My testimony about how I came to come on this trip is similar to one or two in the group. Brother Roy Seals came down to the islands for a 'Mission Week'. He showed us slides of missions he had been on such as the Alps. This was were I really wanted to go but prob would not have made it due it required great phsyical strength and those who went up the ruins before me, know that I would not have made it up the alps. At anyrate God knew I wanted to go on a mission trip so at the end of the week Brother Roy handed out 'Project Yucatan for Christ" forms as a form of prayer cards for him by our church Bethel Baptist since we were already supporters of his missionary works. At anyrate part of his presentation about the Yucatan was that it was about the same temp and low land sea level as the islands. He also mentioned that he had sent some american non spanish speaking ladies out with a group of spanish non english speaking ladies from mexico to hand out tracks one day and it had worked out great. So one did not really need to know a lot about how to speak spanish to go on these trips. I jumped at the chance and Bro Roy and his wife Edi (one of my pastor Bro Turners daughters) was very helpful with many of my 'frantic' questions such as are the electrical plug ins down there the same as ours, will I have to buy batteries in the USA, etc etc. One very important question was about my Mexican visa I needed since I was a Caymanian not an American. Edi was so helpful that she called the Washington Embassy and then called me with the info.
About a week before the trip they emailed to ask if I would sketch the kids and such during the medical clinic's. I of course answered yes because it has always been a dream of mines to use my God given talent in the arts for the Lord and this was just God sent!
I first meet the rest of the us based group in Houston on Tuesday 20th of July and we all took the CO airlines flight down to Merida, Mexico. We arrived in the night and that is when we all meet Pastor Manuel and Jeff. Of course we had mecanical van problems but it was soon all fixed and we were on our way to the hotel "El conquistador" located on Avenida Colon. We stayed there until early Wednesday morning at which time the rest of the group left as I was "stuck" for another day in Mexico due the CO flight had been overbooked and I was bumbed off. Oh the hardships one has to go through when one fly =-))
Ok anyways it was a great mission trip. Many thanks to Bro Roy who kept us "safe" during the week and made it same more like fun than work (through it was work and not vacation as Pastor Manuel mention as he thanked us for coming down to do such work). Of course on the 'safe' part according to some of our 'older' heads, one never knows until a few months down the road if one is going to live after such a trip depending on if you "caught" anything or not ;-))
May God bless everyone that went on the trip. Those in the US that helped support those that went. Of course those in Mexico such as Pastor Manuel, his family, friends and fellow christians. May we all continue to work together for Christ. God willing I will be going back next year. As pastor Manuel Mentioned in his english written letter to our group
"If you have opportunity in the future, come back again to work together for HIm."
"We remember you with love in Christ." Manuel Verde. 27/07/04