Rain Rain Go Away...First off, Thursday we spend getting ready for our Mexico trip and then we were all able to have the rest of the afternoon off, so we cleaned our rooms and packed. I also fit in an interview with Erin! :) For the summer position I want as a counselor for Headwaters. Then all the girls spent some time getting all dressed up to go into town for a birthday dinner for Meredith! That was really fun. After dinner at Mamacita's, Kandace, Anna, Lezlie and I went to Walmart for some last minute shopping for Mexico. Well, we got in the car and all was well until it started POORING. It was raining pretty hard, and the lighting was out of control, it would light up the sky as if it were day for a second. After a few lighting built lit up the sky we decided to pray for safety driving the rest of the way to camp, it was still a good 40 minute drive. After praying we were okay, but the rain didn't really let up much, but we kept going and when we were approaching the 8 mile road into camp we started to worry about it flooding, so we prayed again. Everything was pretty slushy until we got to Mile 5. About a quarter of a mile past the 5 mile marker was a large dip in the road. We approached the water and stopped with the headlights shining on a part of the water that was clearly flowing. We weren't sure how deep it was, but we didn't feel good about flowing water at all, especially in Kandace's tini car! Lezlie decided she wanted to see just how deep it was, so she rolled up her jeans, crawled out of the car and started wading into the water. The water went to her ankles, and then her shins, and then to her knees and even a little past, and we she wasn't even to the deepest part yet. The water would have come up to the windows of the car probably. It was pretty intense. So, we turned around to see about driving somewhere with cell phone service. A couple of miles later, on the dirt road we decided to pray that some how we would get cell phone service on the road, or maybe just even before we got all the way to Garvin's or something. We prayed, and started checking our phones, we Kandace's phone is not AT&T, but it started to feed off of the AT&T tower! So, we called Jason. Right about the time we called Jason, LA and her boyfriend Matt drove up in their cars. Well, they tried to get the 1 Ton truck to get us, but they weren't able to so Jason told us to put a rock by the water and watch to see if it goes down at all because by the time we were able to talk to him a second time it was already about 11:15 and that was the time that the flash flood warning was supposed to be up. We were about to drive back to the hill we couldn't get past when the Amigo's that work at camp drove up in their van, and then another truck of three guys. Anyways, basically...the Amigo's tried to drive through it, after the truck had gone through (it had already gone down probably a foot by that time), but the van got stuck and flooded the engine...The truck ended up coming back finally. And after two hours of sitting on the dirt road we were finally home and ready to crash in bed.
World Mandate...On Friday morning we packed up Meredith's car and camp's Impala and headed to Waco for World Mandate. After 5 hours of driving we finally arrived at Jonathan Berry's house were we stayed for the night. The conference lasted until Sunday afternoon, but most of us had to leave after the last session on Saturday because Sunday morning we left for Mexico. World Mandate is a missions conference, and it was amazing! I think the biggest thing I learned was just the power of prayer, and saw God's power intensified. What a mighty God we serve! It was really cool. Saturday morning probably spoke the most to me. Although, they were all amazing! But Saturday morning had me on my knees crying harder then I've cried in a long time! My heart just broke for all the people who don't know Christ's love!
Well, Saturday night the session was supposed to end at 10, but it kept going past 11. So, at 11 we decided we should leave and finally got to camp about 4 in the morning. I got to my room threw some stuff in my suite case for Mexico, and got about 2 hours of sleep until I had to wake up and get in the van to leave for Mexico.
Mexico...
Two hours later we arrived in Acuna Mexico. It's weird to cross the boarder like that. They didn't check anything no body even came out to talk to us, we just pretty much went straight through, and immediately it was different. There was no middle ground of sort of nice houses, or some English, or anything it was complete immersion. We first went to the Motel we stayed at, called Las Alpes, got our rooms and had a few minutes to chill because Rick and Jason could tell we were all pretty exhausted. Rick Lay was the missionary who took us. He is from San Antonio, but he works with RAM ministries and goes to Mexico fairly often.
