Following the Father

Friday, July 10th 

Yesterday I did more painting on the iron in the courtyard wall.  The paint is so runny I end up painting my hands as well, and since it is oil pain it does not come off easily!    Like before we worked on various projects around the church all morning then ate lunch.  After lunch we all took turns in the showers.  There is a separate building where the showers and toilets are. There is a boys side and a girls side with two showers in each.

After showers we packed up and headed out to the community for VBS.  The road into the community is a winding thing made out of dirt and chunks of concrete that you can never drive more than 5-7 miles per hour on.

The kids wave and get excited when they see the two big white vans coming.  One little 5 year old boy named Thomas is usually waiting for us at the site where we set up by the mission.  I enjoy interacting with him, he's so cute and funny.  After we arrived we got in a circle to pray before setting up.  Someone from Merge or the church gives the kids name tags as they start pouring in.  I went behind the canopies to the little area where we do games and played with them while things continued to get set up. The girls enjoyed the jump ropes we brought and were very good with them.  Thomas enjoyed throwing and kicking a back and forth with me.    He grinned the entire time and would run to get the ball whenever it would get away from us and roll down the hill.  He is probably about the size of a 3 year old and has darker complexion like that of the Mexican Indians.

We did our VBS routine and rolled with what came.  I think things went pretty well and we all did better at just making the best of whatever happened.  The kids that have been there before also remember how things went before which is helpful.  I smiled as much as possible since my facial expressions are my only means of communication.  Some of the kids are really getting the Bible verse and everyone loves coloring, which is what we do to fill in time after we practice the verse. Milford and I actually have broken the Bible verse into 3 parts.  We did the first part Tues, second part Wed.and the Thurs.  Today we'll practice the whole thing.

The language barrier is driving me crazy as usual.  I think I'm OK at doing the sign language type communication but I just want so very bad to talk with kids at VBS and Pastor Thomas' family and those from the church!  I feel very used to it in a way after Ghana and Taiwan but the frustration of not being able to fully commune with everyone is still there.  I remember now why I wished when I was little that I knew all the languages of the world.

In the evening we ate a wonderful dinner that the pastor's family made outside.  Everyone had a nice bug hunk of grilled chicken.  Every evening we eat a delicious Mexican mean. After dinner our group, the family, some from the church, and Merge drove to a high spot in the city.  We drove up as far as you're allowed to drive and hiked the rest of the way (on pavement) to the top of hill where there is a large platform with a massive flag pole in the middle.  The flag wasn't flying that day which was a disappointment but the view from up there was not.  Ben got some good pictures of the city and mountains.  As it grew dark the city lights made even more incredible.  After everyone had a chance to walk around and look at the view and take pictures we gathered together to split up into groups. The real reason we went up there was to pray over the city.  We split into 4 groups, one to go to the north, south, east, and west sides of the platform.  My group, I believe, was on the North side.  Our prayer group had Milford, two men from the church, Gadiel, Niel, Ben and me.  We wrapped arms around each others shoulders and each prayed as we went around the circle and also during each others prayers.  You could feel the Holy Spirit moving as we prayed for the church, mission, our church, and the city of Monterrey.  After the groups were done praying we gathered together as one big group and prayed all at one time out loud.

Sometimes in the evening after we get back to the church compound (the Pasor's home is on the same lot) some of us will sit outside on benches with the pastor's 3 sons Joel, Gadiel, and Niel and they'll bring out their guitar and play and sing some songs for us.  If we know them sometimes we'll sing along in English.  It is fun to get to know people in casual yet deeper way.  The guys actually have their own Christian band with their first C.D coming out soon.