Greetings from the beautiful town of McAllen, TX! We just touched down to our final destination of the day at the Wyndham Garden Inn (its 11:00PM), and are still in one piece, as one team, serving one God.
Today has been…logistical. Most of all of us had a good night’s rest last night and started the day with fresh spirits, ready for breakfast and more teaching from Pastor Brian. I say “most” because I’d be lying if I said some of us weren’t/aren’t exhausted. But its okay, that means we are putting forth the necessary effort God desires from us.
Devotion time was so good. We continued our learning about the different names of Jesus, and Brian noted that God wants us just to BE, and he wants us NOW. He doesn’t want us to come to Him “when things get better” or “sometime before we die”. What a great reminder for those of us who procrastinate prayer, or decide that our daily agenda should be filled with things, rather than pausing and being present for the Lord.
After devotion, we headed over the border to continue our projects at Pancho Villa Multi-Purpose Room and Justo Sierra School cafeteria. The teams got pretty far along on siding and roof sheathing, but can’t promise that everything is plumb and square for week two guys to continue the construction ; ). One inch tolerance in Mexico, right?
We headed back to Faith Mission in the early afternoon for sandwiches, and packed up our bags to head out to Laredo, TX for our next chapter of the week. This was just about a halfway point for us on our trek down to McAllen. Once we hit Laredo, we had dinner at Luby’s, which is easily three servings of food for each guy; however, we earned it after swinging hammers all morning. At least that makes us feel like the meal was justified as we stuffed in the calories.
The remainder of the drive was about 2 1/2 hours, making it roughly a 6 hour driving endeavor. The good news: we are staying in a hotel for the next few nights as we hop scotch over the border to and from Reynosa and Matamoros MX. Tonight I believe most of the men will get some early shut eye in preparation for our day tomorrow, while the other men excitedly take a dip in the jacuzzi to relax and rejuvenate.
While I’d love to say the trip has been all sunshine and rainbows, we have definitely experienced the devil trying to break down walls. Not to worry, we are all doing just fine, but he has been jealous of the work we are doing and that we refuse to falter. Some of us have the sniffles and aches, while some of us have been hearing news of tornados back home (Georgia boys), and others have been dealing with spiritual warfare.
Needless to say, we are leaning into the trials with full force and trust entirely that God will protect us and our families, and He is going to take care of the issues we cannot control. So I ask that you all reading this please take the time to just BE… and do it NOW. Take the dive, pray, believe in what you are praying for. Matthew 21:22 says “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer”.
We truly appreciate your support, and in return are continuing our prayer for all of you back home and that God continues to protect and provide. As a reminder, our theme verse this week is Proverbs 18:10: “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe”. Tomorrow’s blog is sure to have a lot of news for you, so get ready! Cheers.