Sunday night and I am exhausted

Hello everyone.  What a great time we have had.  Ups and downs, good's and bad's but a truly amazing time.

Yesterday (Saturday) was a fun day.  At one of our church properties (The land where our students had spent day working with the land and digging footings) we through a "Kids Day extravaganza!!"  Don't really know what that word means but if it means a "big party" then yes, we had one.  ;-)

It was awesome.  We have games going like "throwing a ball through a drawing of a huge clowns face."  Darts, ping pong, foose ball and a jumping house (Which was the size of a inter-tube.  And in fact it was shaped like a inter-tube. ) ;-)  It was so fun to see all these Chilean kids running around and playing games.  Thats one thing that I love about the chileans vision of church.  The pastor made a comment that "we dont ministry to the kids to get the parents.  We ministry to the kids because they need Christ."  Which was awesome to hear.  Not that I don't think the same way or feel the Grove does or does not, but it was just refreshing to hear.   Bishop and Phillip where both dressed as clowns.  Soooo creepy.  Especially Phillip.  Love the guy but man he was creepy in the outfit and face paint.  :-)  Everyone had a role and did there thing.

Today was a fun day but involved alot of losing to be honest.  We all woke up and went to church.  Todays church was a little different thought because today is "Dia de los niños."  "Day of the Kids" for my non- spanish speaking readers.  They dont do halloween here, so its kind of a mixture of kids dressing up in costume and its just all about the kids.  So church was out of control.  

Then we had lunch, hung out for awhile, then went to our first soccer game of the day.  We played the local church and blah blah, we lost.  (You are probably thinking "hey josh, why no detail about the game?" Well, 2 reasons.  1, Im a pretty bad loser and i dont feel like talking about it.  2, its always the same same.  Chileans cheated, we got ripped and we are not happy.  But it was fun game.  ;-)

Then about a hour or so later we had our second game.  Now this game had allot on the line due to the fact that we are playing a team that is amazing.  They have 2 guys that played semi pro and a whole roster of stars.  Last year they beat us pretty badly.  I think 20 something to 5 or 6.  This team went to soccer season in a row without 1 loss.  So ya, wow.  Well we where pretty tired from our first game but we where excited and yes, a little scared for this second game.  Well again, we played blah blah... we lost.  (Again, Im a bad loser and chileans cheat) ;-)

Well every one, this is probably going to be my last post.  For tomorrow is our fun day of visiting the capital Santiago and shopping then we leave the following day.

Everyone is healthy and doing great.  You have a great bunch of teenagers and thank you again for allowing us to bring them here, it was an honor.

In closing please all remember that I need each of your families numbers on how many people you are having at our dinner this friday at the Grove.  Its honestly ok to bring from 1 to 20 but i just need legit numbers to have the right amount of food.  Please email me at jsolorio@thegrove.cc with your numbers.

Last thing, as i do every year, I wold like to apologize for incorrect grammar, bad spelling and bad humor on this blog.  I know that I spell like a smart 4 year old and probably crack a few jokes that are not needed, but i love showing you guys a small insight to our trip.  And its the only way i know how to do it. 

Chao! (Bye)  

Weds

Hello everyone (Natalie Bishop here) I thought this blog needed a woman's touch ;) Today was an amazing day of hard work. We went to the property in La Firfana where there wasn't an empty hand in sight. The "men" as we have now established your sons, were digging 2 ft, 1 ft wide and 60ft long ditches...hence the change in our termanology towards them. They did this with rolled up sleeves and gardening gloves. As you can imagine they had a blast and the Pastor of the church named Herman, was beaming as he saw thier efforts! Others of us had rakes and paint brushes in hand. While doing so, the ladies and I played our favorite game, the question game; which is trying to come up with as they call it the most "epic" question. It's awesome to see how much fun it can be to serve the Lord. After a few hard hours of labor we went back to the church for lunch. We fellowshiped with the tios and tias as they fixed us up a beautiful assortment of a meal. Then with eager hearts to return back to the property and full stomachs, we headed out to finish what we started. The next several hours can be best illustrated with sweat as we finally felt the sun here for the first time. It gave us all an extra boost of energy as we felt as if we were in our native land. It was also filled with light as we leveled out the majority of the land, and can now see the end of the tunnel as far as preparations for wood and nails are concerned. As the work day came to an end, we left feeling accomplished and satisfied. As Sam lead the prayer at dinner, I realized something. The Lord has allowed for myself as well as your students be a part of one of the best demonstration's of Christ's love for His church. We have began the foundation, and have full confidence in the fact that with God as such, it will not waiver. It excites me along with the other leaders, and your kids to anticipate how God will use this building to bring forth His glory. We ended the night with an outbreak of dancing. Which I thought was appropriate, for victory certainly was on our side today. Tomorrow we head out to Iloca to build houses for those who suffered great loss from the earthquake. This is the city where the tsunami hit and it is about 4 hours south of Santiago.

