Sunrise was still a good hour away as we began our trip south. But it wasn't long until the heater in the 
van was switched over to the air-conditioning. It doesn't take long for the desert to heat up, especially once you leave the coast and travel inland. Before we would arrive in Loreto, 12 hours and one time zone away, we would go through 5 military checkpoints, and have the underside of our van sprayed ... sort of ... for who knows what kind of bugs at the Baja Sur border crossing ... some kind of agricultural control thing.
Angel Ramon came along on the trip, accompanied of course by Stan & Marilyn ... he was an absolute
delight and travelled so well ... never fussing at all. He and Les developed their own special greeting each day ... Les would stretch his arms as if he just woke up and Ramon would mimic him, followed by bending his head down and looking up at Les through his eyebrows ... quite comical actually. They had a lot of fun together.
The hotel in Loreto was lower budget, but they did have a pool which was border-line clean after a few days of running the filter continuously ...they probably only started it up when we arrived, although we did have reservations. Accommodations were sparse and cozy ... they are old camp type trailers ... 
probably from some BC or Washington coast logging camp. But at $20/night we weren't complaining too loud. We did have exclusive use of an outdoor kitchen palapa ... a pole building roofed with palm branches ... and it was a great place to eat our meals and have our group get-togethers each day. We met each morning for a time of group Bible study and prayer, and would debrief each evening, often following by a time of worship ... unplugged with just one guitar.
Loreto is still very warm, and the humidity is higher than what we're used to in North Baja, so the pool
was a welcome addition. We did try swimming at the beach in town one day ... noticing no one else was swimming there ... and found out why not, the hard way. One of our women got stung by a stingray ... quite a gash that drew a fair bit of blood. She did go to the hospital and they took her in right away, even though the waiting room was crowded, and gave her a shot for the venom and the pain. We decided to stay at the pool after that. One night we were all awakened to the sound of laughter, cannon balls in the pool and much other poolside activity...at 3:30 - 4:00 AM...partiers returning from a long evening on the town. Kind of cut into our regular sleeping patterns. One other night, there was a loud concert at the gymnasium across the street from our hotel. It started at 9:30 PM and lasted until after 3:00 AM. Again, a very short night...but surprising enough, we all did quite well even though two of our nights (the sleeping part, that is) were cut quite short ... real short!
We did take a leisure day and travelled an hour north of town to a beautiful beach called Playa Requeson ... white sand ... shallow bay ... warm water ... warmer than the hotel pool. While the guys
played with Ramon in the water, Val and some of the women had an opportunity to share about their relationships with Jesus Christ to a lady from Montreal who was travelling by herself. She was camping on the beach and was interested in hearing more of Jesus Christ as she was on a spiritual searching journey herself. They were also able to share Christ with the owner of our hotel, and before we left Loreto, she had accepted Christ as her Lord and Saviour. If we stayed at this budget hotel for no other reason than to introduce her to Jesus Christ, the whole trip was worth it. We know heaven was rejoicing in that moment.
While the primary focus of this trip was to encourage pastors and their spouses, and encourage unity
among the churches, we did receive invitations to 4 outlying churches for a future trip south. These churches are full day excursions back into the mountains or along rugged coastlines. We are already looking forward to such a time as we can visit these churches and encourage the people there.
With all the opportunities presented to us in Baja Sur, we sometimes wonder if God will clearly call us to that place to live. We have a heart for Baja Sur, and so we will continue to avail ourselves of the opportunities to continue to visit the south, bringing encouragement to the pastors and their churches and accepting invitations to new communities. Ministry opportunities are a little different in Baja Sur ... possibly less hands-on in regards to house building projects ... but more relational with the people ... more trips into the back country to the outlying areas to spend time encouraging the people there as well as more evangelistic outreaches ... i.e. showing the "JESUS" movie, putting on concerts and community feeding programs, and working more closely with those churches as well.
Our pastor friends in Constitucion, Jorge and Gloria, are preparing to provide either a rehab/shelter for
women or a rehab facility for men. Both are desperately needed in their city, and so there will also be opportunity to work alongside them and help them. Then there are the agricultural and construction work camps to visit. The Loreto area in particular is growing rapidly, so many workers are being brought in for the construction trade there. And with growth, comes opportunities to be the Hands and Feet of Jesus to needy people
Since returning to our base at IDT, we have had several requests by people interested in joining future missions trips to Baja Sur. Several of those are Mexican pastors, and they would be a welcome addition to our teams. We pray that we would be open to whatever God has in store for us and that we would be willing to go wherever He calls us to go, even if it means moving to a new place. Wherever we are, we want to continually see the needs of people around us as Jesus sees them, and respond to those needs as He would respond to them.
its amazing the work you all are doing, I can see love in these pictures , its in there eyes, keep up the great work, hugs cathy
Posted by: cathy thomas | October 27, 2007 at 12:46 PM