Thursday 28 April 2016

Mexico Spring 2016 Part 4

Safety barrier!
"Our trip to Mexico was one of the greatest things I will ever do. Building a house for a family less fortunate than yourself really opens your eyes and mind to see what is going on in these areas of the world and it hits your heart when you see the extent of what's going on. I, myself, have come back home and have made a conscious decision not to take anything for granted, from my bed to my phone, as I have seen a society where most people don't have anywhere near what we have."
- Matt Chegwin

We knew the basic assembling of the frames into position was going to take place today! With that in mind, safety barriers made of spare timber and nails were put together. They provided a small amount of protection for us from the 12ft drop that we'd been facing each day so far. Once the frame was up, the most dangerous areas became 'leaders only' zones. A zone that was still deemed safe for all was the sewerage corner. A few youth were 'blessed' with the opportunity to wire and Stucco the wall side closest to the leaking pipes on days 4 and 5.

And the walls went up!

After the walls went up on the afternoon of day three everything else was such a blur! We had just 12 build hours left to completely wire up and Stucco the entire house. One of the really lovely opportunities we had on Thursday morning (build day 4) was to write notes of encouragements on the outsides of the walls before they got covered in Stucco.

Encouraging songs, verses, and notes
I think the best way to sum up the rest of the build is going to be mostly pictures:

Day One | Levelling the site, building the frames and moving concrete from the top of the site to the bottom.
Day Two | Mixing the concrete with cement, water and fibres and laying the slab.
Day Three | Assembling the walls of the house and some of the wiring to hold the frames tight.
Day Four | Writing words of encouragement on the frames, finishing the wiring and papering the walls. We also started the roof.
Day Five | All hands on deck for finishing touches! Finishing the roof, installing the doors and windows and applying 2 coats of Stucco (a cement based mix).

(Summary taken from Sam's website, here)

D a y   3

How many people does it take to saw some pretty wood?

D a y   4

It's starting to look like a house
Upon the roof!
Kings Academy putting a shift in

D a y   5

First coat of Stucco
Door installation
All hands on deck to get the last coat of Stucco applied before the day was up 
Makeshift overflow sewerage draining system with left over rocks
Holly 'The Machine' Grob

K e y   h a n d   o v e r   d a y

Handing over the keys 
Unlocking the door
A feast cooked for us by the family we built for
The completed house!

We experienced an extreme culture shock when we left the emotional roller coaster of Mexico and arrived into excessive consumerism back in California.

We've got so much more that we want to say.

"I didn't know what to expect going to Mexico this Easter. My original reason for going was to support the young people from WBC who had courageously stepped out in faith to serve God through Rebuild Mexico 2016.
Now that we have all returned from the awesome experience (of Mexico Rebuild 2016) I realised that I need to be part of the WBC team who went. The experience, and privilege, of seeing young people facing poverty first hand and working as a team to give a family hope by providing a new home. Who wouldn't want to witness that??? But there was more: to see God at work was a great thing and it had helped to rebuild my own, personal faith which has taken quite a battering over the last couple of years. I have returned from Mexico stronger than when I left and am so glad I took part.
Would I go again? Too right I would! :D The challenge to those reading this blog is would you take part in a Mexico Rebuild trip?????"
- Mike Walters

I imagine we'll post very soon with some more highlights about our trip and the celebration pool party afterwards! For now, though, that is us done! We've loved being able to share some of our stories with you. If you'd like to know more about ReBuild trips, visit the Urban Saints website here.

Thank you again for all of your support,
See you soon.

post signature

Wednesday 27 April 2016

Mexico Spring 2016 Part 3

"Wait... so these are garden hoes?"
Hello, if you've just joined our Mexico blog posts - Welcome! If you've been following our journey so far - Welcome back!
To read our first Mexico 2016 blog post, click here.
To read our second Mexico 2016 blog post, click here.

"It was such an awesome experience, building a house for a family who needed a safe and secure home... I was able to see how happy people were even if they don't have the basic things in a home or even a proper structure around them. They live life to the full and are so thankful. Seeing a 15 year old boy watch us solidly whilst we built him a house really got to me as he had a smile permanently on his face... It really hit home how grateful and thankful we should be for every bit of detail in our lives... I am changed!"
- Emma Matthews

A local family surrounded us as we stepped out of the bus ready to embark up the big hill to the build site. They were trying to sell us beautiful handmade bracelets, headbands, ponchos, and blankets. Whilst we wanted to give them everything we had, we needed to walk on, leaving them with a few smiles and nothing more. Although the story doesn't end there. The same local family visited us a couple of days later, when we were on a break, and we bought our 'souvenirs' from them, knowing that the money would be supporting their household that week.

