OH IT WAS ON !!!

 Last Monday , Emanuel Baptist Church from Kentucky,  joined Shawn and Carla Estes, to "Spend" themselves on behalf of the poor in Mexico . The team of 17 split in two groups, the women went to Pillar Esperanza Orphanage to serve the staff and kids, and the men joined us building a house in the colonia.
  Since we had so many to build the house, our  friends in the colonia built a house two lots over from Jose's. The natural competitive juices flowing,  the race was on to finish before the other team. It was fun, because we could see each other's progress as we built. We conceded a draw as it was that close on Wednesday afternoon as Thursday only needed some finishing touches on both. A job well done by both teams .
   Thursday morning, we arrived at the Community Center with just a few of the team from Emanuel to finish a few things, while the rest of the guys joined the women at the orphanage . While hanging around outside, heavy automatic weapons fire broke out on the lower level of the road in front of us. Two rival gangs crossed paths in front of us, and what first sounded like firecrackers had us all running for cover. Praise God we were all ok, but noticeably shaken. It lasted seconds but it was a few minutes before we felt safe to go outside.
  The Mexican Military arrived in 10 minutes or so, and we held our morning devotion , prayed, and went and finished the two houses. We felt led to cancel Friday's dedication of both houses , because of safety concerns for the team. The families understand our concerns, even though they live in this environment every day. Some more gunfire in the distance was heard several hours later and just confirmed our decision to cancel dedication celebration.
  I am going to contact all scheduled mission groups that are planning on coming the next few months and apprise them of our concerns. It's one thing to for Paula and I,  and Shawn and Carla, and all those that are missionaries in the world, to engage in a certain level of risk to do what God has called us to do, but we are not willing to risk the safety of others, and cannot guarantee the safety of others.
  Please pray for peace to overtake Mexico and the drug and human smuggling to stop in Jesus Name, wisdom for us and all that serve in Mexico.

   We brought the team to our house Friday after breakfast in Mexico,  even though we didn't dedicate the houses with the group, we will on Monday. They bagged beans at our place, cleaned up our nasty pile of pallets, and then headed to Progresso Mexico to the market before flying back home.