Hey Y’all!

In case you weren’t privy to all of the things going on in the Baker home lately… we went to Mexico on a missions trip. Surprise!

We went with a team of 10 from our church. The team was made up of mostly members of our small group, which includes our pastor and his wife, but also their daughter and her friend.

I took so many photos (around 1,200 to be in-exact) that I had to split my favorites up into 2 blog posts.  I’ll narrate a little throughout the post…but most of my experiences, thoughts, and opinions of the trip will be poured out onto the next post. So, if you don’t like reading….this first post is a freebie!

Our group at the airport on Saturday morning at 4:30am.

The group.

We flew to San Diego and from there, rented a van and drove into Mexico.

This was our van.

Just kiddin’.  Ours was a typical white church van.

But if we had had this van we wouldn’t have been spotted as tourists/missionaries quite as quickly.

We ate at some really yummy places while in San Diego that we don’t have on the East coast.

On Sunday morning, we attended the Rock Church of San Diego, which was a cool experience. I had never been to a church that big. The Katinas just happened to be leading worship there that morning. AWESOME!

After lunch we drove across the border. Not as scary as I thought it was going to be, though we did get pulled off into ‘secondary’ inspection…and I did try to snap some shots, but got yelled at by the rest of the team. Actually, for most of the trip I got yelled at to ‘stop taking pictures’ and ‘put that camera away’, blah blah blah. But let’s ask those people now if they are happy there are 1,200 pictures to look at and reminisce about, hmmm? Thought so.

Big Jesus also welcomed us to Mexico.

 

While in Mexico we stayed at a camp where several missionary families live  permanently.  It was so awesome to live in community with each other.

We ate all of our meals together. I even managed a week of kitchen duty (including washing the dishes…with the little scraps of food floating all in and around the drain. yeah, you know what I’m talkin’ about).

There were many late-night runs to the taco stands in town. I only attended one, and that was enough for me. The tacos were delicious…the sights, a bit scary.

They also have very interesting ice cream and popsicle flavors.

Here is Chris eating “Pineapple with chiles”popsicle.

and Kallie’s face after she tasted it.

 

My friend Kari and I .

Following the week of working with the family and building them a home we drove around a bit and saw some sights.

La Bufadora is a natural blow hole.

Playa means beach. I think.

I can’t wait to share with you about this cutie, Javier, and his sweet family in my next post.

Stay tuned.

But in the meantime, please pray for Javier and his parents Bernardino and Lizzeth.

I pray that they continue to seek to understand who God is and what he means in their lives. That while we built them a home, there are other needs in their life that need to be met. God can take care of them, regardless of what they have and don’t have, but they have to trust in him to do it and lean not on their own understanding.