The open door of their too-small-for-eight 'house'.
By this, our second day on the build site, we were pretty used to our surroundings - including the animals: the chihuahua puppies in the all-too-small cage, the larger dog held on an all-too-short lead, and the flies that would not leave the entrance of the house alone! Putting our used toilet paper in a bucket so that it didn't go down the baño had become second nature and climbing down the 10ft makeshift 'double ladder' was no longer a challenging task. It was fact: we had settled in.

Just as soon as we were feeling slightly comfortable, Emma and myself (Amy) leapt at an opportunity to experience yet more unknown surroundings. It was time for Kids Club day one.

"Pato, pato, ganso"
As it was the first club of the week there were only a few children around before word got out. This meant that to start with we had more than one volunteer per child. So Emma and I stepped back and chatted to a lady from Amor. She taught us how to ask an older lad, who looked about 15, what school year he was in. Emma tried it out loud a few times before approaching the young boy and asking '?dónde está mi piña?' The confusion on his face scared Emma into asking again, this time she altered the intonation in her question. An even more confused look arose on his face as he realised she actually had asked where her pineapple was the first time. Much to Emma's distress we all found it extremely funny. Emma then learnt how to say sorry and the lady from Amor explained to the boy that she had played a trick on Emma. He laughed along too.

There's so much more to kid's club than we could ever put into words. Each individual child brings a story so precious. A little girl was sat making bracelets with us out of pipe cleaners and plastic animal-shaped beads. She taught us how to say the word for 'hippopotamus' and then threaded one onto her masterpiece. Once she'd finished the bracelet she took my arm and tied it on, signalling for me to keep the present. How amazing it is that we can give so much to children who have so little and they find joy in giving back. It wasn't about material objects for her; it was about making me smile, that's what made her happy. Wow. She really gets it.

They did it! Slab complete.
Upon returning to the build site we found an impressively smooth completed slab and some very tired and happy teammates! Emma and I had been fortunate enough to visit 3 of the 4 other builds which had really shown us how tough everyone's sites were and gave us another boost to keep pushing forward to complete the house in the time we had left.

The post-build discussion swayed towards the Camp Ronald decision. The Camp Ronald (as in Ronald McDonald) dates back to an old mistake made one year on ReBuild involving a lot of hungry kids and an under-staffed McDonald's. Since then Urban Saints have found a Camp Ronald at the end of each ReBuild trip. This year they decided that each build team should nominate someone for this title at the end of every day. Each nominated Ronald then had to play the pie face game. 

Day two's Camp Ronald from King's Furnace was Sam.

Sam's Pie Face.
Sam saw a pile of clothes in his tent and thought that they would make a comfortable seat. Comfortable though the seat may have been, his suitcase below was now broken. Unable to close or zip the suitcase back up he panicked that he wouldn't be able to take anything back home on the plane with him. Classic Ronald.

*Later that week his suitcase was fixed and he didn't have to leave all of his belongings in the Mexican desert*

Day 3 is when the build really came together, and we've got a time lapse video coming your way in the next post. Stay tuned...

To read the next blog post about Mexico, click here.

To read our first Mexico 2016 blog post, click here.
To read our second Mexico 2016 blog post, click here.

post signature

Tuesday 26 April 2016

Mexico Spring 2016 Part 2

"We love you Furnace we do... Kings Furnace we love you!"
If you haven't read our first post about Mexico, you can find that here.

"ReBuild Mexico was, hands down, one of the most amazing experiences of my life. It was amazing to be a part of a group of young people (and some not-so-young people) who all wanted to make a difference in people's lives..."
- Samuel Houghton

Upon returning to the campsite on our first build day we ran straight to the shower block. Standing around us were four large concrete walls wearing large old, rusted hooks. We lifted our showers onto the loop of metal and hoped not only would the shower hold up but that it would be warm too.
As cold water trickled down our backs, we felt all hopes of a warm and powerful shower wash away.

Our solar showers.
Filling up our solar showers was a whole different experience altogether. We approached some large cylinders of water with apprehension, finding them to be filled with dead bugs and dirt. As we walked back to our tents, with our now-full solar showers, we discussed where best placed they would be to catch the most of the sun, hoping for a warmer shower tomorrow than the one we had just experienced.

