In The Paper!

I know it has been a while since our trip and there is probably not anyone looking at this anymore but I just wanted to post some picture of a newspaper article about our trip. The article was on the front page of section B in the Albany Democrat-Herald. Here are some pictures of the article.

Here is a link to the article on the Democrat-Herald's site: http://www.democratherald.com/articles/2008/04/04/news/people/3peo01_mexico1.txt

Here are the links to full size images of the article:
http://northalbany.org/Youth/files/article1.jpg
http://northalbany.org/Youth/files/article2.jpg
http://northalbany.org/Youth/files/article3.jpg
http://northalbany.org/Youth/files/article4.jpg

I hope you enjoy reading the article.

Stephen

Missions Video

Here is a link to the video that we took on March 2nd at NACC. IT is at the bottom of the list. It shows one of the songs that we played and the whole skit that we preformed in Mexico. Enjoy!

Stephen

More Pictures!

Here are a few more pictures from our trip.

This is a picture of us teaching the children Romans 6:23. I was surprised at how quickly they learned the verse. We would take a few words away each time we said it and they still remembered it every time.

I like this picture. It was weird for me to see police with guns like this and even bigger walking the streets. That is something I am not used to in America. I had to get a picture with them. They were happy to help me out. :)

Here is a picture of Branden showing some kids his pig nose (from the play). They thought it was pretty funny. It was nice to have things like that so we could get connected with the kids by making them laugh. There is something about laughter that helps people connect with each other easily, and boy, did they love to laugh! It encouraged me so much to see them, who have next to nothing, laugh.

Here is a picture of us mixing the cement. Since we didn't have a mixer, we had to mix it on the ground. We made a pit type thing and then filled it with water. We then had to try to keep the water in while it soaked and then mix it up so that everything got wet. It was tiring!

Here is a picture of us playing sharks and minnows at one of the Bible clubs. After we explained the rules, the kids caught on pretty fast. They get pretty competitive but they still have fun, especially the younger ones. Even thought the younger ones wern't as fast, they still had a blast. I was really thankful for that. Everyone seemed to enjoy it a lot. After sharks and minnows, we usually played soccer. That was fun. They were usually way better than me. What would you expect!

I hope you enjoyed looking at these pictures. I will try to get the video of last Sunday up as soon as I can.

~Stephen

Last Sunday

We had a great turnout at the Mission Team Youth Service. We took some video with our old camera so hopefully I can get the video of our skit up here so you guys can watch it. I will also try to do some more picture explanations soon too. Stay tuned!

Stephen

Sunday March 2nd

Come March 2nd to the Youth Service in the Gym at North Albany Community Church at 9:30 to hear about the 2008 NACC Youth Mexico Mission Trip. We will be preforming our Bible club program (don't worry, it will be in English), sharing what we saw, did, and learned, showing video and pictures, and much more. So come and find out what we did.
Stephen

Picrues and Descriptions

Here are few more pictures and descriptions to show a little more of what we did.

Here is a picture of one of the markets that we went to. They were interesting because they had the different products in rows. Like they would have all the fruit on one row and all of the hats in another row. I just thought that it was funny how they placed all of them together because it made the competition so much harder but at least it was easy for us to know where we had been.

Here is a picture of some of the houses that we went to to build the latrines. They were all rusty tin shacks. You see the pictures of houses like that but you don't really realize that is how they really live. The picture doesn't do it justice. If you eve have the chance to go on a mission trip, I would really encourage you to go because you will see things that you won't see at home.

Here is one of the latrines we built. They had made the base before we came and we made the frame and put on the sides and roof. One thing that I thought was funny was we used Corona bottle caps for the washers on the sides and roof. There was Corona ALL OVER where we were so there were more beer caps than washers, thus making them cheaper. I have had a lot of people ask me how the latrines worked so here it is. The base is really two chambers. The latrine has two holes. The people will go in one hole until it fills up (which takes about six months). Then they will seal off the first chamber and go in the other chamber while the waste in the first decomposes. By the time the second chamber fills up, the second will be completely dead and they will be able to scoop it out and dispose of the compost how ever they want. The vision of Medical Teams Int. is to help the people become self-sufficient. With this design, they won't need us to come back and dig another hole when the hole fills up. They will have the ability to keep everything going themselves. That is the beauty of this design.

