Happy Thanksgiving!

We went to El Paso for Thanksgiving this year.
We were there to help a ministry called Hands of Luke
serve meals to the people of Juarez, Mexico.

What an incredible experience!

As we prepared to go out and serve, we learned that a huge storm
was dumping snow outside (a bit unusual in this part of the country,
but especially unheard of at Thanksgiving)!

The "snow challenged" kids from Austin were thrilled.
(They had no idea how cold they would soon be!)

We took vans across the border each day.
There were 3 families (13 people) in our van.
The kids had a lot of fun together.

We went to an orphanage in Juarez where other mission teams
had been preparing the food.

We waited for our assignment . . .

. . . and then drove some more.

On the first day, we served in a community center
(which I didn't get any pictures of).
On Saturday we were led to a baseball field.
I cannot describe how cold it was!

As soon as our vans arrived, people started coming out of their "houses."
I put that in quotes because these
were not houses as you would know them.
I have seen a lot of poverty
(I taught in an inner city school), but I've never
seen anything like what I saw in Juarez.

It took awhile to get everything set up and get the fires burning,
but within about an hour we were serving lunch.

All the kids helped. Cade is passing out forks here.

Kelsey's job was to serve the beans.

We were asked to "etch" one person's face in our mind
and pray for them from this day forward.
I knew I had a picture of the guy in the blue jacket,
so I picked him. He asked for 5 plates of food to
take back to little ones in his house.

After awhile, we left the baseball field and
went to another little neighborhood.
We were going to serve on the street, but the guy who owns the pink house invited us to come into his courtyard and set up under some cover.
He's the grocer in the neighborhood, so his house
was much bigger than the others.
People lined up in no time.

Although it was cold, our kids had a blast playing in the snow!

That evening, we went out to dinner in El Paso with a
bunch of people from our group.
I think we had 21 children at the table!
I wonder if that
had anything to do with why they put us outside.
(Yes, it was cold, but they gave us heaters!)

Cade's in a stage of making such "great" faces!

Back at the hotel, we were glad to be warm.

The group got t-shirts (to love is to serve)
and we had communion together.

Early Sunday morning, we started the long drive home.

This was quite an experience for those of us
not as accustomed to snowy/icy roads!
And, it was gorgeous!!