Solar shower fill up station
Thoughts of the build site facilities flashed through our heads. Witnessing the Mexican family's bathroom at our build site each day, how could we complain at our solar showers? We each had our own shower full of water that, though filled with bugs and dirt, had been treated with chemicals. While we were only 5 solar showers away from the more-than-comfortable hotel shower, we knew that many people live like this all of the time.

Almost simultaneously the yellow circus tent felt like home: our very own lounge, the food tasted good: you'll eat almost anything when you're hungry, the tent pod felt comfortable: our very own bedrooms, and the baños were no longer scary: the smell was dulling too.

Campsite baños.
"The baños at the campsite were not quite what I expected. It was an experience I will never forget, I'll tell you that. They were Portaloos without any plumbing. Instead of flushing, you just let gravity take over. Every bit of human waste fell 12ft below you. It made me realise how priveleged we are just to have a flushing loo. Some people who are in poverty don't even have the luxury of having privacy. It just makes you realise how lucky we are to have things like plumbing and running water."
- Becca Walters

On went the worship music, down went the sun, out came the campfire under the stars, and off we went to bed. An early morning was fast approaching...

Check back here for more soon. We've still got the building experience to cover and we haven't even told you about the camp Ronalds yet!
If you missed our last post about Mexico you can find it here.
To read our next Mexico post, click here.

post signature

Monday 25 April 2016

Mexico Spring 2016 Part 1

The Last Sunday Send-Off
"An awesome experience in serving God in a very practical way." 
- Mike Walters

Arriving in Mexico made the experience all so real. We were finally there. A year of fundraising and preparation came down to this next week. 
As soon as we passed over the border we were transported into an entirely different world. It not only looked different; it felt different.

Tijuana, Mexico
Each house we passed was built of old (and usually rotting) wooden slabs, plastic, and spare breeze blocks. The foundations were more often than not built into the mountainside using dirt-filled, old tyres. Houses like those in this picture went on for miles.
Eventually we ended up at the campsite where we were greeted by the site of a yellow and white a circus tent. I'm not kidding.

#JesusLoversAndOthersInACircusTentInADesert
The next morning offered a 5.30am start for a 6am pre-dawn youth leader's meeting. We all huddled around a campfire discussing and praying about what the first day would entail. Whilst we all enjoyed the small waves of warmth that the little flame produced that morning, we couldn't get away to eat breakfast fast enough.
Breakfasts throughout the week varied only slightly:
1. Tortillas with scrambled eggs and beans, with a selection of grapes and other fruits and a salsa on offer.
2. Tortillas with chorizo scrambled eggs and beans, with a selection of grapes and other fruits and a salsa on offer.
3. Tortilla with cactus scrambled eggs and beans, with a selection of grapes and other fruits and a salsa on offer.
You heard correctly: we ate cactus for breakfast one morning.

Please excuse the blur in the bottom right, disposable camera results are unpredictable.
We arrived at the bottom of the steepest hill in Mexico (okay, I have no actual proof of that fact) and began to climb. The hill went on and round a large bend, feeling ever steeper. We had 3 igloos and our lunches in tow. An igloo, I soon discovered, is not just a home for Pingu and his family. They were large containers of water and ice to keep us hydrated throughout the day. One of the igloos contained something called 'Gatorade'. We had no idea what to expect. It was marmite: you either hate it or you love it. Sam hated it. 'Bleach,' he said whilst spitting out his drink, 'that's bleach'.
_______

I feel now would be a good a time as any to introduce the members of the WBC Furnace team.

Emma, 16
This is Emma. She found out about Rebuild Mexico in 2014 and fought to get there; she surrounded herself in fundraising tasks for months.
She 'goes with the flow', she's got an amazing sense of humour, and she's one of the loveliest people I've had the pleasure of meeting.

Mike, Leader
This is Mike. He's the crazy 'responsible' leader that threw himself into the whirlwind that was Rebuild Mexico. He trusted we had a calling from God and served that calling with all of his heart.
He's a father-figure to more than just his own children, he's kind and compassionate, and he enjoys a good laugh.

Sam, 17
This is Sam. He stepped right out of his comfort zone to join us in Mexico. He made his first ever flight one to never forget: over 10 hours from Heathrow to LAX as part of our journey to Mexico.
He's a world changer, he's got the amazing ability to keep everyone smiling, and he's a little man with a big heart.

