Mexico!

Day 6: Thursday

Ari and I woke up at about 5:45 on Thursday morning to catch the sun rise over the mountains. It was a pretty spectacular sight. There's kind of a lot of the sunrise...hopefully it's not too redundant. ;)

"You said, 'ask and I'll give the nations to you,' O Lord, that's the cry of my heart. Distant shores and the islands will see Your light as it rises on us..."

 "But the path of the just is like the shining sun,
 That shines ever brighter unto the perfect day."

Proverbs 4:18

Thursday morning was testimony time. I don't have any pictures of it because I was videoing them. It was great to hear how God had worked in everyone's life through the week. Of course, we had talked about it at various times throughout the week, but it was nice to hear it all at once.

Mr. Jarvis gave a little talk everyday...they were so encouraging. I'll share more about them in the next post. =)

We sang before every meal...great times! Those songs still run through my head.

"Our God arose and His enemies were scattered, our God arose and His enemies were scattered, our God arose and His enemies were scattered, our God, our God, arose!"

"He paid a debt He did not owe, I owed a debt I could not pay. I needed someone to wash my sins away. And now I sing a brand new song, 'Amazing Grace' the whole day long, Christ Jesus paid a debt that I could never pay."

Looks like we had a few free minutes again... (Thanks to Anna for this picture...it's a great one =P)

This is painted on one of the mountains in Juarez. Mr. Jarvis told us that it took 60 gallons of paint to get it up there. It says "City of Juarez, the Bible is truth-read it. (Thanks to my bro for taking this pic out of the window in the moving bus)

The BPS bus that carried us around all week.

On Thursday afternoon, we passed out tracts on the El Paso side of the border. It was crazy to see how unreceptive the people in the US were compared to the people in Mexico. So many people turned us down in El Paso, but just a few miles over the border, people had been asking us for them. Stark contrast!

Okay, a few funny shots now...we had been teasing Gabe all week about his glasses, and when we were walking around El Paso, we saw some cheap replicas ($2), so we decided to buy them for a spoof. You should have seen his face when he saw us all with them on - it was great! =D

Thanks to Matt for those goofy glasses photos

We even got Allie to be goofy! =P

Mr. Godin - I think it's your new style!

The tres amigos...

...and the tres amigas! =)

Haha, this picture makes me laugh =D (Ryan- I love your shirt! ;) )

Since the market in Juarez had closed down, we went to a western store in El Paso to pick up some souvenirs - they had a lot of cool pottery stuff. The bad thing was that you can't barter with a store in the US.

Bill was looking at earrings and necklaces...it was just, um, I don't know, a little...odd? =D

Dan seeing how long he could sit on the blazing hot bull

Ryan...being Ryan

and Steve...being Steve ;)

Poor Mr. Jarvis...we must have really tired him out.

more tired peeps...

Our whole group

Okay, so I actually thought I had a chance at beating Mr. Godin at ping-pong. After all, I beat Ari, and Ari beat Mr. Godin, so if A=B and B=C, then A=C, right? Uh, not quite. ;)

Then, Ari and Daniel talked us into playing this totally crazy game called Ninja. You tried to slap another person's hand to get them out, and you only had one move to do it. The person you were trying to slap had one defensive move they could make to dodge it. As I said totally crazy, but it actually ended up being pretty fun, and it provided some humorous photo-ops. (I think that Tyler took all these)

"Shall we dance?" Haha, not really, but that's what it looks like =)

Whoa, we look like pretty serious Ninjas here. =D

Then we played 4 on 4 foosball...that was fun, but a little crowded too. =)

And of course the night wouldn't have been complete without a little "Around the World" ping-pong action!

As you can see by all the pictures, we did have a lot of fun throughout the course of the week, but that was never the main focus of the trip. I thought the words to this song summed up quite nicely our whole purpose in going down and working with BPS.

We are the Church, the chosen Bride of Christ. We have the imprint of His cross upon our lives.

The highest price was paid, when the Lamb of God was made the perfect and most holy sacrifice.

We have one purpose, one mission, one reason to remain to raise the cross of Jesus, and magnify His name.

We preach Christ, who was crucified and risen from the grave.
We preach Christ, the only One who has the strength to save.

The message we proclaim is the power of His name - we preach Christ.

We are the voice that cries the truth today and of this truth we will never be ashamed.

Tho’ many doubters rise and reject the claims of Christ, God’s unchanging Word will still remain.

 We have this moment, this hour to seek and save the lost to speak the name of Jesus, and point them to the cross.

We preach Christ, who was crucified and risen from the grave.
We preach Christ, the only One who has the strength to save.

The message we proclaim is the power of His name - we preach Christ 

So we speak the name of Jesus, for all the world to see; the message of salvation to all who will believe.

We preach Christ, who was crucified and risen from the grave

We preach Christ, the only One who has the strength to save

The message we proclaim is the power of His name - we preach Christ.