i'm still here.

many apologies to you all. it has been a few months since my last update, and i’m sorry to have left you all wondering if i had fallen off the face of the planet. life continues to change and evolve with each day here; some days crawl, some days fly by, some days are fantastic, some days are quite hard. but with each day that passes, i am learning so very much and loving my community here.

the reason i haven’t written in awhile is because i have been trying to figure out how to do it. it’s something our team has wrestled with and talked through. we want to share our lives with all of our friends and family back home but it’s difficult seeing as how the bulk of what we do involves other people’s stories. and we don’t feel like we have the right to broadcast others’ stories. we don’t want to do anything to jeopardize our relationships with our friends in boystown or betray the trust that has been built there. so please, bear with us as we figure out how to go about sharing about life here. we’re more than happy to fill you in on our construction progress as we prepare to move into aquiles, and i will do my best to share other aspects of my life with you. if you have any questions about what i do here, please feel free to email me and i’ll be happy to share more with you.

kelly and zach’s portion of team housing is coming along. they’re hoping to move into the house in the next few months, so zach is working hard to get it finished! as soon as they are settled, he’ll get to work on finishing up a portion for adri and i to live in. we’re hoping within the next year, we will also be living out in aquiles. we are so excited to live with our friends and neighbors in the neighborhood.

me in front of team housing

kelly & zach's upstairs with walls finally up!

kelly & zach's downstairs

our summer was pretty busy, as we had construction teams from the states in and out, working on the house. i spent a lot of time with friends in boystown as well. it was a difficult summer, as our team faced challenges inside and outside of boystown. at times, i really struggled with feeling overwhelmed with life here...with the language barrier, with the situations our friends find themselves in, with the season our team is in right now.

but despite all of the difficulties of this summer, i am finding that if for nothing else, i am here to understand how much God loves me. i thought i was coming here to love on my friends in reynosa (and i am here to do that), but the joke is really on me. i believe he has drawn me down to this place to show me how much he loves and cares for me. until we have some sort of understanding of the depth of the father’s love for us, it is difficult to properly love him back or to love our neighbors. in the midst of all the chaos i sometimes feel my life is in at times, God is right by my side, loving me through all of it. and as i begin to really understand that, everything changes.

so i’m still here, learning about love and growing with my friends here. i sometimes fumble through life here, but i grow more confident each day that i am not alone in this. i have a wonderful team and family down here and a God who loves me more than i could ever imagine.