Becca, 17
This is Becca. She knew that there was some reason she needed to go to Mexico. She found the courage to join us and it wouldn't have been the same without her.
She's the queen of banter, she takes everything that gets thrown at her, and she's always laughing.

Matt, 15
This is Matt. He joined us on our adventure right at the start, committing himself to Rebuild Mexico. His story from the trip is incredible. If you know him, ask him about it.
He's a giant with God, he's quiet yet outgoing, and he fought every battle that he faced along the way.

Amy, Leader, 18
This is Amy. That's me. I heard about the trip at Detling in 2014 and I couldn't forget about it. I stepped up as a second youth leader so that we could fly out and build a house.
I'm not usually one to enjoy new and unknown surroundings but I thrived on the mysteries that Mexico offers. Joy is my favourite emotion and I value my friends so much.
______

B a c k   t o   t h e   s t o r y  . . .

We greeted the family just before we clambered down onto our build site. By clamber I mean we grasped tightly onto spare tyres and breeze blocks in an attempt not to fall down the 10ft 'slide'. A ladder was later positioned to aid in the descent. We welcomed a new and improved 'double ladder' the next day: two standard ladders tied together by old cables and thin wire.

Our 'double ladder' on the left.
It turns out that hammering nails into large wooden sticks on an almost vertical hill is quite a therapeutic task and we were all convinced that we would be able to beat any fellow Briton in a an arm-wrestling match upon returning to the UK.
Levelling the soil and building a few wall panels took our entire first day from us (each day only gave us a total of 6 build hours with 3 travelling hours).This meant we were behind schedule by a day, but amazing things were about to happen...

Check back here for more later in the week.
I'll be explaining some exciting stuff like solar showers and baños.

To read our next Mexico post, click here.

post signature

Friday 15 April 2016

Is Positivity a Choice?

P a s s i o n

S e l f - c o n f i d e n c e

Passion & self-confidence are almost necessary for leading when you're not in charge. It's definitely necessary to work on these things if you don't have them already and you're trying to lead from a position of 'not in charge'. 

The idea that 'if you're not passionate then you're wasting your time' is quite negative if you think it means: 'if you've not got a passion for what you do then just give up'. If you make this positive and realise that it means 'if you've not got a passion for what you do then search for a small amount and cling onto that to drive you further'. It's about choosing to look for passion where it's been lost. This is no mean feat. I'm currently in a position of serving someone else's vision and it's hard. In fact, it's almost impossible when you've got visions of your own that cannot be brought in to the equation. But I have to begin to own some of the passion that does match up. Ultimately, I have a passion for people finding Jesus and knowing Him, I have a passion for children being free to express the whole whack of Holy Spirit that's inside of them, and I have a passion to see the youth of my hometown come together as one body. The first two of these things I am able to witness and serve in my position. The last passion is a work in progress that I find easier to pursue in other local churches with larger youth groups.

Self-confidence is a   b i g   thing. I've grown up my entire life thinking that I've been dealt a pretty good amount of self-confidence. Last night, my perceptions changed. It's something I'm working on. The reason I'm telling you this is not to give you less confidence in me, but to acknowledge that everyone struggles with lacking in some areas of self-confidence. "Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings" can put pressure on ourselves to feel the need to be perfectly happy with who we are. I think self-confidence needs to come down to recognising what things you don't like about what you do and how you think and knowing that these things are not who God made you to be. You were not made to be anxious. You were not made to project your feelings. You were not made to lack in compassion. You were made perfect and God wants to work in and through you despite your imperfections. That's the self-confidence that is needed. A self-confidence that has little confidence in who you are but 100% confidence in who God made you to be and in God Himself.

The influencers lead!

1. Lead yourself. 

Learning to lead is learning to be a good follower. 
A star follower says: "I want to help you achieve what you want to achieve".

Proving that you can lead yourself, arguably gives you more opportunities to lead others. If you can lead yourself, you will be top of the list when the organisation look to promote someone into a position of "higher" leadership.

2. Choose positivity. 

Make it a choice.
The greatest thing you can bring to your team is the positive emotional energy.
Keep moving forward.
Think 'we' over 'me'.

More important than making the right decision is taking the decision and making it right. You can undermine the momentum around the decisions of an organisation, but you can also propel it! Get 100% behind it and make it work.