Miss Mohn- She is still recovering from her horribly bad sprained ankle, but as you all know she never complains nor wants to take a break so I literally have to ask her and force her to rest. Everyone here( chileans especially) loves her blonde hair and blue eyes. I keep making her sing which furthers thier love for her.
Chelsea- Man can that girl work. She was taking the shovels away from the men today and showing them what her definition of a ditch was. She is always positive and in good spirits :)
Jazzy- Always dancing! She somehow has been blessed with the power to create new dance moves all the time. She works extremely hard as well. All I have to say is one of the fences here wouldn't be painted black if it weren't for her!
Heather- Her joy for life is contagious! She always brings out the best in everyone she is with! She saw her Chilean family yesterday, and I have never seen her more happy! I had to keep a close eye on her to make sure they didn't steal her away from us. You're welcome Kathleen and Steve :)
Matt- He has really impressed me this trip with how flexible he is. Today he a pick ax and showed those ditches whose boss. He looked totally in his element and loving it.
Phil-He was a bit under the weather today, however he wouldn't stand getting out of a day of work. By the end of the day I could seen the old joyful Phil returning. Keep praying that he stays healthy.
Jeremy- Thank the Lord he was back with the team today. As we all saw him entering the church we cheered and hollared. He looks better and the color in his face has returned. He still needs prayer because he said he isn't 100%.
Colin-He makes everyone laugh so hard at any given moment. Yet he is also such a servant. He never ceases to offer a helping hand. Lynnly(sp) if you're reading this, you're dating a gentleman.
Sam- Such a solid guy as everyone here describes him. He is a natural quiet leader. Everyone loves Sam, and I am sure he doesn't even realize but People do look up to him. He also works very hard.
Prayer requests-That Josh gets better, he is suffering from a cold so pray that Landon or Nicolle don't get sick! Lastly, pray that we as a team are able to show God's love to all those who have suffered and experienced loss from the earthquake. We love you and miss you all!
Much Love,
Natalie

monday monday

Hello everyone. Hope you all had a great weekend because we all did.

Saturday- A great day of work and another fooseball tournament. In the finals was sam and I against Pastor Bishop and Phillip. But a lass, pastor and phillip won. Sam and I where very sad. ;-)

It was a cold night saturday night.

Sunday- What a great day. Every group of "gringos" went to a different church. Most of the students went to "La Farfana" church. Bishop actually was the speaker at another church service and nicolle y yo went to the church we always do when we are here. (Perks of the job)

Then we all chilled all day sunday. I personally took a 2 hour nap. (I totally needed it. This years trip has been hard on me. Im getting old mind you.)

Today- We started working on a new plot of land today. We have 2 days to get the property to "garde level." Which isnt a problem for our team. IF our team is anything we are a group of people who love the Lord and who are ready to work.

But on a sad piece of news, tonight we lost in soccer. We where proud though. We played the team here who is really great. They are the defending league champs here and they have played together for 7 years. We lost 16 to 11. Matt wolf score 3, phillip scored 2, I scored 3 and bishop scored 3. (I think thats right) I was proud of our team. Seriously, I would say different if I wasnt. Even though our offense gets the credit our defense was the stars. Phillip, colin and sam where amazing. No joke. They didnt play well for a group of gringos either. I would take of 3 defenders over the others teams. We just couldnt score as much as there forwards could. We tried, but just didnt have it.

On a side note, depending on how much you paid attention to my previous writttings, you may of noticed that there was no mention of one young jeremy Oneil. Thats because our little jeremy got a bit of food posioning early today. Poor kid was throwing up every where. (Its not funny. ;-)

he is well though, he is in his room, with water, a bag to throw up in and tomorrow he has the day off. So he can sleep and rest. Some prayers for my boy jeremy would be awesome. He is a trooper though.

Well, we love you all and miss you all. Here are some things you can start praying for us about:

1) I thursday and friday we are going to travel down to the beach here, where they had tsumai's a few months back. People are living in total madness with nothing. So we are going down and we have 24 hours to build 2 homes. Totally do able if you ask me. Just no time for sleeping. hey, they are young, they can handle it.

2) For health of course. We will all start getting sick this week.

3) Fr our attitudes and humor. All the little jokes and comments that where funny earlier in the trip will not be so funny anymore. ;-)

4) That are young adults continue to seek God in all they do here and hear his voice clearly.

Well good night all.

Chao!!! ("Bye" in spanish here)

Joshua

Hey Hey everyone

Hey guys.... well we are home from our day of work and I found time to write a post.

