Wow, I can’t believe my time in Mexico is almost at an end and that I will be leaving for Uganda on Monday! Two months has flown by and yet it feels like I have been here for ages. The Gateway feels like home now, and coming back from our outreach last week we were all so excited to see everyone and sleep in our bed again. I can’t wait for Uganda but it is so bitter-sweet because we have to say goodbye to the other teams for 6 months; so I thought I would reflect on some fun times and memories in Mexico.
– Eating the world’s BEST doughnuts from Soriana’s!!! (I have officially eaten a life time of doughnuts!)
– playing games in the mud
– waving to the Mexican soldiers in their army tanks at the border….. and them waving back!
– Making cookies from scratch without a recipe (they were really good!)
– Our team of 6 girls ate an entire tin of brownies in under 3 minutes
– Having to buy a plunger in Mexico (just last week 😉
– Always being singled out at the border for being Canadian
– singing to our carrots in our amazing home made organic carrot box
– worm noodling – yip it’s a real thing and they even have competitions for it in the US (you should search it on youtube it’s crazy!)
– our van breaknig down several times
- it turned off in the middle of the border crossing between the two border posts
- the battery died in Harlingen and someone had to jump start it
- the battery died again but this time in Mexico and they exchanged it with an old and much smaller battery which was a little sketchy
– trying to communicate with our very limited broken Spanish to Gris, our host family. We have mistakenly said things like: we eat fish balls and Nadia lives in a frozen lake
– using a plunger to wash our clothes
– getting asked if we are hippies or had just finished hiking because we are dirty and have backpacks when we go to the states
– eating Mexican food….. fresh flour tortilla tacos that Selene makes Mmmmmmm!
– driving on the shoulder of a 2 lane highway to create 3 lanes
– getting stuck in the mud in the middle of one of the poorest colonials in Matamoras and all having to pile into the back of the van and bounce up and down while all the families came out of their houses to watch the crazy Americans
– piling 20 people into an 11 seater van
– being so tired that I said PGA was an acronym for ‘pajama party’ and only realizing the next day that, that doesn’t make any sense!
So much has happened in these two months I can’t believe it all! God has rocked my world, he has moved so far out of the box I had him in. After reading ‘Across the Spectums’ and discussing a lot of theological statements my brain is still mush but it has made God so much bigger in my eyes. I am continuing to understand how BIG he is as he pushes me to trust him and he always comes through and provides whether it’s in food, translators, divine appointments or things I need like a journal. I am so excited for how much bigger he is going to become to me in Uganda!
Thanx for reading my blog! I hope it gave you some good laughs, life in Mexico is never dull!
Much love
Tara
Tara, your team is now in Uganda & I’m just now catching up with your “reflections” on Mexico (& your last four posts). It is so very good to get a “picture” from each of your perspectives.The stories make me smile & cause me to realize how spoiled I am. God bless & keep you. Sheridan Harnly (Brittany’s Grams)