New mission site, new bridge, info update

Oh wow, another day with 2 blogs posted. This week was our "easy" week of the summer. I took almost all of Tuesday off, had to talk to Genaro about some projects, and went to the office to find him after he found me and got asked a question, but overall a very relaxing day.

Only one group this week, from Indiana. They are an awesome group. Fun to be around, joking, and they even took us to Cattlemans on Wednesday. I think we might have upset a couple today though because they were so fast with their projects, that they worked in Sparks today on a grant home, ran into a snag, and it took me a while to get to them with some materials.

This group got the honor to be the first group to work at our new mission site. Sin Paredes, which mean without walls. There are some walls though, and a big rock one is going to be built by some of the members at Cristo Rey. Erin and I went there on Wednesday and Thursday to do an inventory of everything that is there. It has a big kitchen and dining hall, a Sunday school room and sanctuary upstairs, dorm rooms, bathrooms, showers, and a caretakers house where Marta lives now. It is a sweet place that is being donated to us from another church that has run it for several years.

After inventory on Thursday, because the downtown bridge line looked super long, we thought we would drive west to the Santa Teresa bridge that crosses into New Mexico. Genaro said it was like an 8 minute drive, but it was more like 15 and you drive right along the border in Juarez. Check out the pics below.

2 groups next week, both doing houses in J-Town, plus Lone Tree got here today and they are doing some deconstruction of some trailers in Sparks that burned down several weeks ago, and we hope to help the families rebuild there.

Look for a YLM fire update soon. Meetings with construction company, adjusters, engineers etc., have been happening and are happening this week as well.

View from right outside Sin Paredes, the train tracks are actuall on the U.S. side. If you have a good golf shot, you can hit them from here.

One of the guys from the group this week taking a break from patching the roof. All the roofs needed some major repairs and they got done this week, as well as some drywall that needed to be replaced.

View of Mt. Cristo Rey from Sin Paredes.

A better view of the train tracks that are the U.S. side.

The border fence, there was actually a guy walking by it and we were wondering if he was gonna jump it. Never did find out.

Couple more of the group mudding some drywall.

View from Sin Paredes towards Texas.

View down the street from the site. It is right off the main road to Anapra

The border fence. Grrrrr. Ask my mom her opinion on it. We were this close driving to the Santa Teresa bridge.

Actually had to drive through the fence when waiting in border line. It wasn't really a bridge, but a port of entry.

The other side. I think they close the door at night because this one is only open from 6 am to midnight.

Right up next to it. Grrrrr.No comment.