In prayer this morning I continued reflecting on the Gospel of John. “And from his fulness have we all received, grace upon grace.” – John 1:16 and how we really are totally dependent on God in order to accomplish anything in this life. That every grace we receive is due to God and how all things find fullness and completeness with Him. I was encouraged to be more bold today in sharing the love of God with those we encounter and to pray for the people we are serving with more intentionality. The chapel at the convent is beautifully decorated for Pentecost and the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

We had breakfast at 8am – chocolate pancakes with kiwi and a cherry on top , beans and tortillas, omelettes with peppers, onions and cheese inside wrapped in a tortilla and cereal. We have a running joke that the meal doesn’t count unless you have at least one of the sisters’ homemade tortillas. And the tortilla on the omelette were store bought and therefore don’t count, so you had to wrap the omelette in another tortilla for it to count!

After breakfast we loaded up to head back to finish our tiny homes. The other group took tuk tuks since they were here in San Andres and my group loaded up into Maynor and Flavio’s cars.

Today was just about putting the final touches on our house. We built the door, cut out the window, painted the door and added a frame around our window. I had my information wrong the other day. There are four people who live there. But it is Marcella, her mother and her two daughters. Her husband left her and so she is now a single mom raising her two girls and caring for her sick mother. The mother has Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and diabetes. She is basically bedridden and isn’t able to leave the house easily. The current house is made of nearly all lamina (metal sheets) and when it gets hot outside she says that the house feels like an oven. This new room will be for her and her mother so that she can get better air circulation and not overheat. After we finished I asked to pray with her and we asked for God’s continued blessing upon their family. For protection and good health and to know more deeply of God’s love for them.

After we finished our homes we came back to the convent to rest for about an hour before lunch. Roy. Dad and Maynor went to the hardware store to buy the masons some new tools (levels, tape measures, blades for their saws, etc.) The look on their faces when we gave them to them. They were like kids of Christmas! Lunch today was beef with pasta and sauce, salad and tortillas.

After lunch we broke up into new groups and did sick visits. My group was myself, Eli, Roy, Ezra and Matthew. With McKenzie as our interpreter and Sr. Francesca as our minister. We went to five different home of people who are sick or just really old and visited with them. Learned a little about them and who lived in the home with them. We prayed with them and then offered them a bag of food. The food bag contained things like spaghetti, beans, rice, sugar, salt, oatmeal, powdered milk, oil, coffee, and laundry detergent.

The first house we went to was actually a house I visited last year on a sick visit. Her name is Magdalena and she takes care of her four grandchildren. She is sick and elderly and unable to walk without her walker. She gets easily fatigued and has shortness of breath. She has twin grandsons who are 4.5 years old, they are getting over an illness right now so are staying at the neighbors house across the street as she just does not have the energy to care for them. Her daughter went to the US to try and make money for the family, but got injured and has not been able to send anything back. Last year this house was full or life and laughter. She was cracking jokes with the high school students and telling funny stories, this year was so very different. She was struggling to speak and you could tell just overall not doing well.

The next house we visited was Adan and Ellie. Adan will be 100 years old in November and Ellie is 83. They have been married for 63 years and have two children. We asked how many grandchildren, but there were too many to count! They have grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren! Up until earlier this year Adan went to the mountain to work everyday tilling the fields, planting corn and beans, to provide for his family. He is very hard of hearing now and has a hard time speaking, but he is known for his stories, so we asked him to tell us a few. One was about when he was 12 and had been kicked out of his home (his dad thought it was born of a different man because he was born at only 7 months, so he kicked him out) and he decided to walk to Mexico. He was walking by a river and came across a group of cowboys camping. They heard a noise and it turned out to be a lion (we think a mountain lion) so they tied a rope around Adan and lifted him into the tree to keep him safe. After a while the lion went away and the cowboys came back and cut him loose.

The next house was of Lorenza, she is 88 years old and had been very sick for the last couple of months. Her blood pressure would not stabilize, it would get really high and cause her to have bad headaches and then really low and make her faint. Her daughter and granddaughters are living with her now to take care of her.

The fourth house was Alvira who cares for her two adult children who have special needs. Her daughter is Rosa, 43, and her son is Angel, 32. Both are prone to seizures and need constant supervision, help bathing and feeding themselves. Angel is like a small boy, loves cars and trucks and anything with wheels, Roy has some small matchbox cars in his bag and gave one to Angel and he was so excited!

The last house was actually the mother-in-law of our mason, Edy. She had a stroke in December and had to come live with them, she normally lives in a different town. She is still paralyzed on her right side and a very depressed because she still cannot walk after 6 months. We tried to share some joy with her and remind her that it takes time and little by little she would get there, but she just cried the entire time.

We then walked back to the convent and had a couple hours before dinner. Heather and Chris were back from their few days at the lake so I got to spend some time visiting with them. It was their anniversary so Chris bought steak and shrimp for all of us and the sisters prepared it all and we had a big party for them at dinner! (Don’t worry there were still tortillas and beans so it counted!)

After dinner I was pretty tired so I went to my room to read for a little before going to bed early!