Two Months Till Takeoff!

We are very excited to announce that a team of 15 adults and youth will travel back to Colima April 2-9, 2016!

We are getting so excited about our trip to Mexico and are so grateful to you - our family, friends, church family, coworkers, and so many others who care about what God is planning to do in and through us on this trip. Thanks for your well wishes, prayers, and support!

Several folks have asked how they can support our time in Mexico and the orphans and caregivers of Hogar de Amor. Here are a few very important ways you can be involved:

• Pray pray pray! Some specific prayer requests are at the bottom of this post. 
• Provide supply donations for the trip. We are collecting crayons (24 packs of Crayola crayons), coloring and activity books, white athletic socks, and toothbrushes and toothpaste. You can give these items to Jamie or anybody going on the trip. If you are a regular attender of CenterPoint Church we will also have specific donation requests in the lobby before and after church in late February and early March. 
• Financially support the trip's projects and the orphans of Hogar de Amor. We will use these donations to purchase supplies for the trip and will donate the rest directly to the orphanage, so everything you give will help and encourage the kids of Hogar de Amor! You can donate online (select Mexico Mission Trip as the fund) or make checks out to CenterPoint Church with a memo of "Mexico trip" and bring checks to church or mail them to the CenterPoint offices.

Thanks so much for your support for us and the kids of Hogar de Amor. We can't wait to go! Here are some specific areas you can pray for:

1. We would quickly gel as a team and that a spirit of teamwork and service would infuse everything we do both before our trip and in Mexico. 
2. Our families, church family, friends, and community would know that they are an integral part of this trip through their encouragement, prayer, and financial support.
3. We and those we serve will be transformed through our service. 
4. Logistics simply work. Health, transportation, lodging, dining, planning around our work projects, and the myriad of other details would reinforce, never detract from, God's work in and through us.

We're Going Back!

We are in the planning phases for our 2016 trip - hooray! The trip is scheduled for April 2-9, 2016 and is open to adults and families with children aged 9 and up.

If you'd like more info on the trip, just leave a comment here. You can also check out previous years' reflections and photos on past trips tab.

Reflections on Serving - Dan

This is the third time my son and I have gone to Colima, Mexico to work in an orphanage for a week. I am amazed, each time, with how much the workers care for each of the children there. These are people that work and work and work every day to care for children that have lost so much. These are people that love these kids and care for them day after day. They see the kids hurt, they see the kids hope, they see the successes as well as their failures. They are true heroes. They feed, clothe, encourage, teach, discipline and love. They do it all every day, day after day and year after year. I’m grateful that God made so many that love and care for so many others.

You can tell that the kids know how much they are loved. The natural playfulness of a child is alive and well in the vast majority of the kids. They have been freed from the burden of life’s circumstances and have a very structured environment where they don’t have to worry about clothes, food or if someone will be there for them or not. This frees them to play like a kid should play. It encourages them to learn like a kid should learn. It allows them to see God’s goodness in so much of life. These kids have the ability to love like no others. They have the ability to overcome their fear of strangers and in an amazingly short period of time they can hug you so tight that you feel as if you have known them for a lifetime.

I get so busy in life and so caught up in email, work projects, church responsibilities or running our boy to baseball that sometimes I forget the human element. I am so task oriented that something as basic as pure unadulterated love is somehow lost. How can that be? How can life be about things and not people? How is it that life gets in the way of what it means to live? I am again reminded, on this trip, that the way that I should judge if my life is successful or not is less about what I did and more about how I loved.

Reflections on Serving - Marcia

Our 2015 trip to Mexico was the best ever. I usually team up with daughter Jamie and work on sewing projects. This year we altered a gazillion pairs of girls' jeans. It was so much fun seeing the young ladies try on their newly tailored “skinny jeans”, beaming from ear to ear. Self-image is so important to teenagers.

One evening, After a lovely dinner with the Matriz house. The games began. I pulled up a chair and sat down to watch, feeling a little timid about not speaking Spanish and being older - but was pulled up by several kids. Sitting was not an option. They were having fun and wanted everyone to enjoy the evening with them. After musical chairs, I sat again, only to be coaxed up for more games. Hugs, smiles, and laughter are great ways to communicate.

Another treat was visiting the Golondrinas household which we painted last year. Angela (whose picture now shares refrigerator space with my grandchildren) was so excited to show me her new room. She is a freshman in high school, plays goalie for the soccer team and has blossomed now that she is in a family style household.

NOTE - Going to Hogar De Amor will mean you leave a piece of your heart there.

Another FYI - the food is so exceptional, eating at Taco Bell is lost forever.

