Daily Timeline for July-August 2010 Mexico Barnabas trip

Here is a summary of daily events from the summer Barnabas trip to Mexico, which took place from July 27 to August 2, 2010:

Tuesday, 7/27/10:

• Sendoff and prayer -- good support.  About 20 people from Westover showed up at the Greensboro airport early in the morning to see the team off and pray with us before we departed.
• Uneventful flights -- departed at 7:20 a.m. from Greensboro.  Then flew to Charlotte, Mexico City, and then to Oaxaca. 
• Upon arrival in Oaxaca, we took a 3-hour van ride to Tlaxiaco.  With flights and van rides, we spent approximately 15 total hours traveling on Tuesday, July 27, 2010.
• We then checked into the hotel in Tlaxiaco, and visted the town's main square across the street, where we ate some authentic Mexican tacos.

Wednesday, 7/28/10:

• We met our missionary friend, Alex, where we had a meal and training time at his home in Tlaxiaco. 
• We met the remainder of some of the staff of Sin Fronteras, the missionary organization of which Alex is director.  The staff members we met were Cruz and his wife, Evon, and also another staffer named Militza. 
• We went to the market in Tlaxiaco where we did some shopping.
• We celebrated Jason's birthday with a cake and some fun at Alex's house.

Thursday, 7/29/10:

• We left at 6:00 a.m. for the village of Santiago Amoltepec.
• During the 8-hour ride to Santiago Amoltepec, we stopped for breakfast along the way.
• Most of the ride was bascially "off-roading" on dirt roads through the mountains.  The drive to the village was beautiful, with waterfalls and majestic views.
• We stopped at a pharmacy on the side of the road, where they had a public restroom.
• Shortly before our arrival in the the village, we stopped to pick up a native Mixteco Indian worker who was walking along the road.  The man didn't know how to open the car door, and it became apparent that he hadn't ridden in an automobile very much.
• Shortly after we arrived in the village, we had lunch around 2:30 or 3:00 p.m.
• After a 2-hour rest, we had a team meeting and prepared for talks that we would be giving for the churches in the villages.

Friday 7/30/10:

• Jason and Jason woke up at 4:30 a.m. to haul firewood on our backs with the men from the village.
• Melanie and Donya awoke at 7:00 a.m. to make tortillas, chop vegetables, and wash dishes with the ladies of the village.
• After breakfast, we went to the village church in Santiago Amoltepec, where we presented chairs as a gift for the village's community center.
• At the village's church, Jason A. and Donya also spoke on Barnabas from the Bible, and on encouragement.  Barnabas means "son of encouragement."
• We had a great time at the church with Cruz, Militza, another Sin Fronteras staff member named Juan, and also with Pastor Galvino. 
• We were staying at the home of Pastor Galvino, and his wife and kids, and their extended family, which included Galvino's parents Lorenzo and Mariella, and his brother Carlos, and Carlos' wife and kids, plus another brother's wife and kids.  Large families all living together are quite common in Mixteco culture.
• Just before lunch, Cruz asked some of us to taste a bug.  Fortunately, we did NOT eat the bug as our main course for the lunchtime meal!
• After lunch, the guys hauled more wood, and the girls took a rest and cleaned the corn.
• Later that afternoon, we visted a second church in the nearby village of Cofredia Amoltepec. 
• On the way to Cofredia, we stuffed 15 people into Alex's pickup truck, and 10 people into his jeep.
• In the church in Cofredia, Jason G. and Melanie spoke on encouragement and on Barnabas.
• Cofredia contained a "stage 3" restroom (very primitive), and a coconut tree. 
• Melanie fell down into a small ditch in Cofredia, and all the women of the church laughed at her.
• On the way back from Cofredia to Santiago, we put 20 people into the truck.
• After returning to Santiago, we ate a dinner of mostly bread and cheese, and Lorenzo and Mariella sat with us.
• After dark, the two Jasons helped Cruz and Juan and some of the village men to carry a bed and matress to a needy village neighbor.

Saturday 7/31/10:

• The guys awoke at 4:30 a.m. to haul wood on our backs - again!
• The girls got up at 7:00 a.m. and washed dishes and played with the village children .
• We had breakfast at Antonia's house.  Antonia is a Christian sister in the village church, and a neighbor of Lorenzo and Mariella.
• At Antonia's house, we made "tortilla spoons" to eat part of the meal with.
• Donya says that the bathroom at Antonia's house is "stage 2," meaning it was a little more primitive than the "stage 3" restroom in Cofredia.
• After breakfast, we visited a third church, in the village of El Centro Amoltepec.
• Juan delivered the sermon at the El Centro church.
• We hugged and prayed for two women at the church.  Hugging is not practiced very often in Mixeco culture, where little emotion is shown, so the fact that these two women would even hug outsiders like us really said a lot about how God is able to break down cultural barriers.
• In the church, we also saw a calendar and Bible verse in the Mixteco language.
• The El Centro church ranks as a Stage 5 church on the Moreila missionary scale.  The Morelia scale is used to determine the level of knowledge in a particular ethnic group.  Stage 5 means that it is a growing church, in terms of numerical growth.  The church has grown in number over the past year.
• On the way back from El Centro, we stayed in the vehicles very discreetly, while Cruz, Juan and some other Christian Mixtecos went into a village to pray for a demon-possessed woman. 
• Thanks be to God that He set the woman free from demonic possession, and that she came to know Christ as her Savior!
• After lunch, during which we drank a lot of Coke, we went with the Sin Fronteras staff, and a few villagers, to some caves located in a hill about a mile or two from Lorenzo and Mariella's house.
• Carlos showed us how to make a pretzel-shaped wreath out of a local plant.
• We took cold showers.
• We had dinner at the home of another sister in the Santiago church.  She served tamales, and we had a good discussion about the trip.

Sunday 8/1/10:

• We awoke at 5:30 a.m. to travel back to Tlaxiaco.  It was a beautiful ride through the mountains, and we made a couple of bathroom stops along the way.
• We were also trying to find a place that sold gas.  We finally found a store where we purchased gasoline, but they didn't have any pumps.  Instead, they poured gas into the vehicles using a gas can and a plastic 2-liter soda bottle with the end cut out, as a funnel.
• After we reached Tlaxiaco, we spent some more time with Alex and his family and staff.
• Later that day, Alex drove us to a run-down motel in Oaxaca, and his vehicle was outrunning ambulances on the highway.
• Shortly after arriving at our dumpy motel in Oaxaca, we switched to a much nicer hotel, which we jokingly dubbed the "Ritz-Carlton," but it was actually called the Santa Helena Hotel.
• We had pizza and Coke at the Santa Helena, before going to bed very late.

Monday, 8/2/10:

• We woke up at 5:00 a.m. to take a taxi to the Oaxaca airport.
• We bought souvenir t-shirts at a shop at the airport.
• Jason G. and Donya had a witnessing opportunity on the flight from Mexico City to Washington, D.C., and Jason G. also experienced another witnessing opportunity on the flight from Washington to Greensboro.
• Other than that, our flights were rather uneventful.

Also, just a reminder to everyone that our Mexcio mission team will also be sharing some more stories and photos during The Vine Sunday school class at Westover on Sunday, August 22 at 11:00 a.m. in room W205.  Please come join us if you get a chance.