The Rio

With our principal ministry being our home, it isn't often that we get out to serve in the orphanages or impoverished communities that Back2Back is connected with.  But last Saturday we made it a point to do just that.  We went out to a poor community called the Rio with several other staff, where we helped serve a meal at a soup kitchen, put on a small children's program while the director of the soup kitchen gave a small program for the adults.
The people in this community live in makeshift homes constructed out of whatever materials they can find - cardboard, scraps of metal, plastic tarps, mattress springs...   The houses are very close to a riverbed which overflows whenever Monterrey receives heavy rains.  When Hurricane Alex hit earlier this year, most of the houses were washed away and had to be rebuilt.

Some houses in the Rio

Ana walking through the neighborhood

Aside from the just plain obvious need, Back2Back decided to work in this community because a lot of the children who end up in the orphanages come from situations like this.  If we can minister to the families who live here while they are still together, perhaps we can help them remain together and avoid another child being put into an orphanage.  Studies show that even if materially a family has nothing, but the children are with their parents, they will be emotionally healthier than if they were in an orphanage, even if they have better physical conditions in the orphanage.  Back2Back therefore is trying to help these families meet their physical, emotional and spiritual needs.  

Women of the Rio enjoying a meal in the soup kitchen

Spending a day in the Rio humbles you and makes you realize how much you have.  It also encourages me that the education and life lessons that we share with the boys in our house will make it possible for them to begin to break this cycle of poverty in their families and be able live a life very different from this in the future.

Thankful

This was definitely a different Thanksgiving for us.  Since moving to Mexico, we usually celebrated Thanksgiving with a small group of friends in our home.  This year we celebrated with 150 other people with a buffet style spread, including 8 huge turkeys, and ate in a big white tent.

After the meal there was a time of worship and a short reflection.  But my favorite time of the evening was actually after the formal, planned program had ended.  A group of students from the Hope Program picked up the instruments and microphones and continued worshiping well into the night.  A lot of times it takes a lot of asking and reminding to get our teens to participate in community events, so it was so refreshing to watch them do this out of their own initiative.  

If I may take a moment to brag, the young man sitting on the box drum (I'm sure there's a real name for that instrument, but I don't know what it is!) is Leo, one of the boys who live in our house.  He is 17 years old and finishing up high school.  He is very intelligent and gifted in the arts.  He got 100% on his math final exam this week, and is an incredible artist.  But his real passion is drumming.  Whenever he plays, he becomes so animated and always has a huge grin on his face.  He plays the drums every Sunday at a church in Casa Hogar Douglas, a nearby orphanage that Back2Back supports, and several people have told me that seeing Leo play is their favorite part of Sunday morning.  I'm excited to see what Leo decides to study in college and how he will use his talents in the future!