It was the first day serving in Monterrey. It was our second trip as a family to Back2Back Mexico, but it was our first time there since we adopted our five-year old daughter, Yanni, from China three years ago. We worked on building projects at a children’s home. The orphanage basically consisted of three large… Read more
This week I have been thinking about shelter in unexpected forms. Take one of my boys, Homero, for example. When Homero was twelve years old, he came to live at Manantial de Amor, one of the children’s homes in Monterrey. He had gotten into a lot of trouble at various schools and even with the… Read more
At the beginning of this year I decided that I wanted to take my running to a new level. I’m still what most would call novice, but I decided that I wanted to run some local 10K races, that I wanted to run a half marathon, and that ultimately I wanted to run a full… Read more
There’s a field on the other side of the street in Rio I. For the most part, it’s been vacant. The only sign of life has been the layer of weeds sprouting up. After the rainy season the ground covering becomes so thick that sexual predators have been known to hide there to prey on… Read more
School is out for summer! As summer vacation begins, some of the orphans we serve leave their children’s home to temporarily stay with any living relative who may be willing to take them in for a few weeks during the break. I hardly know how to wrap my mind around this reality. It’s difficult to… Read more
What a great opportunity we had as a ministry to address the enthusiastic crowd of students gathered at the Vineyard Community Church in Cincinnati for the Summer of Service Conference. Over 900 teenagers from 14 states came for a week of showing God’s tangible love to the city through outreach and service projects like helping build homes with Habitat… Read more
There has been a faithful Back2Back supporter, who I’ll call Jill, who has regularly donated money for a little girl named Sarahi. Sarahi lives in the Rio, which is one of the squatter’s villages that Back2Back serves. Sarahi is eight years old and just finishing 2nd grade. Jill has helped to fund Sarahi’s education and… Read more
This past Sunday morning, I accompanied a visiting team from Cincinnati to Casa Hogar Douglas in the morning for church. This is the seventh Father’s Day that I have lived here in Mexico, but for some reason it really began to dawn on me throughout the morning what a depressing day this must be for… Read more
This week we are being visited by Calumet Christian School out of Columbus. One of their teachers, Chris, has been coming here for a couple of years and now comes twice a year, once with his school and once with his church. They are a group of men who have decided to focus on one… Read more
We recently took our boys to a nearby lake for some fishing where I happened to capture this photo of Leo. Leo lives with the Cooper Family in the James House as a part of The Hope Program. Just like my boys he is getting ready to graduate from Secundaria (middle school) and will start… Read more