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Why?

By Becky Roberts
My heart is full, and slightly confused. More to the point, it is thoughtful, trying to sort out this week and what has gone on in the life of the family we have just given a new home to.
Ofelia’s mother passed away the day the team arrived in Mexico. Death is often […]

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Am I Making a Difference? by Heidi, Summer Intern, Mexico 08

Am I making a difference? I am one person of thousands that go to Mexico. There are organizations that stay for years that build houses, schools, clinics, hospitals. They provide education for the young and old. There are numerous organizations that do numerous things, and I am only one person in […]

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Fergie and the Easter Eggs

Finally, they had arrived…all 107 of them. We had waited all day to get to this point, and in typical style, they were 2 hours later than we had agreed upon! But, we reasoned with ourselves, the point was that they were here now!
It was the last day of our time with them, and the day before Good Friday. Our Hero Holiday team had spent the past hour hiding 1200 Easter eggs and about 150 marshmallow candies on a one acre piece of land that we were staying on. They hid them for the kids that were coming to say good-bye to us after spending 10 amazing days together. These children had impacted our lives in such an incredible and unique way that it was very difficult for us to quantify what it meant to each of us. They had taught us so much about courage, resilience, and hope- and they had taught us that you can trust again after incredible pain and tragedy. These children and their leaders had become some of our personal heroes.

When they came running down the steps to meet us on the cleared area, we were anxious as we saw the sun quickly fading and worried that we wouldn’t have enough time to finish our plans. As they sat in front of me and the translator, they were completely unaware of what I was going to tell them. For them, it was enough to be able to see us again and be together. The thought of what I was going to get to tell them even got me excited! I began to tell them about the tradition for Canadian children about hunting for hidden Easter eggs. I explained to them that this weekend, all over the world, millions of children would be doing this, and because we loved them so much, we wanted them to have the chance to do it first.
I explained to them where to look and showed them what the candy looked like, and as we handed out the little bags to collect the candies in, some of them started to quiver with excitement and anticipation! A couple of the little girls were holding and squeezing each other’s hands as they tried to contain their excitement. We counted together out loud to three, and then I yelled “Go!”.
It was mayhem! They squealed and laughed and shouted as they jumped over bushes, rolled on the grass, and dove under plants to find the candies they had been promised were there. I actually started to cry as I thought about how beautiful it was to hear them laugh and play like this, and how privileged we were to be able to do this for them.
As I was drinking in the scene of chaos and ecstatic joy, I was brought back to a little dose of bizarre reality: one of the staff at the hotel where we were doing this with the children, in an effort to try to give us some mood music and background cheering thought he would start up the giant, rusty sound system and blare the music at the maximum volume. A nice gesture…until I realized it was the Black Eyed Peas…singing ‘My Humps’!

In the Afterglow of the Great Egg Hunt!

Day One…by Andrea Lamont

Our group arrived here yesterday excited and ready for their Hero Holiday. After picking them up at the airport in San Diego and getting to know them on the way over the Tijuana border, I knew for sure that this is going to be a great trip. Our first adventure was to rent some stallions (horses that is) and take a ride along the beach. Surreal for most of us, sitting on top of the horse looking out at the city to our left, ocean to our right, and our destination in front of us. Then back to the van we went driving along the winding roads… after about 4 hours we arrived to our home sweet home. Of course the first meal that we ate had to be somewhat “Mexican” so the leadership students made up some quesadillas, nachos, salsa and guacamole.
horseback rising on the beach
Today we started Hero Holiday orientation. Becky took us to meet the family we are building for and around to a few of the projects that the organization has already done and we talked about cultural differences. We discussed how well off we are as “North American’s”. She gave us a chance to look around at different places in the area, she took us to an old shipwreck, the beach, a graveyard and we checked out some workers camps from a distance.
awareness tour
The most impacting part of today was when we were visiting the grave sight. See this graveyard isn’t like most in Canada, or even anywhere I’ve been before. This one is dedicated solely to children. The grave sight went on forever; I couldn’t even start to count. Some of the graves were not labeled and then some had crosses or monuments above them. We walked along side reading the dates and names on the memorials. Most of the children had only been about 4 or 5. If that wasn’t enough to break my heart, I looked ahead a couple of feet and saw fresh flowers. As I was walking over to it, it hit me… This young boy died two days ago, he was only three weeks old. He never even got a chance to live. I had to close my eyes to blink away the tears. At the back of my mind I got lost in my thoughts, the cruelty of living in poverty. Not having the right resources or knowledge to prevent diseases, not having the money or shelter to keep your kids alive.
kids watching us:)

LIFE CYCLE at University of British Columbia Okanagan

Wednesday, October 16th
12pm-4pm
UBCO Courtyard
Come on down and talk to Chris, check out what he is doing with his ride from BC to Mexico and get the chance to donate to community development projects.
Also..bonus…it’s great to be outside in the fall and there will be a band and a graffiti artist.
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Final Destination

Hola, amigos! Team Three has reached their final destination at Sosua, Dominican Republic. They are all going for a little snooze as it has no doubt been a very long night! When they wake up, all of your messages will be waiting for them on the wall
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Hero Update

Hello everyone! The second team has arrived on Canadian soil safe and sound and happy about flushing toilet paper. (You had to be there:) And…we are saying hello to all our new heroes for the third trip who just got off the bus from the airport. What an emotional roller coaster! Oh my!
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The Heroes are Home

Hello everyone. Just a quick note for family and friends. I just spoke with Charles and everyone has landed back on Canadian soil safe and sound.
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Thirsty for some more photos?

In case you haven’t noticed, we have added some photo albums to the site, please check them out; photos will be added continually as the trip progresses. Click the photos link above to see the albums, and a great way to view them is to click the “view as slideshow” link. There are […]

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Blog Housekeeping…

Hey, everyone. Loving all your comments. I’m still trying to get the printer working. Might have something to do with an unnamed someone who dragged the hockey bag container the printer down a flight of stairs Tomorrow I hope to print off all the comments. If you post a comment and don’t see […]

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Recent Comments

  • marj mcclelland: Dear Charles and Bill…what an incredible life-changing experience for our group-29 Anglicans...
  • Jill Pitt: I enjoyed your posting! I like that it mentioned someone who was not a student participating, as I am not...
  • kitajima takamoto: cool
  • jeffrey murphy: i was very tucked at the school assiable and i wish to bbe on the heroholday.i am very tucked that...
  • tom debrayanna: becky I saw wendy reading this the other day and was stunned … I just can’t imagine you...

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