Monday, August 9th

Cost: $20

Worship, teaching, team competition, and an afternoon at Lake Gregory

Sign up in The Loft with payment by Sunday, August 8th

Hey guys, don’t miss out on all the great opportunities happening to celebrate you, the Class of 2010!

Senior Tables
Saturday, June 5th in The Loft following the Youth Choir Program

Senior Night Out
Saturday, June 5th (4pm-10pm)
We’re heading to Balboa Island for a Harbor Cruise, followed by dinner at BJ’s.

Senior Presentations
Sunday, June 6th (all 3 services)

Make sure to turn in your “Grad Stuff” card by this Wednesday, June 2nd!

We’re participating in World Vision’s 30 Hour Famine on May 21st-22nd.  We’ll be fasting from 12:30pm on Friday until 6:30pm on Saturday.  We will be having water and juice during that time.  All students must turn in a Parent Consent Form (click here to download) by May 2nd in order to participate.  Check out this video to see what it’s all about.

For more information visit 30HourFamine.org

This will probably be our last update on the blog before we come home tomorrow morning.  Everyone is doing well.  We’ve made some good progress on the clinic and even were able to work some on a fence around the property (the project we were originally planning to do).  Thanks for praying.  Pray that we finish strong, stay healthy, and have a safe trip home in the morning.  I am hoping (key word: hoping) to hit the road at 7am tomorrow morning which will probably put us home around lunchtime.  We are planning to stop for food, but if we’re making really good time we’ll push on through.  I’ll have students call parents once we cross the border and estimate a more accurate arrival time.

Life has calmed down quite a bit in Mexicali.  We ended up with 30 extra people helping on-site yesterday which helped us knock out a lot of work.  Also, Mexico Outreach worked with the local government to bring in a bulldozer and truck to help clear out the debris from the burned building.  It was going great until the bulldozer popped  a tire (oops).  We assume they will be coming back to finish the job. 

Students are still doing well.  The messages and time in camp has been awesome as well.  I’ve been so focused on talking about the earthquake that I hadn’t mentioned that.  Our group has really bonded and seems to be growing in their walks with God.

Prayer Needs: Finishing strong (tomorrow is last day on-site), continued safety (we’ve felt many small aftershocks, but nothing huge yet), patience with one another

We appreciate your prayers.

Everything is still going well in Mexicali.  Our team is doing an amazing job.  Water and mud had come up through the floor of the clinic so they spent most of yesterday clearing that out.  It looks a ton better.  We have also cleared much of the metal debris out from the burned building.  A family nearby with huge needs is going to receive the metal to re-roof their home and sell the rest as scrap to buy food for their four kids.

A team from Village Christian School is going to be joining us on-site this afternoon to give us another 14-20 bodies to help with cleanup.  This morning our team is working on finishing out the clean-up of the clinic, resetting the bodega (tool shop), and pulling additional scrap from the burned building.  I will be heading with Bruce Lacey over to a second clinic that is about 25-30 minutes away that sustained some damage that he just found out about this morning.  I don’t think it’s anything major, something to do with a damaged water heater.

Keep praying for our team’s health (we have no one sick, while other groups have had a fun bug going around), safety, and attitude.  They are doing fantastic.  Can’t wait to share with you more of what God is doing here in Mexicali.  His timing is perfect.

This is my first time this week with internet access.  As everyone knows we were hit with a 7.2 earthquake yesterday afternoon.  We were about 10-20 minutes from the epicenter.  Everyone is fine and in good spirits.  The students responded very well.

We were at the Healing Hands Ministries medical clinic when the quake hit.  The quake itself was very intense, almost knocking us off our feet.  It knocked a propane tank over which caught on fire, burning down a dormitory building here at the clinic.  Thank God no one was inside the building when it burned.  (We are not staying at this dormitory, we are camping about 20 minutes from here).  The dorm is completely gone and will need to be rebuilt.  Shortly after the quake hit, water started coming up out of the ground (I’m told this is called liquefaction).  It’s turned some large chunks of the clinic property into muddy messes.  Worst part of the water coming up is a pocket of it poked up inside the clinic, sending mud into hospital rooms (empty at the time).

It has been amazing to see God at work on this trip.  What a blessing for Healing Hands that we have a team here to help clean out the clinic.  I’ve seen Him open up students’ eyes as He completely protected them from danger.  God is our rock…..even when the earth below us seems completely unstable.  Our focus for the trip is now clear – we’re here to help this clinic in this small, rural community begin the stages of repair so they can minister and share the hope of Jesus with those who live here.

Prayer Needs:
Wisdom for Bruce Lacey, the administrator of the clinic
Funds to rebuild the facilities here
Work teams to rebuild the facilities here
Students’ eyes to continue to be opened to what God is doing all around them

Parents – you should be so proud of your kids. They responded so well in an emergency. They are all doing very well and are in great spirits. Our camp at Cuernavaca where we are staying is in good conditions. We were without power until about 5am this morning, but they have backup generators that took care of dinner and chapel. I am honestly privileged to be able to hang out with your students this week. They are doing an amazing job.

I will post further updates here or on my twitter account for shorter updates – twitter.com/mikelovato (this automatically updates my facebook status if you are already my friend on there.