Third day using the Valley Baptist Retreat Center as our lodging place. We started our day with another well prepared breakfast in the Retreat Center cafeteria, but today jumped in the vans, heading across the border to the Rio Bravo facility in Reynosa for devotions. I had been there once before on one of POWER’s building projects 5 years ago, but was amazed at how much it has grown. Where there were just a couple of buildings, there are now 10 or 12 structures, a lot of them two stories. Plus they have built a full size soccer field with artificial turf, and are finishing a swimming pool.
We met upstairs in their large conference room, and Ray Hansen, who founded Rio Bravo in 1992, gave a quick overview of their history. He & his wife Leah got a junkyard donated to them by the City of Reynosa, where they built one house. Their vision was to provide a home and education for neglected and abandoned children in the area. They have grown to four group homes, housing 60 children, plus a K-12 Christian school that serves 450 students. They have also started another Christian school (the Blue School) on the outskirts of town.
After our bests singing of worship songs yet on the trip, Pat continued his series on Fearless Faith, focusing today on divine appointments (Heb. 11:8). On of the best examples of this is in Luke 10:30-37 (the good Samaritan), where both a priest & a Levite ignored the injured traveler on the side of the road, but the Samaritan had compassion & went to take care of him. Pat urged us to look for our divine appointments!
Back in the vans, we had some excitement, making a wrong turn and getting a half hour tour of Reynosa, trying to find our way to Senda De Vida. Four of our vans struggled a little bit, first with one way streets, then with a road closed for construction, then with a narrow dead end street, but eventually found our way to Senda De Vida.
Hector, who established it 16 years ago as a homeless shelter for people trying to make their way across the border, explained that his primary mission has been to show the love of God and spread the good news of Jesus, then to provide shelter and food, and assistance in the process of getting a sponsor in the United States. They now have buses that transport 180 people per day across the border. In January, they housed 5,000 people. Presently the number is about 2,500, from countries all over the world. POWER has partnered with Senda De Vida since it’s inception. We currently provide food at least 3 times a year, along with paying their $1500 electric bill every month. We have helped with numerous building projects over the years. Hector and his wife Mary Lou are truly an inspiration to all of us! We were able to pass out lollipops and trinkets to hundreds of the children when we visited today.
But our day was only half finished! We drove to Alianza Church to have a quick lunch, then mobilized with our translator group of young men & women from Alizanza to set up games for the 1,000+ children and their parents who came for the big festival. Several of us greeted the students from the School For The Deaf (Matamoros), who had been driven up in a couple of vans. It was the first time for them to ever leave Matamoros, and they were excited, but also a little nervous. We escorted them into the large sanctuary for the puppet show. Mexico culture frowns on the deaf, so we wanted them to feel welcomed, and the church helped by putting them right up in the front to watch the show. I didn’t stay to see how they did afterwards when the festival started, but we were later told by Michelle & Jesus, the founders of the School, that they had so much fun that they stayed an hour & a half past their departure time.
From what I remembered of last year, Alizanza Church had bigger & better carnival rides this year. They had a very large Ferris Wheel, a Merry Go Round, an overhead tram, a Jumping Frog machine, several spinning car machines, plus a petting zoo, and more. POWER & the translators ran the 20 odd games in a large covered area, plus a soccer shoot game. I never get tired of watching the smiles on their faces as they line up to try their luck. We give out all kinds of prizes, ranging from lollipops to teddy bears to small and large toys. The soccer kids won soccer balls, of course. We did the games till a little after 4, cleaned up our area, then left at 6 pm. The church kept the carnival games going till 7 pm. It is always the highlight of the trip for me!
After another successful border crossing (we always ‘Pay, Pray, & Praise’ when crossing) we stopped at Golden Corral in McAllen for dinner. We were joined by several of our missionary partners, including Ezekiel & Edith (Power Church, Hildago); Bruce & Paula Hepburn (Mexico Missions, Reynosa); Jesus & Michelle Zuniga (School for the Deaf); and Gator Carter (Big Heart Orphanage, Reynosa).
Finally arriving back at the Retreat Center, we broke up into small groups. Our journalism guys do our thing, but there is another very important group that meets every night. This week Martin & Richard are heading up The Late Night Prayer group. They have a different person lead prayer for each night, praying for our work this week, and for individual prayer concerns.
Doug