Once upon a time...

During the wee hours of the morning, the unbearably loud ringing of cow bells disrupted Meg, Katie and Delaney from their precious slumber. There was indeed a moolicious cow right outside of the bunkroom! After tossing several rocks to shoo it away, they were able to return to their beds.

Later that day, after completing daily chores at Rancho el Camino, Katie, Meg, and Delaney had the privilege of tasting rattlesnake, fried to perfection by infamous Abram. After much contemplation, the girls came to the conclusion that the meat did truly taste like chicken!

In addition to these adventures, in the afternoon, they made a perilous trek to the best coffee shop in the world: "Cafe Exquisito." What better to refresh the palate in the middle of the desert, than a mouth-watering frappe!?

Colby went to Casa Buena.

Back to the girls! After their relaxing pitstop, they headed off to the grocery store to collect items for a secretive, birthday surprise.

The girls slept peacefully that night after running around until exhaustion during VBS that evening.

The End.

by: Rachel Ozios

Sorry For the Wait...

Sorry that we haven't posted for a while. The past two weeks have gone by so fast. I can't believe that we leave in a week. Well these past two weeks have been filled with God, work, and fun. Another post should be coming soon!!

Con mucho amor,

Meg

La Primera Semana!!!

Hola everyone! Wow it is hard to believe that we have already been at the Rancho El Camino for a whole week.  So much has happened!! The first few days we were just relaxing. We went to the beach to snorkel, hung out on the ranch, went horseback riding, and went to the Malacon (the boardwalk downtown La Paz).  Delaney, Colby and I went rollerblading with Frank (another intern) and Sam Gatto.  It was fun but scary because we had to watch out for all the people walking!  Wednesdy through Saturday we worked on chores around the ranch and taking care of the animals or whatever Peter wanted us to do.  We normally work from 8 am to 1 pm and then we hang out until after dinner when we do our Bible study.Today we went to El Faro (the lighthouse) church.   I really enjoyed the spanish songs and I was surprised at how much of the service I could uderstand.  After church the locals gave us tomales and tried to speak to us in English!! It was really fun. I miss everyone a lot, but I love serving God here on the Ranch!!

Love, Katie

There is Always a Reason

Wow! I can't believe that we have been in La Paz for 5 days already! It feels like we have been here multiple weeks. We have built relationships with the Gatto's and the other interns and also have builded upon our relationship with God in this short amount of time.

God ceases to amaze me. He is pushing me mentally, physically and spiritually on the Ranch. In the beginning of the trip, I was convinced that being on the ranch was a mistake and that God wanted me to have gone to work crew which is working at a YoungLife camp for 3ish weeks. I felt vulnreable and I didn't know why God wanted me here. I knew that He wanted me at work crew, so this was obviously a mistake and I had disobeyed God. What a horrible feeling it is to know that you have disobeyed God. But work at the ranch still needed to be done, so I brushed this off and kept focused on serving Him... until last night's devotion time. Peter was talking and he said that everyone is here for a reason and it is no mistake that we are here. God wanted me at the ranch for a reason and putting me here was not a mistake. Peter said that we are all apart of the plan for redemption and eternity. That God wants to use me, plain and ordinary Meg Schmalandt, to change eternity. How crazy is that? Crazy doesn't even put come close to how- ugh! There are now words to describe that! God wants to use ordinary people to change the world! How awesome is that! He chose us to do his work and wherever we land is not by mistake but for a reason. Wherever we go, whether it's to the coffee shop down the street or to school or to Turkey or the Baja, that it is for a reason and God wants us there to change eternity. My mind is completely baffled by that but it's so amazing. Wow.

Well sorry that there now pictures, but there will be coming soon. Thank you so much for your support and prayers. We all have been getting a lot of messages about prayer requests so here are some of them:

-Tomorrow is our first team, so that we would be able to get along with them and get a routine going with them.

-Next week when we go to Marcus de Leon, that we would be able to show them a lot of love.

-To continue growing our relationships with the Gatto's, the other interns, and all of the other people we meet. That we would be able to show God's love to everyone.

Con much amor,

Meg

It's Tomorrow!!!!!

