hard shells and to sort the nuts.

 But most of it is done by hand.

 As you can see here, it takes a lot of man power to do it by hand and takes careful sorting. When we were not sure about the quality of the nut we were encouraged to try it.

Here is Karen showing off our sorted containers of whole nuts, half nuts and the bad nuts.

These two pictures were taken at one of the evening adult evangelism outreaches where we were able to work together as one big team to serve the community supper. After the meal, an evangelistic message was given through showing a film projected on the side of a van and then a pastor spoke.

At the end we were able to pray with those who came forward by laying hands on them.  We were told one night that there were about six different languages spoken by the people in the crowd. They live side by side but can not communicate with each other unless they know Spanish. There are about 360 different languages spoken in Mexico.

One More Flight

We're sitting in San Francisco waiting for our last flight, hopefully the other team is doing well too.

Hello Friends at Trinity and around the world,

Today is our last full day at the orphanage. This is my 2nd time here and  the blessings continue.  The orphanage has been her for 50+ years and has grown into a multifaceted ministry.  As needs were identified more ministries were developed. You can only understand the full impact of this ministry to the community if you come here.  The influence this place has had on  the people here is tremendous.  Paul and I have been able to contribute in our own small ways but have also experienced the blessing and encouragement of living in such a loving community.  Paul has spent time picking and sorting  macademia nusts , raking in the garden and digging a trench for  cables.  I have spent my days in the clinic. It is always amazing that in our small pharmacy god provides the very medicine that is needed for the patients seen. It is a blessing to pray with each patient before our consultation.  I have had to work with a translator but tha is also a blessing as I see how the staff here make an effort to meet needs .  As we travel home we covet your prayers

One of the mottoes here is  " You will never be the same"  It's true I will never be the same . I think every member on the team would echo this  

Out For Supper After Adult Evangelism

Since we missed supper (again), we are out for supper at Baja Fiesta.

Helping With IT

Just like any other organization, the mission here has technology needs. They have about 1.5 full time Information Technology staff, but I've been able to help them out a little.

Some of the biggest issues I see are bandwidth and Internet reliability (there's one fibre line for the whole peninsula), access to specific replacement parts (although some are available in Encinada and people are often coming from the US and Canada), and of course finances.

Other than that, though, it seems just like any other IT department. They manage servers and infrastructure, set up and fix machines, and provide user training. It seems again like the world is a small place and people have basically the same needs wherever you go.

Chicken Dinner Fundraiser

For supper tonight we walked to the bible college on a sidewalk embedded with the titles of bible stories and characters. A very cool idea that we're wondering how we can implement.

We had a very nice chicken dinner served by bible college students. Before and after supper a few of them shared their stories. The main point of the dinner, though, was to raise funds (and awareness) of the mission trip that the bible college students go on to Oaxaca every year.

Wednesday Night Church

Tonight was the service in the church next to the bible college. It was quite similar to services at Trinity, starting with singing followed by announcements, offering, and dismissing the kids to their classes.

The preacher was the same man that spoke yesterday and this morning at SALA. Not exegetical, but thought-provoking.

Of course there were many parts in Spanish, so we could use headsets that a translator was speaking into. The speaker, however, spoke in English with a Spanish translator.