The whole team made it safely to Acuña on Sunday evening after a long day of travel. We all met at school to catch a ride to the airport at the early hour of 4 am. Daylight savings, of course, had to be on Sunday. We flew from Nashville to San Antonio where we rented two vans to drive to Acuña. Our first stop on the way out of San Antonio was Whataburger, a Texas classic, to eat lunch/breakfast for many. We drove for about 3 hours before arriving in Del Rio. In Del Rio, we stopped to pick up snacks at Walmart. Since we arrived early, we hung out in the Walmart parking lot playing football to pass the time.  We eventually met Scott who is our project leader this week from Casas por Cristo. He directed us on how to cross the border and instructed us on what to do if we got stopped or separated.

We only had to drive for a few minutes before arriving in Acuña. We had no issues crossing into Mexico which was a huge relief. As soon as we crossed the border, it looked like we stepped into a different world. We drove through the city to the place where we are staying for the week, a former church. After dropping off our belongings and setting up our beds, we explored the area around us. Scott brought us to a Mexican restaurant to eat dinner. We all shared giant platters of meat and queso and tried these bubbly lime drinks called limonada mineral.

Full and tired from such a long day, we still had enough energy to visit the site where we would be building the house and pick up supplies. When we returned to the church, we hung out on the porch to get to know each other better and play card games. All of us went to bed early to recover from our travel day and prepare for a week of hard work.

(written by Student Team Leader, Jamie Keith)

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Here are some additional pictures from the team’s first day of work on Monday!