Nayarit Out of Control

We left for Tepic, Nayarit at about 5am on Saturday the 10th. It was dark when we left and dark when we arrived in Tepic, it took about 14 hours to get there. As usual there was all sorts of craziness in the vans on the way. After being together, confined that long you get really comfortable with each other and things that aren't usually funny are. Anyway the drive wasn't really to bad, and it was really fun to see lots of Mexico that we otherwise wouldn't have.

We got to Tepic just in time to have worship with La Fuente Church's youth group. Then we went to the houses we were going to be staying in and got settled for the night, went for tacos, and hit the sack.

Sunday we went to a smaller town outside of Tepic named Pugo. There we went door to door inviting people to our program and then performed some of our dances. After one of the pastors from la Fuente preached. That afternoon we all went to the service at la Fuente which is the main service for that church. We all really enjoyed that service.

Monday thru Thursday morning we studied with a school that is part of la Fuente. It is pretty similar to ours, but longer and a little bit more work. The director of this school, Vangaurdia, is Clemente who was our fifth teacher. It was really fun to get to know his family and the students in the school.

Thursday afternoon we left Tepic to go to Bucerias, which is about 20 minutes from Puerto Vallarta. Through people knowing people we got to stay in a very nice vacation home right on the beach. So, we slept with the windows open, listening to the sound of the surf. It was great! We went there with the students from Vangaurdia and the some if the church's youth group, there were about 40 of us in all. Then we met up with a doctor group from the States and did a program with children from the school in both the morning and the afternoon. Some other people did cleaning/painting, and some did evangelism.

Then Saturday we returned to Tepic to work with another church, called la Cristiana Vida (the Christian Life). That night we did a youth service and got to meet some of the people we would be working with for the next week.

Sunday we went to church in the morning and in the evening we went back to Pugo, but a different place, since we were with a different church. I worked with the kids, and man, did they give me a run for my money. What energetic kids!

Monday we had a free day which was really nice. We went to a beach called las Islitas (Little Islands) and had fun relaxing, playing in the ocean, and enjoying each other's company for the day.

Tuesday we worked around the church and had one class with the school that Roberto Wilmer, our third teacher, has at his church.

Early Wednesday we left to go into the mountains to work with the Huichole Indians. Some people from Roberto's school/church came with us. It took about 5 hours to get there including all the stops we had to take for the vehicles. It was very fun. Most of them speak Spanish, so communication was not a problem. What was hard was the lack of any running water in the town, no electricity, cooking over a fire, and sleeping on concrete. But in spite of that we had a really good time playing with kids, doing some dramas, and showing 2 movies with a generator.

We left the mountains on Friday morning, spent the afternoon resting, and then in the evening went to pray for Tepic. We went to sleep early so that we could leave at 4:30 Saturday to return to Monterrey. Another about 15 hour car ride and we were back.

We are now living at the base and it feels good to be here. Thank you for all your prayers, I appreciate them all.