Tomorrow, June 26, may seem like an ordinary summer day to most people. However, for me, it is the beginning of a journey that will change my life forever! As we finish packing up all of our things and work on our devotional book, Called and Accountable, our excitement begins to grow bigger and bigger. It is hard to believe after waiting for so long for tomorrow to come, it is finally here! It just amazes me that God would let such an incredible trip like this be carried out in my life. I am looking forward to glorifying God with the service that I will do in the next month. I am feeling a little nervous right now, but I know that as long as I keep trusting God, as I have been throughout this whole process, things will all work out. A verse that was in our devotional book that I found very reassuring is Romans 8:28: “We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

There are just so many reasons why I am excited to get to the ranch! I can’t wait to get to meet the interns staying there for the summer. I am excited to see the Gattos again, especially the kids! It will be really cool to see all the progress that the ranch has made since our team from church went last year. I am looking forward to working on the ranch with all the new projects. The thing I think I am most excited about is to see all the bright and smiling faces of the children at the nearby village that we will be doing a VBS. I can’t wait to see all the kids that I got to know from last year and how much they have grown as well as build relationships with the children that I didn’t meet last year.

Thank you so much for keeping us in your prayers. We are looking forward to updating you once we get to Mexico!!! YAY!

Prayer Requests:

Safe Traveling

Team Unity

Nerves

Love,

Delaney

3 Days to Go!!

We are down to the three day mark before we leave and I can't believe that it's almost here!! Yesterday, Katie, Delaney, Colby, and I went to TEAM (the missions organization that we are going to La Paz with) for our orientation.
One thing that has really stood out to me throughout this entire process is that God is faithful. Throughout this entire year, God has been faithful. I remember the car ride home from the airport last year when I got home from La Paz and I was telling my parents about this internship and they were definitely not listening. At that moment in time, I thought that I wasn't going to be able to return the following year. But I kept praying and kept bringing it up to my parents and God has been faithful. Even during the times when I was doubting that I should be going because I wasn't mature enough or God wanted me somewhere else, He has been faithful in showing me that He wants me there.
So here we are: three days until we leave and I am super excited to go!! We would all love it if you could pray for us in these ways::
-unity for the interns
-that we would be able to adapt to the culture
-to stay open minded
-to be able to receive love as well as give it out

Thank you so much for your support. We really appreciate it a lot!!
Con mucho amor,
 Meg

Getcha game face on! (I really didn't have very many good title choices so I thought I'd make it a tad bit exciting at least)

Hello everybody,
Two weeks left before we go!! I'm so thankful that God was able to provide the oppurtunity for all of us to go to La Paz and work with Peter and his family there. It really means so much to all of us. Well since the Meg, Katie, and Delaney told how they came upon this oppurtunity I suppose I should tell my story. It's probably the shortest out of the 4 of us because there's not much to it. Last year when we landed in Houston, I got off the plane and said to myself 'I want to go back.' But this time I wanted to go back for a longer period of time and for a more in depth spiritual experience. And boom, internship. That's pretty much it. I'm excited to be going on this trip because I like manual labor and working with my hands and I'm sure there's plenty of that to go around at the ranch. I am also looking forward to less limitations than we had last year with the youth group. We don't always have to be in the group of 26 or have a certain schedule that we have to go by (although I'm okay with the planned beach days). All in all this is going to be a great trip!

Why does God want me to go to La Paz?

Hey all!!

Wow, in less than a month and a half Delaney, Colby, Meg and I will be on the ranch! I can hardly believe it.  My feelings are a mixture of anxiety and excitement.  Honestly I am amazed that I’m able to go at all.  I can truly say that God still performs miracles because a year ago I never would have thought that I would serve Him like this.