Today was another great day. It was a bit on the cold side, with some rain, but nothing too bad. I think it was about 40 something degrees today.

Today we all met up at the church we will be working with during the trip. We all had breakfast then got to work.

The work we did today was painting the inside of the church, which included the main room and a smaller room (the size of a closet). Everyone worked hard!

Most the girls on the team painted the fence at the front of the property, then went inside and worked on and painted some games for the children in the town.

There wasnt a ton of work for us to do yet so the guys and I found a "fooseball" table and had a mini "fooseball" tourny. We had two brackets of 4 and played to there was a final two. Colin Huges made it to the finals against one of the missionaries here, but alass, Colin was defeated. I was really dissappointed in Colin. ;-)

We then had lunch and then went on a walk with the Pastor of the church to the new church location. When we got there he told us of his dreams for the propery and what the work we wil be doing on sai prepoerty in the up coming weeks.

The church we are working with is currently in a house. The church has a property, which we will be working this trip.We will be moving and digging up the existing dirt to make it level. This will allow the chileans to dig the footings in weeks to come, and then start pouring the concrete.

I know this work is going to be hard for our students, but that actually makes me really happy. :-) I love seeing our kids get there hands dirty, which allows them to all become broken. Then they all get a sense of how God can move in this world in such a real way.

I believe that some of our students are so blessed they don't understand or maybe they just have never seen the work that is needed in life to accomplish things. Either way I know that we brought a team of amazing young people to do this kind of work.

Here is a little recap of how each of your kiddos are doing:

1) Jazzy- She is doing great. Always smiling and having a great attitude. I thought that there was no way mama and papa "V" could of raised another kid as awesome as Rudy.... Well I was wrong. Jazzy is as awesome of a young person as her brother Rudy.

2) Heather-Again, always smiling and having a great attitude. Its funny because even the chileans tease her for being short. :-)

3)Chelsea- Actually doing soooo well and working so hard. I didnt know Chelsea that well coming on this trip and man has she been a blessing since being here.

4) Haley- She is doing awesome. This is such a different world for her but you would never know by watching her. She loves on all the kids running around and works so hard.

5) Matt- A stud. Pretty much all I can say about him. In him I dont feel like I have a student here but a friend.

6) Jeremy- As solid as it gets. I would never tell him, but man I love this kid. Just a quality person through and through.

7) Phillip- He is doing well. I believe the travel probably took the hardest toll on him. He never complained once but you could tell that he was exausted. Today he came to the church with a great attitude and was the great Phillip we all know and love.

8) Sam- What a joy this guy is. Everyone loves him and he is just such a great young man as well. Again, another guy i feel like isnt a student but just a old friend of mine.

9) Colin- He hasnt stopped making us laugh yet. He is soooo funny. He brings so many smiles to our group and the chilean people.

10) Daniel and Natalie- To say that they are both doing great would be a huge understatement. Daniel is walking around like a 5 year old boy and Disneyland. (If you didnt know daniel lived here for a year and has always wanted to come back to visit.) Natalie has been amazing as well. Everyone loves her and she is always good to crack a halarious joke when the group needs one. Not to mention the fact that you can always find natalie dancing when you are looking.

11) My wife, Landon and I- We are doing well. Landon is officially the cutest kid ever. (No one told me that, i just feel that way.) ;-) Nicolle is honestly the best woman ever. She works, holds the kid, and laugh and talks with everyone on the team. I get tired just watching her. She is an amazing woman and has such an amazing heart. I wouldnt be able to do anything i do if my wife wasnt always right next to me being the woman of God that she is. I doing great too. There is a huge part of me that feels at home here. I think it helps so much that we are blessed to bring the best students ever uear with us. Its like traveling with the "perfect family."

Thank you all for your prayers. Please continue and know that the kids are doing Gods work. I will be having different students posting blogs through out our time here.

So good night and we love you all.

We are all tired and going to sleep. Tomorrow I'll find a computer and give details. Love u all. -Josh

We made it!!!!! We are all here and safe. Our flights here where awesome and when we got here our old chile friends where here waiting for us.

We leave in about 26 hours.....

Man... I cant believe its time to go back to Chile. Another year, another group of leaders and another group of students. Its amazing how God prepares and plans this trip for us. I have such a confidence in this trip simple because this trip runs so smoothly. God is God, and God is so Good.
Im so excited to go on this trip with this group of students. What an amazing group. year after year God provides such amazing students.
When I first went on this trip 5 plus years ago I was so in love with those students and every year since every group of students blow me away. Again, I give all the credit to God.
Well we leave tomorrow around 830pm from the Grove community Church. If you want to come down and pray with us and other family and friends please feel free.
-Joshua