Saturday, May 7, 2011

Yo Heart Cholula

This semester el pozo started a new tradition. I posted about it once, but it is something that I must talk about again. We have named it….Yo Amo Cholula or Yo Heart Cholula. In English, I Love Cholula. I know we talk a lot about Puebla being our home, but in reality El Pozo is located in the small city of Cholula. I guess I could say it is a suburb of Puebla.

Our students have a heart to reach out to their community in a more tangible way. As our staff thought about how to do this, we just kept coming back to the idea that many of our supporting churches are doing right now.

One day….the whole ministry…go out and serve the community.

So from conversations with staff and students came Yo Heart Cholula.

Our first one was go out and pick up trash. Simple. But very needed. It was a huge success. The students felt as if they were really making a difference in their community. Business owners were coming out and asking us who we were and showing their appreciation. It really was awesome.

So we did it every first Friday of every month this spring semester. We had between 40 and 60 students participating every time. One month, the football team and a few coaches from the university came to participate. Another month, both girls and boys basketball teams from UDLA came. For many of them, it was the first time they had stepped into the casa verde.

Although we picked up trash every month, it was always on the way to our project. We have planted fruit trees for people, painted desks at a local school, cleaned and painted an afterschool center, put out trash cans on the street, and helped create a garden for a community center.

This semester was the beginning of something extremely special. The staff is already brainstorming and looking for more opportunities for the upcoming year. It definitely started out as something we knew we needed but prayed the students would get behind….and it ended up being something quite incredible. God worked in the hearts of our students and they definitely showed their love for Cholula.

(p.s. the photos were in a order but it didnt save...sorry.)




picking up trash on the main road beside the university.


emerson posing on the way to the school.


carter brought his friend alex to help pick up trash.


they are leading the way.


emerson painting a room at a local school.


andrea carrying a bag of trash down the road.


painting the outside wall of a school.


basketball members help kami clean the outside gate doors to a community center.


boys basketball team makes a garden for an after school center.


quick break and great posing.


got to love him.


a little girl at the center helped take care of sawyer while i painted.


may 2011 yo heart cholula group!


the front of our shirts


cleaning the center's sign...can you say the name?

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