Fiesta y Siesta...but mostly fiesta

November 11-17, 2012

Hola, its good to be back in the US of A. I spent my week at Rancho Sordo Mundo, a deaf school, in Mexico. It was easily one of the most amazing weeks of my life and I will never forget it.

Sunday morning, the Joshua students and staff loaded up into six vans, one suburban and one box van and we started our journey down south. We drove and drove until we made it to El Cajon, Ca where we stayed at San Diego Christian College for the night. I can't even begin to describe how great it was to be back in sunny Southern California. I was also more than excited to see John, after two and a half months of being away from him it was an amazing feeling to see him again.

We spent the night at SDCC and the next morning we were given a tour of the school and attended one of their chapels. It was all really great and I am looking into going there after Joshua is over, so we will see what the Lord has :)

We left the school around noon on monday and headed toward the Mexican Border. Everything went well crossing and our ride down to Rancho Sordo Mundo was great we arrived around 3PM and spent the rest of the evening settling in.

The rest of the week was awesome, Tuesday and Wednesday I worked on a brush clearing team, the ranch needed some fire prevention stuff done so we were able to help them out with that.

On Thursday we went into Ensenada for a free day. We got to watch the start of the Baja 1000, which we were all educated on the night before because the staff made us watch "From Dust to Glory". After we watched the race start we walked around Ensenada shopping and just having fun enjoying a different culture.  Rich, our director, has some friends that live in Ensenada so we were able to go to there house for dinner, they made us homemade fish tacos. So we were able to enjoy great food while enjoying an amazing view of the city.
Thursday may have been my favorite day of Joshua so far, we all had this realization that this is one of the most unique and life changing experiences we will ever have and we have to take advantage of it.

Friday I worked in the kitchen with Shannon, Mallory and Hannah, it was my favorite work day, we learned how to make tortillas and were able to serve the kids at meal times. I loved working with the girls and getting to know them each a little bit better.

Friday night was a special night for a lot of us, we had a night of worship and all of the kids from the school were there with us and it was a really amazing thing to see all of them worship even though they weren't able to hear the music they still worshiped through sign language and that was a very humbling experience for all of us in Joshua.

Saturday morning we headed out at 6:30 and were on our way back to the states, after a lot of prayer about making it through the border, God totally went before us and we made it through extremely quickly with no problems at all.

I was dropped off in San Diego, where John picked me up and then my parents came and brought me home.

Mexico was a blast and I am so stoked for all that God has planned for the rest of this year, but knowing that there are so many more adventures and lessons ahead of me, I am enjoying these few days I have at home with my family & friends, two and a half months is a long time to be away and I am thankful to have so many people in my life who love and support me :)

"Celebrate Life"- Chad Rossel

it was a well waited 2 1/2 months to see John 

Buggy for the Baja 1000

Watching the trophy trucks take off

Tacos, Tacos, Tacos. total by the end of the week 11

Ensenada  (our view on thursday night)

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone
Thank you for all of your prayers and support :)

Winter is upon us

Week nine has come and gone, its hard to believe that tomorrow I will be leaving the hill for two weeks, these last five weeks in the building have really flown by.

Monday was our dreaded Philippians test; people were up late into the night Sunday studying chapter one. Of all the advice I was given about Joshua, “start Philippians right away” was what I took extremely serious! By the time Sunday night came I knew chapter one like the back of my hand, and was able to pass it my first time, error free. Needless to say I am so thankful I took that advice and I will definitely be giving it in the future.

After all the stress of Philippians, Jenna, our RD, took some of the girls on a hike to the water source, once we got there a handful of girls climbed to the top and we were able to see an a amazing view of most of Hume. It was a special moment to just take in that sight and be thankful that God brought us all to a beautiful place to spend time with each other.

Christmas spirit is definitely alive in the building, wednesday afternoon we were able to decorate the building for Christmas, its not complete but it will be finished after we get back form thanksgiving break, we were even able to listen to a little bit of Christmas music.

