Día Dos

The alarm rang at 550 this morning. Today was a very special day, Eric's 18th birthday. Besides this national holiday, it was also exciting because we started our houses. In the morning we had a short prayer service, led by SLUH guys, Eric, Brian Schwartze, and Ben Merrill. After a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs and refried beans wrapped in a tortilla, we got in our line of 11 unmarked fifteen-passenger vans and took off for the Colonia. After meeting our families we took inventory of all the lumber and materials we had and started building and painting. After a morning of hard work trying to level ground that seemed impossible to level (except for Mr. Mill's team who had the entire base of the house laid out for them) we had lunch with amazing turkey sandwiches (eric's spelling: sandwitches), bananas (eric's spelling: bannannas), chips, and oreos. We worked hard the rest of the day, made a lot of new friends, and made awesome progress on our houses. Now we are all slightly sunburnt, hoping our houses havent fallen over, dead tired and falling asleep while writing this blog. Everything has been great down here and we can only hope the following days will be as good. Thank you for keeping us in your prayers. Here are some pictures of the houses at the end of the first workday.

Buenos Noches San Luís

Día Uno

Day one began at five thirty at Lambert Airport. We made it through security with plenty of time to eat breakfast after a half mile long wait. Our flight left right on time and we arrived in Houston at about 10:00 a.m. We were in Houston for about 45 min then boarded our flight to Harlingen. We arrived in Harlingen around noon. After scrounging for food and witnessing a "Dine and Dash" our stay in Harlingen seemed to last forever. We managed to survive by entertaining ourselves with netless hand tennis. Roland then arrived with his trailer hitch and designer shades. After the angels arrived, (St. Joe angels that is) we saddled up and rode off toward the setting sun in McAllen...Ok it was only three o'clock. After a half hour wait outside a sketchy carwash (see picture below) we arrived a La Plaza Centro Comerciál, partaking in the fine art of notoriously exorbitant American consumerism. After living up to the very low standards set to us by the American media in terms of food consumed, dollars spent, and resources squandered, we fixed our attention upon what brought us here in the first place.
As our stately van caravan crossed the Rio Grande, the Mexican border patrol denied expedient passage into Mexico--detaining them at the security checkpoint to check for contraband. After giving it the "todo claramente" we continued on to the Best Western Camino. Tonight's activities consisted of dinner, fellowship, orientation, and meetings. After a long, tiring, and donkey-filled day (see picture below) we are ready to begin work at the colonia bright and early tomorrow morning.


Buenos Noches San Luís.

The Night Before

Well my friends its game day tomorrow. I hope everyone is excited. I just wanted to try the blog once more before we got down in Mexico. I also wanted to remind all the parents to keep us in your prayers. We can double check the packing list and do everything in our power to make the trip a success but when it comes down to it, its in the big man's hands. So, keep us in your prayers but also take this week to focus prayers for all people who are in poverty (or as my grandma says, pray for the three H's: the hungry, homeless, and hurting.) Thanks for all your continued support and make sure to check the blog because ideally it will be updated each night. I'm gonna go catch some Z's because I have my alarm set for the steep time of 3:50 AM which is really cramping my sleeping style but all will be well. I look forward to seeing everybody bright eyed and bushy tailed at 5:30 AM (credit is due to my fifth grade teacher Mrs Mueller for that terribly awful phrase.)
With much love,

Eric W. Lampe

Intro to Website

We will be maintaining a website for Mission Mexico with information before and during the trip. Here is a video from last year if you want to get an idea about what the trip is like.