Tuesday: We all gathered at the hotel in San Antonio late in the afternoon, after our various plane trips from a bunch of states. This is my fourth trip. I look forward to it every year. I have moved to another city since I first started coming with the Temecula group, but still wouldn’t want to miss it. I have to admit that I failed miserably in studying my Rosetta Stone language lesson this year, but am hoping that this week will inspire me to attack it again.
There are 75 men on the trip this week, including 11 that have been here since the first week (or earlier). We all piled into the 13 passenger vans, and drove across town to Chopsticks, which is an incredible smorgasbord of all kinds of Chinese dishes. We all ate too much. I noticed that sitting at the table next to our group was the lead pastor from the big church in Reynosa & his brother. I have never seen him on the trip before. That is a big deal! It is a huge church which we also stop at during our travels. We always have a construction project there, and also join them in their Sunday service. He obviously thinks highly enough of POWER that he took a week off from his busy schedule to join us. He ended up in our van, so I am already off on a good start on my language training.
On the 3+ hour trip to Faith Mission, Dave Barnes led our van in sharing a little about ourselves, and our experiences with the group. Then we had a prayer time for the shared needs. Before we knew it, we had arrived at the border & Faith Missions.
After figuring out our bunk assignments, the leaders called us all to a meeting in the cafeteria. Brian Nelson shared the Bible verse for this year, which is Philippians 2:3-4. “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.” Pat Schmeling with Faith Missions (yes, he is also a part of our group) asked for help early in the morning with the breakfast preparation, which he starts at 6 am. Brian reminded us of the basic rules while we are here (clean up after yourselves, watch your language, help each other out, and a few more). Bob Krull explained instructions for the vans, caravan driving, gps, and an explanation about crossing the border (which we do twice every day). Bobby Biber came up and explained that every night he would be leading a prayer meeting, and welcomed one and all to come.
Then Ray Hahn outlined the construction projects that we will be doing this week. There will be 3 locations in Acuna (across the border from Faith Missions in Del Rio), including church additions and pastor housing. Most of what we will be doing is finish work, as the framing as already been done in the first two weeks. Then in Reynosa, there will be two different churches we will work on. This is about a day’s travel down the border from Acuna, and will happen later this week, along with our activities with the big church, Joy tours, and hopefully Refugio International Orphanage, where I sponsor one of the boys during the year.
After further instructions by Larry Johnson, Brian & Marty Read passed out the 3 year jackets to Wayne Holt, Dick & Eric Middlestead, Phil Yates, John Nielson & David Burkett. Thereupon, everybody was dismissed to various activities, including the prayer group, van preparation, etc., and here I am typing up this blog. My gosh, it is just about midnight. I will sign off until tomorrow night.
-Doug Blois