Central Heights in GDL

On Monday we said good-bye to one of the greatest youth groups! We hosted a team of 28 (youth, leaders, and the youth pastor and his family) from Central Heights MB for a week and a half. We kept them really busy, and they had amazing attitudes the whole way through. They basically came down to help out with a Kids' Camp run by one of our MB churches in another section of GDL. Here are a few stories and pictures.

And these 4 youth (Diana, Eli, Priscila and Sergio) from the Vigia church joined the team for the 1 1/2 weeks they were here. It was awesome to see the growth and encouragement these 4 received by having other Christian young people to hang out with. I love these guys!

One of my favorite parts of hosting this team was the leaders meetings when we went to Starbucks. Definitely needed a lot of coffee to get me through!!


And here are a couple of my favorite leaders...both are friends from before. Andrea and I did TREK together. And Colin (the youth pastor) and I went to CBC together. It was so wonderful having them here!
Part of our orientation with teams is sending them on "Amazing Race GDL", which Jen and I invented. In order to decide which team went first each team had to choose 1 person to eat a typical Mexican fruit covered in chile, salt and lime (the typical way to eat it), another person to chug 1 litre of warm coke, and 1 person to eat a tin of sardines. They were such troopers and did an amazing job. They had a lot of fun with it!


Transportation was always interesting with a group of 28. Most of the time we used this retro 80s, luxury bus. The bus driver even had them singing karaoke with a microphone and everything. But, sometimes we used a mix of our own vehicles and the city bus. In rainy season that was a very interesting experience. Here we are waiting at a bus stop.

This group mainly came to help run a Kids' Camp at the Vigia church, and they were great at getting involved, playing with with the kids, doing crafts, etc. The language barrier was an issue, but these youth were wonderful at finding creative ways to communicate. Of course, I did a fair amount of translating, which was great practice! And sometimes words actually get in the way...it was wonderful to see all the hugs and kisses, and just time dedicated to playing.

Colin and Karen's kids got totally involved with the camp kids as well. It was so adorable to watch them trying to learn Spanish and communicate with the other kids. And of course all the older girls/women of Vigia were absolutely in love with these blonde, blue/green eyed little ones.

Everyone had a job to do...and Steve-O did an excellent job of keeping the kids safe as they crossed the street. He was basically putting his own life on the line:)

We also visited an Indigenous Camp on the outskirts of the city a couple of times. These kids have no education (someone goes in twice a week to teach them the Spanish alphabet), and don't really know how to play since they don't really get the chance. Our group went in, played, painted faces, handed out toys, and also provided the camp with a new tarp for one of the houses, and dug trenches so the rain flows away.



One day we did park evangelism, and even I got in on the face painting. Yikes! I'm sorry kids. Our guys played soccer against a team of Mexicans. In the first game we lost 2-1, but we came back and Canada won in the second game!!

This team ate a LOT of Mexican food...and did really well with some of the stranger things. But tacos were a big hit!

One of the youth on the team (Steve W.) is a pretty great photographer, and got some pretty interesting shots. Here are just a couple of them.


Although this week was exhausting, it was really refreshing. I felt like I had several opportunities for personal discipleship, both with the CH team, and with our Mexican youth. I hope Central Heights comes back again soon!