Here is us playing songs at one of the Bible clubs. One of the songs that we played was "Every Move I Make." They really loved the hand motions for that song. We played it once at the beginning and once at the end. At the end we had all the kids doing the motions. Even after, I heard kids singing "Na, na, na, na, na" and doing the hand motions. It was really fun.

I hope you enjoyed this little explanation. If you have any questions about the pictures or anything, PLEASE ask. We have loads of stories that we want to share. We would love to tell you more about the trip.

Stephen

Some Details...And Pictures

Sorry I haven't posted any details of our trip yet. I have been trying to catch up on a weeks worth of school. Here is a link to some of our pictures: http://www.valesano.com/album2/index.html. We were staying at the Casa De La Tia. It was a lot nicer than I expected. There are a few pictures of the building and the room to give you an idea. It was a little strange doing things lke taking a shower and washing hands because afterwards, we would have to use had sanitizer because they have different bacteria in their water. We couldn't drink the water either so we had to buy bottled water for drinking and brushing our teeth.

The first couple days we spent relaxing and visiting various tourist attractions. There were a lot of Catholic Churches there. We visited several. They were amazing structures. We also visited a large site of ancient ruins called Monte Alban. I was amazed at how big they were and how much area they covered. There are a lot of good pictures we took of those. After that, we went to a wood carving shop. There were a lot of intricate carvings with incredible paint jobs. I bought some small ones for my sisters Hannah and Sarah. The food was good but it didn't really taste the same as the food from Mexican restaurants in America. After a while, many of us were craving American food like hamburgers. One night some went out and found a food stand that sold hamburgers and hot dogs. I didn't know a hamburger could taste so good! :D

On Sunday we went to a Mexican church in Oaxaca. They were very warm and welcoming to us. It was really interesting how even though we did not speak the same language, we could feel a connection with the people because we shared the same faith. In the church service, the worship team even played a few songs that I know like "The Love of God" and "Holy, Holy, Holy." It was exciting to relearn those songs that I already knew in Spanish. It was also interesting in the worship time how I could still worship God even though I didn't know what they were saying. Their faith was so genuine and their worship so sincere that I couldn't help but get caught up in it with them. I loved church. I was also surprised when they offered to take us back to our hotel. I know that it was an inconvenience for them but they refused to let us pay for a taxi. They were some of the most hospitable people I have ever met, as were all the Mexicans that I met including the poor ones that we went to help.

We started working on Monday. We split up into two teams and poured the floors on the latrines Monday, and then Tuesday through Friday we spent assembling the latrines. There are several pictures of the latrines being built. I was amazed that we finished all the latrines. Just about every one had little problems or mistakes and we still finished or nearly finished. One thing that amazed me was the people that we went to help would often go out and buy ice cold bottled water or pop for us. It just amazed me at how they went so out of their way to be hospitable to us and buy us something that they would never drink because they couldn't afford it.

After each team had finished their latrine for the day, we met at a local Bible club building (that Suzan and Arlene had helped make on a past team) for lunch. After lunch, we traveled to the Bible club that we were going to for the afternoon. By then everyone was sooo tired, but it didn't really seem to matter when we saw all the kids. At the Bible clubs we sang some songs, did a skit of the Prodigal Son (I got to be the son), taught a verse to the kids (Romans 3:23), sang another song, and then split the boys to play games and the girls to get their nails painted. I loved playing the games with the boys. At every bible club there was several boys that would really like me and that would hang around me for the whole time. There were a few boys specifically that come to mind that really made it hard to leave. Before we left each Bible club, we would hand out little presents that the kids in our own church's VBS had made along with a little cross necklace and some candy. The Bible clubs, especially the first one, was my favorite part of the trip.

On Friday, We only had one latrine to build so we did it as one team. It was really fun to work with everyone there. It was a lot less pressure because we had more people working. That day we finished in record time. After we had lunch that day, we split up into two teams again and did some house visits. Each team visited two houses. There we talked with the families about them. We talked about their kids, their husband or wife, where they worked, how much money the make, and anything else we wanted to know. Their stories were so sad but to see them and the hope that some of them had was amazing. Leaving the last house, it felt so strange that our trip was nearly over and we would be doing anything the next day.

One thing that I really like about this trip was the meetings that we had as a team every night. We met to talk about how our days went and to pray for each other. It was really nice to just talk about the day with someone who had experienced the same type of thing. I hope this give you a little more insight into what we did there. I will try to post more with other details or interesting things about the trip.

Stephen