So we made it! Back home that is. It was a crazy trip, but before I go into it I want to sincerely thank all of you that supported us to go to the trip. We were pretty concerned there for a while and God really came through, with you guys, Thank you Thank you Thank you!
We couldn't have made it without you. I hope you all can feel a part of what we are doing because you really are.

Thank you.

So to start off, I guess ill start out with something funny. So being a son-of-a-pilot, I never really got sick on airplane, except maybe on little Cessna's or piper cubs. But it seemed though as soon as we crossed the boarder flying into Mexico, it hit me, like a sack of Mexican jumping beans. I was light headed and couldn't hold it back.

It wasn't the best start to the trip, but it wasn't the work either.

The main goal while we were down there was to help facilitate a brand new Chi Alpha at the University of Guadalajara. There are a total of 11 separate campuses to the U of G, most of which are hours apart. Our main focus was as the Marketing and Finance campus called C.U.C.E.A. We spend the majority of our campus time at CUCEA.

Each Campus had its own crest, all significant in themselves. To the right is CUCEA's. The majority of the city is Catholic so there were many crosses around town and on businesses and signs but for the most part it was a formality rather than something meaningful.

The image at the bottom with the two lions and the tree is the symbol of the city of Guadalajara, Mexico. It was actually a full statue in the downtown.

The main ministry that we partnered with down in Guad, Mexico was one called "Engage Ministries". It is a ministry through the AG church that allows students that are still in college to experience full time mission work, while still gaining college credit. It was really a great thing because most people that go into missions need to be ordained and so forth so by that time they have a wife and 2 kids, and the passion for mission work might be gone or at least diminished.

From the students that we talked to, they loved being apart of ENGAGE because they learned that mission work (full-time) was nothing like they expected. Some students actually decide to not continue in the world mission field because of what they found while in the "trial-period". It was not a bad thing but rather a great way to experience and be shown what they are really working for, not necessarily the easiest life.

Well after moaping around for the first day, and having Heather ask me if there was anything she could do to help, I finally felt began to feel better and regained my strength.

We spend the majority of the first week in a daily routine. We would arrive at the Engage house by their bus, eat breakfast and then head out to campus. We spend the morning either praying or talking to the students about their lives, building friendships and hopefully entering into a conversationn about their faith or at least why we were in Mexico. While hanging out with some students that loved to jam, I learned about a sweet instrument called a melodica, I think its my next online purchase. We ate lunch on the CUCEA campus each day that we were there, lets just say there were a lot of deli sandwiches. And then we would round up the students that we knew and go over to the soccer fields (also cement basketball courts) and played soccer from about 2pm - 4pm. We played a lot of soccer in the sun, but it was so much fun! And then we would hang out and finish up before the van came to pick us up at 5pm.

It was a stretch for me because I don't speak any Spanish but Heather speaks it very well. For the first few days it was difficult to connect with any students that didn't speak English well. I played soccer with them and talked music but it wouldn't really get 'real'. Before I knew it we were done with our part of the campus ministry and we were off to other stages.