July III

Well, it may have been an off week here on the ranch, but it sure was a busy one! Ron helped pour the foundation for the house we're building for August I.

Also, thanks to a new, dear friend, Kristy and the children were able to go to the San Diego Zoo with the interns and some of the other staff members.

We will be in Mexicali from Monday through Wednesday of this week building a home.  Hundreds of families in Mexicali were left homeless after the earthquake this past spring.  If you haven't heard, we will be testing out some new building materials.  There is a company that makes styrofoam blocks used with cement and other materials to build homes.  They have given us the blocks to build ten homes in Mexicali.  This will be the first home that YUGO is building using these materials, so we are going to help build.  This may be something that we will continue to be a part of.  Please pray for us as we are going from days averaging about 70 degrees, to days averaging a little over 100 degrees.  (We plan to build during the cooler parts of the days.)

Unfortunately, this means that we will miss the first half of "Mexico to Mexico" week here at the ranch.  This is when local churches send their youth to come, form teams, and minister to other local churches the same way as the Americans and Canadians do when they come to ROC.  When we return, Ron will be busy as he finishes getting everything ready for the build next week.  The lumber will arrive on Saturday.  Kristy will have to use Thursday and Friday to shoot pictures and video of the outreaches, and then get the slideshow ready for Saturday morning.  So basically, it's going to be a very busy and exciting week!!  And the following week - the team from FCC will be here and another home will be built!!  Praise God!

July II

Last week was another amazing week!! We had a team here from San Jose, CA. The YUGO staff and interns also formed a team and ministered to Iglesia Torre Fuerte. All in all a tremendous week of children's, sports and women's ministries. Here is the highlight video from the week:

Brittany has done a great job learning to use the Evangicube, and had the opportunity on Thursday to present the gospel to the children, with a translator of course. William also practiced a lot, but has not gotten the chance to present it yet.

This week we are spending a lot of time preparing for our build the first week of August. If you have not met the family we will be building for, please take a few minutes and check out our previous blog entry. This will be Ron's first build since the home building ministry officially began, so he is going through sets of house plans, material lists, etc. to figure out exactly how he would like to do things. We will update more at the end of this week.

Meet the Family

The week of August 1st we will be building a home for a local Mexican family.  We'd like to share a short video and introduce them to you. 

The father has been out of work for a few weeks. He may have a lead on a new job, but it wouldn’t start until about August. This family of six – soon to be seven - lives in a house that is 16x16, made of old garage doors and has a dirt floor. The three older children sleep on the bed, leaving only floor space for mom, dad and the little one. The land for the new home been prepped and leveled by Sr. Duran, and the foundation will be poured soon.

Please pray for the Duran family and the team from Fort Atkinson, WI that will be building for and sharing their testimonies with them.  If you have a group that would like to come, build a home and share Christ with a Mexican family in need, please send us a message.

June IV - July I

Wow, I can't believe it's July already!  The last week of June was awesome!!  We had a team from California that week,  The staff and interns also did an outreach to a local church with the worship band that was here. 

June III

We had an awesome first week of outreach for the summer!  Many Mexican pastors, young men, women and children were blessed, and decisions were made to follow Christ!  Kristy had the opportunity to visit the team in the field while taking pictures.  The team, from California, did an excellent job!  We also had a group of guys from Georgia come and build a retaining wall to prep the area where the next dorm building will be put.  Kristy also put together a slideshow for them and cooked staff dinners for most of the week.  Ron is still keeping plenty busy fixing things up around the ranch. 

We took a few people over to Grace Children's Home for a tour to see how things are run over there.  Remember that across the street, Grace Babies' Home is under construction.  We also took a tour of this seemingly quick-rising structure.  It's awesome to see the progress on the home.  When we left Tijuana last September, there was nothing but a foundation.  We are anxious to get over there and lend a hand.

This week most of our staff, the worship band and interns are forming an evangelistic outreach team.  They will be ministering to a local church in place of a team that had to cancel recently.  Ron will be continuing his work around the ranch and Kristy is starting to get back to work on the wooden signs.  We are eagerly waiting for materials and for a representative from Lazarian World Homes to take us to Mexicali and build a home.  We may not get much notice, just load up and head over to Mexicali for a few days.  Although we are hoping it will be during an "off week" so that we don't miss things going on here. 

Just a little over a month and our college team from WI will be joining us to build a home.  We are very excited about that.  We will be trying some things out for that week with some changes to the outreach schedule, etc., to see how we will want them to run for the future.  If you have a youth, college, Bible study, or really any type of group that would like to come down to Mexico and build, either in the spring, summer or for New Year's week, please contact us.  There are so many opportunities from home building & other construction projects, to the children's home & the children's/women's/sports ministry.  There are a couple of buildings planned to be built on the property here at the ranch.  Some funding and materials have been provided already to construct a kitchen/dining hall.  We mentioned above that a retaining wall was built last week for the new dorm building.  All that is needed are teams willing to donate their time and funding to help with portions of these projects.  We are very excited to see how the Lord is working!

"O Week"

Last week was Orientation, also known as "O Week", for the interns here on the ranch. This is a very busy week for them and staff alike. Everything on the ranch needs to be rearranged, cleaned, organized, etc. Ron spent the week fixing things, as well as a day helping one of the missionaries, Tom Coles, working on closing up a house that a team built and didn't quite get finished. Kristy helped get the YUGO Store stocked and ready for the summer and began working on making new wooden signs for all the buildings, etc. Brittany and William have been pitching in wherever needed. They've been a tremendous help.

One highlight from last week was that Kristy and the kids spent a day in Ensenada with the interns and summer staff. The interns had to do a scavenger hunt around a few block radius in downtown Ensenada, right off of the harbor. The kids enjoyed helping, while Kristy and Pam, the cook in training, tried not to help - due the fact that they both have some Spanish knowledge, as well as knowledge of the area. The idea was for the interns to learn to use their Spanish in order to ask questions, navigate around town, purchase some small items, etc. It's a good learning tool, and all in all a good cultural day for everyone. While there, we of course had some amazing fish (and shrimp) tacos! They are very well know for their seafood in Ensenada, and this was our first time experiencing it. We also took a short boat ride on the ocean. This was very enjoyable and was the first boat ride on the ocean for all of us. There are a ton of seals along the coast there, as well as covering one entire doc in the harbor. Oh, and walking through the fish market was a rather enjoyable experience!

One of the things we learned more about at the Ensenada Outreach Center while down there, is their "Baskets of Love" ministry.  This is a ministry that Kristy will start up and run at TJOC.  There are several different types of baskets.  Some of them include food baskets, Moses baskets and gift baskets.  The food baskets are mostly given to families when a house it built for them.  Teams purchase the baskets of food and sometimes sponsor that family for a year, giving monthly or bimonthly gifts of food.  The gift baskets are also given to families who receive a house.  The gift basket includes dishes, silverware, bed linens, pillows, etc.  The Moses baskets are for babies, filled with clothes, blankets, etc., and are purchased for families that pastors see are in great need.  We are really excited about beginning this ministry, especially since it sort of coincides with the home building ministry.

This week is our first week of outreaches for the summer, so we'll have an update for you at the end of the week.