Sunday -- The First Ever Tom Begin Birthday Barn Party

Pressed down, shaken together and running over isn't just a description of your return on what you give -- it's also and apt summary of what happened on the hill overlooking the hills around Ensenada. Brother Tom Begin graciously allowed us to use his birthday as a reason to let loose and celebrate the joy of being alive in Christ at the first ever City of Children Barn Party.

There are so many challenges our teens both Mexican and Americans face from a society and social media that is trying to bring them down, to capture their minds and hearts, to get them to give in and forget whose they are that sometimes its good and healthy and right to let them celebrate life in Christ. In the hard-working, regimented and routine life of the children here at the home, its good to whisk them away, if only for a night, from the every day to experience a moment of exuberance. Taking the children out of the City of Children for any kind of event is quite an ordeal. It requires contacting the agency in the home state of every child involved. And the children here come from all over the Baja and western Mexico. And so, by decorating up a little forgotten corner of their campus -- the maintenance barn -- we were able to whisk them away from their everyday existence without ever leaving the walls of the City.

They were transported through food, flowers, lights hanging in the barn's rafters, an array of colorfully decorated tables with artful centerpieces, ice cream, photo area and backdrop, an authentic local Mariachi band, DJ music, a full moon overhead and mountains all around, and the laughter and joy of fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. It was a complete surprise that they were only told was going to happen just minutes before they headed up the hill. Thank you so much, Daisy Skidmore and team, for leading this effort with so many others helping to bring this moment to life. It's a night that will long be remembered and, Lord willing, repeated.

We'd like to think that tonight we could feel God looking down and smiling on us as any good father does when he sees his children playing joyfully together and reaching up to him with love and a heart that is light.  Life is good. Because our God is so very good.

[Editors Note: Please do not post any of the pictures of the Mexican children here on your social media. Because of the age of the children, the views of the government here and privacy concerns, we are not allowed to share on social media and can only share here because this is a relatively private space.]