Thursday

Buenos dias.
News flash and updates from Progreso:
1.  Progreso school - its always good to walk down to the school where our work first started in Progreso, so a small group from our team did just that.  The original school had 3 walls made of tar paper, two rooms, and a dirt floor. We patched walls, poured a cement floor and fixed up the desks.  This caused the government to take a look at what we had done and they acted and start building a nice school, and it has grown and improved each year.  It now has 6 buildings with a large patio inbetween, along with a nice fenced in school yard, and a new large, roofed cement slab play area.  Things are clean and have bright colors and the kids wear uniforms.  It is a happy place to visit. 
2.  Last night there was a meeting that included Pastor David, Marco (president of the Baptist Churches in Sinaloa) and some Mexican officials from the city, state and whole country.  There was much discussion of how the churches could be involved in the school and encourage positive activity for the students and also to have a presence in the prisons in the area.  To make a very long and very exciting story short, the city official was a women whos first project was the colonia of Progreso, so it is dear to her heart.  When she heard that Pastor David and the church (including North Haven) has been working in Progreso and  helped with the school and are now building the church building, she was very excited and said "what do you need?  I can get it for you!  Do you need land, radio time, etc?"  Well, David and Marco were jus overwhelmed and wowed by what God is doing here.  Stay tuned for exciting future developments!!!
3.  The agricultural crisis as mentioned in an earlier blog has resulted in about 90% of the crops being destroyed which means employment crises, price increases, and other economic issues because Sinola produces the major amount of the crops in Mexico.  The President of Mexico will be flying into Culiacan tomorrow (Friday) sometime to have a press conference to sign some type of a welfare proclamation to fund the agricultural crisis.  (probably disaster relief equivalent).  This should be very interesting with his security detail.
4.  We distributed more food bags today and spent time with the people of Progreso.  Another afternoon children's program included a fabulous skit by Angel (Linda), Prisoner Peter (Randy), some tough looking prison guards (Trey and Bob) with the dramatic reading by Paul.  This was followed by an evening evangelistic service.  Our team sang a song (in English) for the crowd/.  They did not ask for an encore!

We spent a lot of time on the roof tonight after our day was over, discussing our week and its impact on all of us.  We all agree it was a great week that went too fast.  Seeing the needs of others really shocks us out of our own little comfort zone, and puts lifes issues into priority.  Knowing that God has the whole world in his hands and loves us all so much, gives us the reason to come to Culiacan.  We have been blessed by the people here, and also our teammates have blessed each other.

We will be wrapping up our week with a Fiesta Block Party tomorrow afteroon.  Please continue to pray for our team and our final days here.

Muchas gracias,
P&J