A common denominator for nearly all of us today was the tiredness and the heat!
Some of us began the day early with a trip to the place where a woman here feeds the school children breakfast everyday! She is a young woman who came here on mission once and was so captivated by the town of Nuevo Durango (and so welcomed) that she decided to move from Cancun to here and started the foundation to feed these kids a well-rounded meal at least once a day. We appreciated seeing her initiative and were moved by her example (and began wondering how we might be able to help her). Those who didn’t go are looking forward to Saturday when she will come join us for lunch and share with us her story!
We continued on with morning prayer and first breakfast (it seems we eat like Hobbits here!) And then we tried to get started with our projects before the heat really set in. (It didn’t take long!) We resorted to making Gatorade in order to replenish a lot of lost fluids!
Our famous cement mixing crew got to work fast with some help(?) from some of the kids in town, while our missionaries taking care of the doors continued their work (who knew it took this long to build a door? We are used to buying them already made from Home Depot!) And of course, our plastering crew could not be forgotten. They only had rest when they had to wait for the cement crew to finish a batch…and this was all before second breakfast! And we started a new project today of adding decorative bricks to some windows in the chapel to discourage the birds from entering.
Our day continued similarly until lunch time and we had some time to rest after. Quite a few missionaries, despite their tiredness, decided to use this time to explore some caves that are nearby and they enjoyed the new adventure.
At 4:00 on the dot, the kids of the town were waiting for us in order to play games. For those who slept, leaving their hammocks may have been one of the most difficult moments of the day! But somehow we found enough within us to play with them. A few people also had the opportunity to visit some of the townspeople to invite them for Mass. We had quite a few more people join us for our evening Mass because Thursday is the day the parish priest normally comes to celebrate.
After Mass we had a bit more time (now in the cool of the evening) with the kids in town before our dinner was ready. We ended our night on the roof of the chapel once more and shared our Highs and Lows of the day. Father also invited us to reflect upon what we would like to leave here in Nuevo Durango to help the people more and what we can take with us that will help us back home.
The halfway point of our mission has come and gone and there are still more adventures to come tomorrow!