Here's a story from Andy Stanley's church...
The church had expanded to the point where they needed a West and an East auditorium for the service. This meant a congregational split. Those sat in the East would get the live sermon, those sat in the West would get a live feed of the sermon on a big screen.
It had been decided that people with surnames A-M would sit in the East and those with surnames N-Z would sit in the West.
A girl, who was explaining the new system to a guy who had missed the meeting, saw his distaste and she said 'oh really, I thought it was a great idea!'. This took him aback and he began to think that he'd missed something and it would be a good idea after all. Then she began to snicker, and she broke and said 'Andy told us to tell anyone who thought it wasn't a good idea that we thought it was a great idea!' The positivity made it a great idea. If she had gone 'I know *whisper* I thought the same thing'. then she would have fed the negative energy surrounding the new idea. The idea was happening whether they liked it or not and she would've just made it a great idea for him.

This idea doesn't quite sit well with me. Which is ironic because I should have positive energy flowing out from me about this new way I need to lead when I'm not in charge. But I'm honestly not so positive about the idea. I'd be more comfortable with saying 'Ah I think it could work! It's not an awful idea after-all and we can see how it goes' because that's what I'm really thinking. Why lie and say that I think it's a great idea when I don't? There's positivity and then there's lacking genuinity (my new made up word for more impact in this sentence).

When we struggle with not being involved in a decision and then having to watch it happen even though we oppose the idea, we can think of choices that we don't get to be involved in as 'that's okay, they are taking that thing off of my plate so I can focus on what I'm doing'.

So there are my jumbled thoughts about some things surrounding leading from a position of not being in charge. I'm going to process this a little bit more today...

Podcast Information:
Andy Stanley | How to Lead When You're Not Incharge

Amy xo

post signature

Wednesday 6 April 2016

¿dónde está mi piña?

Emma Matthews' Photography
Hola lectores! 
I'd love to say that I've returned from Mexico fluent in Spanish but, alas, that just isn't the case. So luckily for you my blog posts will still be in English*.
About the only phrases I learnt or used were:

Casa | House
Baño | Toilet
Me gusta | I like
Hola | Hello
Adios | Goodbye
Dios | God
 ¿dónde está mi piña? | Where is my pineapple?

That last phrase was definitely said the most within our ReBuild team. The story behind it is simple yet hilarious. Emma and myself were on site for kid's club. It was the first kid's club of the week so there were only a few children around before word got out. This meant that to start with we had more than one volunteer per child. So Emma and I stepped back and chatted to a lady from Amor. She taught us how to ask an older lad, who looked about 15, what school year he was in. Emma tried it out loud a few times before approaching the young boy and asking ' ¿dónde está mi piña? '. The confusion on his face scared Emma into asking again, this time she altered the intonation in her question. An even more confused look arose on his face as he realised she actually had asked where her pineapple was the first time. Much to Emma's distress we all found it extremely funny. Emma then learnt how to say sorry and the lady from Amor explained to the boy that she had played a trick on Emma. He laughed along too.

Over the next few days I plan to share some of my stories about my first trip to Mexico, my first ever mission trip, and my first house built by myself and an amazing team in just 30 working hours.

A little story that I've got to share upon returning to the UK is probably different to what you would expect. This afternoon I begun to upload my videos from the trip ready to make a few videos to show my friends and family. As I copied the files across from my SD card to my laptop I got a notification saying something along the lines of 'Your startup disk is nearly full, delete some files.' I stopped the upload of any further files and went downstairs to find my back up hard drive. As I was plugging the lead into my laptop, the entire thing shut down. It had been on 90% battery just a few minutes previously. Much to my disappointment, I couldn't get the computer to turn back on. In the back of my mind I was actually very much at peace with the situation. Still knowing where we'd just come from and how I hadn't missed my laptop at all, I felt all the more detached from the heap of metal I was once inseparable from. After over an hour talking to Keith from Apple, who happened to be extremely nice, I still hadn't seen light from my laptop. Considering I hadn't freaked out earlier now would've been the ideal opportunity, but I didn't. I didn't feel the urge to scream, to cry, to press random buttons harder and harder until something worked. I was level-headed and kept a conscious new perspective in the back of my mind the entire time. 
As of yet my laptop is still unusable. I'm writing this from Emma's (thank you to my bestest friend in the whole world forever and forever, I love you) which she has lent to me for the next few days to get the Mexico film editing done.
I'll be taking my laptop into Apple to be seen by an Apple doctor very soon but in the meantime I'm so thankful to God for keeping me calm and showing me the perspective I need since returning to my 'luxury' home after camping in a desert for a week.

Amy xo

*You can now translate my posts to most languages using the translate button on the right hand side of my blog page. 
post signature