Today was our last work day in Mexico. After some great worship songs, Pat came up for his last message on Hebrews, chapter 11. Before starting, he informed us that our group of men doubled the previous record of purchases at the POWER store last night! He then read through the entire chapter, and encouraged us to live our lives with fearless faith, just like Able, Abraham, Moses, and all the others.
I was assigned to the crew that drove to the Octavio Paz School cafeteria again in the morning. As we drove across the international bridge, we saw flashing lights, and two Border Patrol vans stopped right in front of us to drop off illegals who had tried to get across the river, and been picked up. They climbed over the barrier to the sidewalk, and walked back into Mexico.
At the school, the kids must have overcome their shyness, as several of them came over to talk to us as we were working. I think it also helped that we passed out some lollipops as soon as we got there. We didn’t get much past finding out their names, but we all had fun. Steve & I were finishing the paint on the siding, as Greg painted the trim, Tommy did some more caulking, and we had a crew putting up drywall inside the building. A neighbor lady came up to the fence to talk. Steve was able to pick up most of what she was saying. She needed help fixing her roof, and Steve was able to give her a name of one of the local ministries with which we partner. The morning went fast, and after saying goodbye to the school children, we headed back to the same church as yesterday for lunch with the rest of the POWER guys. Just like yesterday, we all brought bags of rice & beans in our backpacks, for the church to distribute. We enjoyed another great lunch prepared by the POWER cook crew, along with stuffed jalapeno peppers & tacos made by Sonya, the sister in law of Pat.
In the afternoon, I was placed with the crew that drove back to Del Rio, where we packaged Bible tracts into boxes, for distribution by our ministry partners up & down the river valley community. It is a POWER ministry that has brought many to the Lord. We finished about 5:30 pm, and actually had an hour or so of free time while we were waiting for the other crews to come back across the border. I used most of the time to type this.
After dinner at Ruby’s in Del Rio, we returned to Faith Missions for a meeting in the cafeteria where Brian, Doug and Pat explained the vision of POWER, and how it has expanded ‘to the ends of the earth’. Last year POWER, in addition to all we do on the border, sent $180,000 to ministries in 30 countries around the world. Areas include South America, Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Japan and China, among others. They encouraged us to consider helping to fund these efforts, but made it a point to not neglect first tithing at our home churches.
Tomorrow we will be going our separate ways after the debriefing session at Del Rio.
-Doug