It is impossible to minister to people effectively without connecting to their heart.  This is especially true when the people are as outgoing and friendly as the Mexican people are.  

Although it's important to preach and pray for the people, it's also important to let them know you're real, and to build a relationship with them.

One of the challenges we had in Mexico was that our children didn't speak Spanish.  Although they wanted to be friendly, and the Mexican children wanted to be friendly with them, there was a language barrier that was hard to work through.  

One of the ways that we overcame this was by our daughter Jenni having a cake decorating class with some of the teenage girls.  

Some of the things that we think are common knowledge in this country aren't so much so in others.  That's in part because of the cost of teaching them.  Most people in third world countries can't afford the tools necessary to learn things that we think are commonplace.

As you can see from these pictures, they had a great time decorating the cakes, and even decorated each other.