The rest of the week went well, my SWEEPs were changed to adult ministries with Jason Knott which is pretty fun, this week, everyone was scrambling to put everything away before the it started snowing Thursday night. Most of my SWEEP was spent climbing all over ponderosa deck taking down all of the lights.

Pause Night was on Thursday and that was so much fun, our Pause Dad’s weren’t there so it was just us with our two incredible pause mom’s, Jen and Aubri, with the kiddo’s. It was Italian night so we had pasta, Salad and Italian sodas. It was fun to spend a few hours with everyone. I must say having two pause families is definitely a blessing J

It finally happened…we have snow everywhere; it has been snowing since Thursday night, its pretty but I will be thankful to be in San Diego tomorrow.

I’ll be spending the rest of my Saturday packing for our Mexico trip and resting up for these next two weeks.

My Next update will come from the comfort of my own house down in Hemet, I can’t wait for Thanksgiving break.

                                                 My adorable Pause sister, Tanner :)

                                Jett, the smallest of the foster Johnson pause family is also the biggest helper

                              The view I woke up to Friday morning [Outside my bedroom window]

                                         The view from this morning [outside the great room]

Lets play catch up

Its been a while since I’ve been able to update you all on what is going on here at the Joshua building, so I’ll give you a quick 2 week catch up!

Week 7 [October 21-27]

Our speaker was Mark Strauss, a New Testament Professor at Bethel Seminary, he spoke about four passions that Christians should have, , a passion for the Bible, for Prayer, for the lost and for discipleship. He just really reminded me that those should not only be our passion but also our priorities.

The rest of week 7 was filled with papers, readings and memorizing the rest of Philippians one.

Thursday was Pause Night, which was much more crazy than before, we had a photo scavenger hunt around Hume, we were competing against another pause family. We had a blast just being crazy and doing some ridiculous stuff with our family, like climbing trees, barging into Rich Baker’s house to sing him a love song, and even watching our pause dad, John, and our brother,  Eric, jump into the pond.

I had the weekend off so I was finally able to take a tip down to Fresno with my dear friends, Shannon, Alyssa, Lauryn and Trevor. It was a fun day for the girls as we shopped and relaxed in Barnes & Nobles until we wanted every book in the store, while poor Trevor was sitting in Kaiser getting an MRI for a knee injury [we later found out that it was nothing too serious and he is on the road to being limp free]

We also were able to enjoy the perks of living at a conference center, there was a girl’s only retreat that weekend so me and some of the girls were able to enjoy some incredible worship by Reveal.

        

                                                 some pictures form our trip down the hill

                                                 Top: Enjoying some Starbucks

                                                 Bottom: On our way back up the hill

Week 8 [October 28-November 3]

This week was nice because our schedule changed just enough that the monotonous routine was mostly non-existent.

Our speaker, Robb Williams, had to leave early so our sessions were moved to Monday night, Tuesday morning and Tuesday evening, so with that happening our classes got moved around a bit as well. My SWEEPs were also changed to Thursday morning rather than the afternoon, they needed some help in the preschool so I was able to spend the morning with the little Hume Lake kids, which was a blast and I’m glad I was able to help out.

We had our 2^nd theme dinner, in honor of Halloween we had a, Harry Potter night, which was so much fun, every one did a fantastic job dressing up and we ended the night by playing Quidditch in the Ark.

I worked High Adventure during the weekend, it was the Father-Daughter retreat so it was so awesome to watch Dad’s bond with their daughters doing something that was pretty scary and being able to see trust being formed in their relationship. I was also able to run the Zip Line and meet some really awesome Father-Daughter Duos and even some Hume Lake donors that were here on a retreat.

                                             Marina & I dressed up as Owls

                                                    Me and the two Floof powders :)

                                                         All the Harrys and their owls

That’s my two week update for you all :) enjoy