            About two years ago I started to come to church at GEBC.  It took a while to get plugged in because I have had a bad experience with youth groups in the past.  But Meg brought me along and somehow I ended up going on the Mexico trip when I had only been to youth group once or twice.  I thought that I should go because I wanted an adventure and I thought that it was the right thing to do.  I was blown away by the people I met in La Paz (the interns, the Gattos, the local kids, and most of all my team).  They showed me that God really cared about me and it didn’t matter that I didn’t have all the Bible knowledge that I thought He expected from me.  I was terrified when Antho asked me to share my testimony with Fletch and Korey because I didn’t think that I had anything valuable to say.  I did not have that much faith in God at all, and I didn’t see why they wanted me to speak and not somebody who was a “better Christian”.  However, afterwards I saw that my very small faith in God was enough to make a difference.  I think that was the moment when God called me back to Mexico- and I hadn’t even left yet!!

            My sophomore year has been the hardest year of my life.  So much has changed and I feel burdened by so many things that I can’t escape from.  The whole time I’ve been under the pressure that if I don’t get better, I won’t be able to go to La Paz.  In January I was convinced that I wouldn’t be able to go because I was not making progress.  But right now I am happy to say that God has brought me through this year- there’s just no other way to explain it.  I’m guessing my friends think I’m crazy for thinking that God wants me to give up my summer to work on a ranch but I could not be any more excited to see what He’s gonna do next!

Thank you for your prayers and support!

Katie

Preparing Our Hearts

Thank you so much for your continued prayers! It means so much to us that you are supporting us as we prepare our hearts for La Paz. We have been counting down the days until we leave, gaining more and more excitement each day!

We all have our different little stories about how we were called to go back to Mexico this summer and I thought that I would share with you a little bit of how God has called me.

After we finished our absolutely amazing and life-changing week in Mexico last year, I quickly went home and packed up my bags to go to a Christian camp called HoneyRock for two weeks where I also had another life-changing experience and planned to return this coming summer. In the fall I was looking through some of the pictures from our week in La Paz and I suddenly felt that God was calling me back to Mexico. As I thought and prayed about it for a little while, God continued to work in me and showed me that He is in control of my life and it is important to follow His plan that is so much bigger and better than our own. A really cool verse that I found was Philippians 2:13 - "For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases Him." This verse really helped me to know that God was truly calling me to go back by putting all these desires into my heart.

Before we go to La Paz we have to go through orientation to help us become prepared for our month away. We have been learning about how to prepare our hearts for the trip, conflict resolution and how people react in different ways to conflict, and differences between cultures. We were given a book to read called Foreign to Familiar that is helping us to better understand cultural differences. The author breaks cultures down into two categories: hot- and cold-climate cultures. Since we live in a cold-climate culture area it is important for us to better understand the differences in cultures since in La Paz they live in a hot-climate culture. Some of the major differences between these two cultures are that hot-climate cultures are more relationship based. Even in a work setting it might take twice as long for a job to get done in order to tend to the needs of a relationship. In cold-climate cultures we are more task oriented, trying to complete the job and keep personal feelings away from objective issues. So it is really important for us to be able to understand such differences to be able to better interact with the people.

As we finish out our school year, we are looking forward to spending more time preparing our hearts for what God has planned for us and finishing up last minute details. We will continue to keep you posted. Thank you for all your prayers!

Delaney :)

La Entrada

Why hello there! I would like to thank you so much for supporting our mission trip to Mexico this upcoming summer. You have no idea how much your prayers are helping us right now. Since you guys are hopefully praying for us, we would like to keep all of you updated about what is going on with our trip, like how are we preparing for it, what are we doing in Mexico, how things are with our hearts, etc. 

Mexico has a very special place in my heart. It all started last summer when I went on my first mission trip to La Paz, Mexico. I'm not going to lie, but I was not prepared for Mexico. Back in December 2009, when our church announced the Senior High mission trips, I wanted to go on the other trip to Germany. When I found out that I was going to Mexico instead, my heart sunk. But God was faithful and His plans are so much more greater than mine. Mexico rubbed off on me little by little as the trip got closer and by the time we were on the trip I was fully immersed in Mexico, but I was really immersed in God. On that trip He showed me how he was faithful through the Gatto family and my team.

God has amazing plans. Sometimes we don't always see them because we are too close to see the big picture. But God made the big picture! How cool is that?! He is faithful. A verse that has stuck with me over this past year and a half is Jeremiah 29:11; "For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and future."

Con mucho amor (With much love),

Meg