Last few days of my trip

 
Today a few of the girls were putting on play fingernails and painting them.

Unfortunately they wouldn't let me join in.

These kiddos did let me play legos with them.

Some of the other kids made bracelets today with a family that is here from Canada.

It's awesome to just hangout with these smiling kids.

The girl in this picture showed up on Tuesday. She asked me how to say "hola" in English so I taught her to say "hello". She's a quick learner and said it clearly to me each time she saw me.

She is very animated and has incredible facial expressions. 

She's gonna be a problem when the team from our church show up in April.

They're all gonna fall in love with her!

Sometimes this place is pretty chaotic.

Here you can see how packed the kitchen gets sometimes.

I was finally able to visit one of my favorite places here. 

It's a little shop that fills a cup with fresh strawberries and cream.

It's the best, and it's even better with friends!

One of the days my friend stopped and bought me a "coconut drink".

You can see that one of the guys just cut the top off a coconut and is pouring it in the cooler.

Now that's fresh! It was awesome!

There was also an event on Valentines Day at the kid's school where the community brought food and household supplies. Each class group built a bridge as high as they could from the donations in a competition.

It took two trucks and a car to get all the donations back to the orphanage.

It's so good to see the generosity of so many people. 

As I wrap up here in Mexico, there are a few things that are very obvious to me.

First, I'm so grateful for so many incredible people that have committed part of their life and others that have committed their whole life to caring for these children (and even some of the parents).

It's an incredibly difficult, but I'm sure gratifying, calling.

I resonate with the saying that goes something like:

If you want something, give that thing away...

If you want happiness, make someone happy.

If you want love, give someone love.

If you want peace, be peaceful to others.

I’ve found that if you make yourself usable, by God, He will use you. When you allow yourself to be a blessing to others, God will bless you also.

We were made to be a conduit, not a dam.

We must bless others with the blessings that we receive from God.

We cannot keep these blessings for ourselves and think they’re all for our benefit.

Allow God to use you to bless others.

Only then, will your life feel satisfied.

We found the Monarch Butterflies!

 

Twice a day the kids clean up around the property. There's a lot of vegetation here and there're always leaves to sweep up.

I'm not sure if you can see, in this picture, but this broom is COMPLETELY worn out. Here things are used as long as they possibly can be.

Things are not just thrown away.

Every year when I return home, I'm reminded about this fact and try very hard to take this virtue with me.

This was the last day for these two workers. They are both in their 20s, one grew up in the orphanage and the other came from Peru as a missionary. For most of the last 10 years, they've been working in the houses helping to supervise, prepare food, do laundry and a ton of other responsibilities with the kids.

They're venturing out on their own to try to become independent. They'll have their own home and jobs. It's extremely difficult when you go out on your own. Do you remember those days and how broke you always were?

One of the weekends, a group of us 6 adults headed out to find the butterflies.

If you don't know the story of the Monarch Butterflies, you need to quit reading this and go watch a video about them! It takes 4-5 generations for them to leave Mexico, fly as far North as Canada, then return to winter in Mexico from November to March. This wasn't even know until the 1970s!

They clump up in groups and hang from the trees. They are surprising dark in color when at rest.

Here's a quick video of what we saw. 

As we traveled together on this adventure, we created new friendships and deepened others.

It was a great weekend.

----

This weekend I was reminded of my favorite quote of all time.

Today I challenge you to spend a minute or two, slow down and think about the caterpillar and what it must of felt like near the end of it's life.

It was dark, it couldn't move, it's body was going through an incredible metamorphic change and ...

 

Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.

Never give up! Never ever, ever give up!

YOU HAVE NO IDEA what you will become or what the future has in store for you.

When everything is dark and it feels like the world is closing in on you, when you are alone and hurting, DON'T GIVE UP. 

That leads me to my second favorite saying...

You didn't come this far to only come this far!

There was a WILD PARTY!

The days here give me lots of time to hang with kids.

Sitting and coloring with a kiddo can be fun.

When's the last time you were able to do that?

It's probably been too long. You should do it, it's fun!

Here is one of my friends trying on my glasses.

It's good to sit with kids and just talk and play. 

Back home it feels difficult to have time to do that.

This is Erin, her family of 5 are here from Canada.

They play with the kids and do work around the orphanage.

They will be here for several weeks and even though their 3 kids are missing school, they've brought school work with them. Can you even imagine what a great learning experience this is for their kids?

One of my favorite sayings is: A mind stretched by new experiences can never go back to the same shape.

A team from San Jose are here and threw a party for all the kids and workers from all of the homes.

One of the days I was sick and my friend made me some natural tea with a few leaves.

She also made me a bottle with a mixture of oils to put on my aching back.

Both helped!

There are things that the people of Mexico know about healing that your grandmother also knew.

I think these things have been lost in the last few generations in the USA.

They are still fairly common knowledge here and I love that.

And I was able to install a couple of toilets with the funds that God provided.