I got a super thrill by seeing the volcano. We drove to within 4 miles of the mountain in an open bus (thankfully it had a roof). When we arrived, it was raining ash – it felt like walking in a light sprinkle, but we did not get wet. After dark, we heard rumblings, then lightening went from the volcano into the sky, followed by a loud clap of thunder. A whole storm without water.

Everyone on the team is so helpful and kind. I don’t attend CenterPoint, and each year I am working with different people on the team, but everyone is so helpful and kind I love making new American as well as Mexican friends.

Reflections on Serving - Sam

I think that my favorite thing about mexico was interacting with the kids. Pretty much everybody on the team it will say the same thing, but that doesn’t make it untrue. The kids are just so fun and resilient. They could fall down and scrape their knees and still get right back up. You just don’t see that in american children. That was my favorite thing about Mexico by far.

Of course, there is something to be learned from their attitude in that example. If these tiny kids can get up after a fall like that, well, lets say I could not, especially at their ages. I think I learned that I need to be stronger at times like that, be they big or small.

My Mom asked me if I thought that they don’t cry because they think that nobody’s coming to help them, but I don’t think that’s true. I think that they just know not to worry about the small things and save the crying for the big stuff.

Reflections on Serving - Julie

Lindsey and I were privileged to travel to Colima this year with the CenterPoint Mexico mission group.

We have been thinking how to put to paper our collective thoughts about our experiences but feel this a very difficult task.

We were well prepared before leaving for Colima on what to expect. There were no big surprises with the who, what and where aspects but there were big surprises on the impact this trip would have on our heart.

Lindsey and I felt so well taken care of. Jamie Morningstar arranged every detail so perfectly that we needed only to show up. She made a difficult trip so smooth and easy for such a large group. I am grateful to have her as a friend and for her deep love for this orphanage. We also felt taken care of by Dan and Shane ensuring we were always safe in the streets and helping us with our heavy luggage. We loved spending a week with such good people from our church and making new friends with people from North Carolina.

It seemed like it took forever before we finally arrived at the orphanage. My heart melted when we laid eyes on the children and how beautiful each one was. The kids have very little personal possessions of their own. And yet they are happy and content. These are special and unique kids. They are well behaved, well taken care of and very loving. These characteristics are an attribute to the amazing care givers that daily display the love of Christ to these kiddos. We felt welcomed by everyone at each orphanage. There seemed to be a connection with everyone we came into contact with there even though we could not speak the same language.

There were so many amazing aspects of our trip. The food, fellowship, culture, and connection of those we served made for memories that will last a lifetime. It was just too short of a time there. We think about the children that stole our hearts We think about the Christians worshiping our Lord just as we do every Sunday. We think about the tears that flowed when we had to leave. We think about the hugs from the beautiful kids. We think about how we miss being there. We think about how great our God is!! Our hearts are full. Full of love and respect for a group of people in Colima Mexico.

We left Colima with much more than we brought or more than we gave. Thank you Hogar De Amor. You are in our hearts FOREVER!

Love in Christ,

Julie and Lindsey Poulton

Reflections on Serving - Jamie

Hogar de Amor is a lot of things to me. It's a place I get to serve alongside my kids and my mom. It's a place I get to bring my church family and introduce them to the amazing joys of serving. It's a place where I am reminded of how very much I have to be grateful for. It's a place full of friends who mean a whole darn lot to me. It's a place of grace. It's a place that's doing institutional care right.

I have 2 kids by birth and 2 by adoption, so I've spent more than my fair share of time in orphanages (although nowhere near as long as my girls!). There is no substitute for a permanent home and a loving family, but if anything could come close, it's Hogar de Amor.

Grupo Amor (the church that runs Hogar de Amor) is committed to doing the very best they can for the kids in their care. These kids have food to eat and clothes to wear. They have houseparents and community who truly love them and are committed to them for the long haul. They have excellent education and are supported all the way through university. They have Jesus at every turn.

Somebody asked the very good question before this year's trip: If these kids have it so good, why don't we go to a really destitute place, a place where they really need us? My answer is two-fold:

1. The kids and caregivers of Hogar de Amor, though better off than many, still sure do appreciate extra hands, extra supplies, and a few hours when they don't have to serve as parent to 12-30 small children. Let's not romanticize things too much here; life is not easy at the hogar.
2. This is a chance for us to support a group who is trying to do things right. Hogar de Amor is a movement out of the community striving to care for its own. They are committed to best practices in orphan care. And by supporting them, we help them to spread and care for more kids following the same healthy model.

Hogar de Amor is not a perfect place - but it is a good place. And it is sheer joy to me that I get to be a small part of this very good place.