Today we hurried off to the Allianza church in Reynosa for a mega-church service, Mexico style. The church had a greeting party waiting to greet us with much fanfare and many handshakes and God bless you’s. In Spanish, God bless you is “Dios le vendiga”. This is a very important phrase for anyone doing mission work in Mexico, and at least for me, one of the hardest to pronounce. When the local Mexicans say it, it rolls off their tongue, but it comes out wrong every time for me. Later on, after many failed attempts at “Dios le vendiga”, my interpreter Juan was getting embarrassed for me I am pretty sure, so he told me it would be ok if I just said God bless you in English. After the greeting we were herded into a building next to the Dome church building, where we were given our marching orders followed by morning devotions. My very own pastor from Newport, Oregon First Baptist church led us in communion. The combination of taking communion with all my Power brothers, combined with pastor Glen leading the ceremony is a definite highlight for me.
The church service at Allianza did not disappoint either. Our Power team got to help with the service in various ways. Doug Husen gave the sermon, some were ushers and greeters, a few guys gave testimonies, one of which was Pastor Marcus from my church, and we got to go up front to help lead worship. None of us get too excited about getting up in front of close to 1000 people, but from what I could tell, the Power guys did a great job singing our Spanish song ” Eres tu Amigo fiel”. At the end of the service, Pastor Mario gave an alter call and wanted the Power men to pray for those that came up. That was an awesome, POWERFUL and tearful experience.
The church provided numerous beautiful people (young men and women) to interpret for us during our time at Alianza to help us communicate with others and to answer any questions we had. It was a good opportunity to work on my Spanish as well.
Of course it wouldn’t be a Power trip without great food. Today, Alianza provided lunch for us including chips and beans, rice, tomales, fried chicken(Mexican style), Chile reyenos and some amazing looking pastries for desert. Best Chile reyenos I can remember eating.
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FESTIVAL AT REFUGIO INTERNACIONAL DE NINOS:
Power Ministries along with a few of the Refugio staff and some winter Texans (a group of mostly older folks, who live renin Texas for the winter months and help with different missions) puts on a pretty amazing festival with hot dogs, popcorn, all kinds of games and prizes, lots of suckers and even cotton candy. It’s a really fun way to show the love of Jesus to many, and I learned that it is special in another way because many of the parents will have a rare moment of fun time with their children. The games area is kind of like a concrete basketball court in size with a 4 to 5 ‘wall around it and a few openings for access. It was full of kids ranging from babies to teens, with many parents as well. There were around 500 people counting the parents from the area around Refugio who came to the festival. Praise God.
I had a good time working with Glen Small doing the corn hole toss game. We decided to make the game a little more interesting by making them use their feet. There was one teenager who kept saying it was impossible to make it in the hole and we really did’t want him discouraging the other kids from trying so Glen got right out there to show him how it was done. Glen’s first try was way off the mark, but he didn’t let it bother him. He got the next bag out stuck it on his foot and I’m certain he said a quick prayer because that next kick went right in the cornhole . He strutted back over to where I was standing, subtly pointing up to heaven and saying thank you Jesus.
At the end of the festival, we were cleaning up and a little girl came up to Glen with puppy dog eyes. We had one large, grand prize dog left and the girl asked him if she could have it. As he started to answer there was something inside him that new he was going to give it to her, but he couldn’t just give it to her. There had to be a reason to do that so he asked her what her name was to start with. Donna was her answer. Glens wife’s name is Donna. So you know the rest of this story. An example of just one of many unforgettable moments.
I will tell you though, playing with these kids for 3 hours is a lot of fun, but that was the most exhausting afternoon of the whole trip.