Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Independence Day in Tijuana

This past week was an exciting time for us at Baja Bible School as we shared the week with our first ever class of students.  They spent their first week with Dave Burdette going over culture and spending a lot of time in the city learning from the people of Tijuana.  So, in the theme of being learners and getting to know Mexican culture, we headed out to celebrate Mexico's Independence Day.  It is a very celebrated event down here, and is celebrated on the 15th and 16th of September.  We participated in the evening events on September 15th.  This is the night that people gather in the city squares all over the country to participate in El Grito.  This occurs at 11:00pm traditionally and is done in honor of the war heroes that were part of Mexico becoming independent from Spain.  As El Grito begins (which is a shout), the president yells !VIVA! and then proceeds to go through a list of war heroes... !VIVA HILDALGO! and the crowd yells back !VIVA!  This went on for a few minutes followed by three shouts of !VIVA MEXICO!  Then there was music and shouting and fireworks and lots soap being sprayed out of cans :-)  It was really cool to be there and celebrating with them.  I have posted some pictures from our outing together, including the results of what happens when you get caught in the soap spraying festivities.  (I really thought it was silly string at first, but very glad that it was soap :-)


Students and Staff celebrating and wearing the large Bigotes (mustaches) that they were selling on site  (We were not the only group wearing these :-)


Being Sprayed

More Soap

The fireworks after El Grito were amazing

Monday, September 7, 2009

Time for School

Baja Bible School starts on September 14th!  This means we are now less than a week away from opening for the first year of school!  The dorms are finished and the classroom is ready after the new floor was just recently poured.  If you would like to see how the floor was transformed, check out bajaandbeyond.blogspot.com to see photos from the concrete pour.  

The next week will be filled with many finishing touches to get the campus ready for the students.  A few will be joining us on Saturday and then we officially begin the year together on Sunday night.  

I have included the most recent photo of the dorms (as of today) and the finished classroom.  For those of you that remember the campus in the earlier forms, I added a couple of those photos too...pictures of His faithfulness in supplying countless workers and supplies.  


The dorms, ready for students!


The finished classroom