In 1991 Ray & Leah Hansen founded Rio Bravo Ministries and Casa Hogar Rio Bravo (Rio BRavo Children’s Home). Their story is amazing! It is well worth every cent of the plane ticket required to get you to Reynosa just to hear Ray tell the Hansen family’s story and to see the results first hand. While working in Nigeria in November I found myself thinking about Rio-Bravo each day. When I returned to the states I contacted my friend Ron who serves on staff at Rio Bravo. It turns out that they had several electrical needs. Ron then told me that one of the girls that we have grown close with during our 3 previous trips to Rio Bravo was about to celebrate her 15th birthday, which is a HUGE EVENT in Mexico. Barbara had asked if she could invite me, but Ron explained that it would not be right to ask Matt to travel all the way from PA to Mexico for a one day event. God had bigger plans in mind! I called my good buddy Amp in TN and asked him to could join me for a week at Rio Bravo. Our schedules lined up, the funds were available, so we booked our tickets.

Amp & I arrived on Wednesday and finished our electrical projects just in time to clean up for Barbara’s Party on Saturday night. On Sunday 24 men from Dallas, TX rolled into the campus with 2 trailer loads of tools and materials. The Highland Meadows Christian Church POWER Team (Purposeful Outreach With Eternal Results)  planned on building a new playground for the kids on Monday & Tuesday. Knowing that the sun sets around 6:00pm everyday they had purchased (4) 400 watt light fixtures to illuminate the playground each evening. They had the fixtures and the wire – all they needed were a couple of electricians. Hmmm…. seems to good to be just a scheduling coincidence. Ray called a local contractor that sets utility poles, and pinch me I must be dreaming, a line crew showed up in 1/2 an hour to set the poles needed to mount the lights! By Tuesday evening the air was filled with sounds of kids joyfully playing on their new playground – under the lights! Check out this fantastic organization at www.rio-bravo.org .