Quaker Gap Mission Trip

So I really have a good excuse this time for not blogging in a while...we were so blessed last week to have the Quaker Gap mission trip with us!! To use their words, "The rednecks came to town!" My worlds collided... I mean, there were adults here who have known me since I was 6 months old, and youth that I remember when they were born! We stayed reallly busy...we worked in a nearby mountain town with one of our pastor friends (remember the blog about Jose Luis and his 7 kids??), and despite the suffering and struggles that his family go through, he had a burden for an even poorer part of their community. So, we worked in that community in the mornings, fixing roofs and painting houses, then in the afternoons we had a vacation bible school for the kids in that community (well we limited it to only 150 kids each day!) we did crafts, songs, Bible stories, games, and gave them a good meal everyday (probably the only food they had that day). We had a lot of fun with all the kids, even though it was tiring! we also went to several different church services during the week, where a couple of the girls from the group did an amazing job of expressing God's love without words with art. It was so neat for me to have special people from my old home come here and meet special people here in my new home. I guess the best way to describe our trip is with pictures:

We would love for you to check out more pictures: http://www1.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=233227480/a=25466295_25466295/t_=25466295

This week was also fun because it was my birthday, and I got to celebrate it with Elvis, Marty, Sara, and the whole Quaker Gap group! On monday, Elvis had called around to all the fancy chinese restaurants and took me out to the only one in town that has General Tso's chicken (my fave!) The next day, he and marty and sara fixed me an amazing crepe breakfast, and then an awesome steak, sweet potato, and greek salad dinner (a baldwin family tradition) and a homemade oreo cheesecake. yummmmmmmmm!!! Elvis surprised me with a new cabinet to go in our dining room, which he had custom made by the little Guatemalan man who has made all of our furniture so it matches great! i love it. Then, we celebrated salvadorean style with the whole team by going out to pupusas one night. now thats what im talking about- i mean, we celebrated for a week straight!!!