After settling into our rooms a little bit we headed out to this church called "The Flood Church" it was in the middle of this little neighborhood. It is called the flood church because every time it rains it floods because it is in the lowest ground and all the water drains right into the church. They are now trying to gain funds to move the church next door where it is much higher ground. But these people are all so poor, they had a time of offering, and several people went up, but it maybe made about 5 American dollars. The church was probably really flooded a couple of days ago...
After the flood church we had lunch, took a nap in the hotel, woke up and went on to another church. At this church we had planned a few things for them. They were having a service and then a block party. This church is working on a building. They have their service outside right now, even though it's so cold! They sang and had the kids come up and sing and had some testimonies. Kent was able to share his testimony with Rick as his translator. After the singing we took all of the kids in the pastor's house for craft time and then dinner. Meredith made them hot dogs while we handed gospel coloring sheets with verses in Spanish on them to the youngest kids, and made gospel bracelets with the older kids! I realized how much I really miss working with kids! It was so fun, even though I couldn't really communicate with them...
The next day was Monday and we ate breakfast and were going to have a Bible study at breakfast, but ended up running out of time. Moses went to speak to this homeless man that was walking up to the restaurant asking for coffee. Moses stopped him and prayed with him. That was pretty cool. I was pretty proud of Moses and all of the Spanish he remembered, and his heart for the people, it was pretty cool. After breakfast we went to this store, much like a Walmart, and bought food for about 6 families. We then took them to a missionary there, she said we had bought too much stuff and we would be able to split it up into more bags, so we made a few more bags and began walking around the neighborhood. The first house we stopped at was sort of on this hill and it was real small house, but actually not too bad for the area. It had three rooms, but they had 10 people living in this tini house! 8 of these people are kids, and 6 of them are adopted because their mother committed suicide, and their father didn't want to keep them. One of the little boys at this house accepted Christ, his name is Gabriel and he is 7-years-old! :)
We also went to this house where this lady lived in this little ply wood shack which holds almost no heat at all and she had just had a baby 2 days before! She wasn't supposed to be up walking, but she was. She went into the house for a moment and then brought out the baby. The baby's name is Norma, she was tini and didn't look very healthy at all. We were all worried about her staying warm, she was wrapped in so many blankets you couldn't even hold her as you would a normal baby. They didn't understand that she needed to be held close so she would get your body warmth.
I was so wrapped up in what happened on Monday morning I can barely even remember the rest of the day. I believe we ended that day with a little bit of building. We went to this church, definitely the nicest church we saw, and they were building a new building for their kids. We helped build some bench's for the kids to sit on.
Tuesday, we went back and built more bench's and helped with a few other things.
Tuesday night we went back to the church after dinner and were able to attend one of the church services. They had worship, which was really neat 'cause there were a couple of songs that we knew in English, so while they sang in Spanish we were singing the same song in English. It was really cool to be able to worship with them like that! After singing we did our skit that we had prepared, and Amanda gave her Testimony. Then Jason said a little bit about Moses and his background and he played a song on the electric guitar.
Wednesday we were supposed to visit with another pastor in Mexico, but it ended up storming that night, and the roads were starting the flood. Jason and Rick decided that we would not be able to make it in to see them. So after sleeping in a bit we ate breakfast at this really cool restaurant and headed over to the drug rehab facility.
We walked into the drug rehab facility and they were worshiping. It was a really cool experience, these people just had so much joy. As we stood there clapping and watching them dance around several of the girls came up and linked our arms so that we would dance with them! They were so full of joy and so happy to be there worshiping together. After their worship time they had a couple of testimonies and them we were able to do our skit for them and then Moses gave his testimony.
The rehab place is completely sustained by burritos that they make and take them to town to sell. This place was really nice, and it is expanding!
Mexico was awesome. Before we went I had told Meredith that I wasn't all that excited about it, 'cause I've seen poverty and I felt like it was going to be more of a reminder rather then a new experience...I started praying that God would give me a heart for Mexico and heart for the people that we met...It brought a new meaning to ask and you shall receive. As I walked back to my room one night with Meredith she asked me how I was doing and how I felt, I told her I shouldn't have prayed for a heart for this country 'cause now my heart is so overwhelmed.
