After a short night at iStay Hotel in McAllen, we had breakfast and met for our 7 am devotion in one of their conference rooms. Jay & John led us in worship songs, then Dave talked about Phil. 2:3-4 again. Today he shared about King David, how he was a sinner like the rest of us, but that he repented from his sin, and magnified the Lord through his psalms of praise. I was one of the men chosen by Brian to pray this morning, which was another first for me. As was standard, we prayed for the activities of the day, our families back home, and the missionaries. Then it was on to Magdiel Bible College in Matamoros, Mexico, which is about one hour south, across the border from Brownsville, Texas. POWER has been going there since 2001, and is one of the major sponsors of the school. We broke up into groups to spend time with students from each of the 3 grades levels. We got out of our comfort zones (language barrier) to interact with them, breaking up into groups that competed for points with some silly games. After passing out new tote bags to all of them, we shared a meal in the large cafeteria with them, and raised some more money for them by auctioning off a few of the College’s t shirts. A check was presented to the graduating class of students, then it was a time of soccer, and breaking up into small groups to share pictures and hang out with them. It was the largest group of students that I have seen in my 4 years with POWER, and they had a lot of enthusiasm and love of the Lord!
After saying our goodbyes, we piled into the vans for the border crossing back to the USA, and then back to the iStay Hotel in McAllen. Dinner tonight was at the Golden Corral, where several of the missionaries that we support shared a meal with us.
-Doug