Good Morning!

First I want to tell you about a website that you can visit if you want to see picture from our trip.
http://www.quantumsvd.com/v/Mission+Work/LASBendicionesquesucedenennuestroestadomesconmes/album_006/album/

Hope you enjoy the pictures taken by our leader Marco!

Right now I am sitting by a window on the 8th floor of our hotel overlooking the beautiful city of Culiacan. I can see the mountain range, a little "fog" or smog or whatever, and the palm trees and white buildings. We will be leaving soon to go out to our villages or neighborhoods to begin our projects and acitivities with each church. Our North Haven team will be going to the neighborhood of Progreso where we have worked the past 3 years. Some construction projects will happen and the women will be going to homes to visit the women there. We are looking forward to reconnecting with our friends and getting to see the "heart" of the city - the people.

Yesterday, Sunday, our team attended church at Emmanuel Baptist Church. It was wonderful to worship together with our friends and be back "home". The church was full. (Please continue to pray for them in their transition time as they search for a pastor.) We all went to the "orchard" for a picnic in the afternoon. All 6 teams from Minnesota were there along with their Mexican churches. Good food and good fellowship together. It was a fulfillment of the dream from 5 years ago of connecting other churches from Minnesota with churches from the Culiacan area. It was very moving to see the "sister church" teams sitting together getting to know each other and enjoying the fellowship with one another. There was at least 250 people there! It was a warm day, and the sun was shining and the Son was shining!

We are continuing our usual tradition of being well fed by our Mexican brothers and sisters. It's only been 2 days and we are enjoying the food but realizing we are eating too much!

We had an evening meeting with Emmanuel church to get organized for the week with our children's program and other projects.

Today, we are all healthy and feeling great. Please pray for our team as we start out on our first full day of ministry in Progreso!

Have a great day! Stay warm - we will! :)

For the team...............
Peg (Hop-along) and John

we really are here!

Sorry for the delay due to internet difficulty. we arrived in Mazatlan on a good flight and waited for the rest of the teams to arrive then loaded onto a bus and headed for a quick lunch at Burger King (the bus did not fit for the drive through window). We arrived in Culiacan around 6:30, checked into the Hotel Salvador and had a lovely get aquainted dinner for the new sister churches at the Panama Restaurant (popuar restaurant in town) and then back to our hotel for a noisy nights sleep as it is on a very busy road.

Saturday morning our team went to progreso to serve breakfast and it was great to reconnect with many people from our last three years of serving with Emmanuel there. We then met with the other churches for a prayer walk along a popular and busy river parkway. we had approx 150 people that broke into small groups and stopped along the way to pray for the city. we were all waering the same t-shirts that read "Yo estoy orando por mi ciudad".

Following this we checked into our final hotel located on a high point of the city with a great view over it with the Sierra Madres in the background. Later we held a training meeting for the new churches on how to put on a "block party" and the supplies for the day camps were handed out. A great energy time!

We have now ended the evening with a dinner at Emmauel for our team where we were forced to eat the traditional fresh barbequed carne asada and home made flan. So we are all stuffed and sleepy.

Adios until tomorrow.
John, Peg and Cindy for the team

We have arrived!

Greetings! (again) I just typed a log post, and lost it! Rats, will try again, and maybe do shorter ones. We arrived in Mazatlan Friday afternoon and waited for all the teams to arrive and hopped on a bus............oops gottago..........

Introduction

A team of 10 from North Haven Church in North St. Paul will head to Culican in Sinaloa, Mexico this February.

Group picture of team members from previous North Haven trips to Culiacan: