We hit the road early today, leaving the hotel in McAllen at 7 am, and arriving at Alliance Church in Reynosa before 8 am. We went to an upper meeting room, where we sang a few songs, then Brian shared from the Bible again. He continued teaching us about ‘redeeming the time’, then we all did communion together. We also surprised Bruce Hepburn, who came with us to the church. Bob shared that he had been bemoaning the fact that he could not deliver the 16’ long pieces of metal roofing for our building projects because he did not have a big enough truck, and that it would be really nice if he had Gator’s (another local missionary) 1 ton truck with a rack on it. Bob handed him the keys for Gator’s truck. Bruce had a hard time believing what was happening, but I told him later that he was being ‘blessed to be a blessing’. Then we attended the regular Sunday service with the Mexican people at Alliance. They always welcome us with open arms! Afterwards, we were treated to a full Mexican lunch, complete with young people from the church as translators at each table. Our fearless leaders (Mark, Bob, Dave & Marty) were given huge sombreros by Alliance as a token of appreciation for all Power does for their church, and the rest of us were given small packages of goodies. Then it was on to Refugio Orphanage, where we put on a festival for all the kids from there, as well as families from the surrounding neighborhood. It went from 1 pm to past 3 pm, and although the official numbers had not come in yet, they told us it was the biggest one in their history! It was a joy to see all the happy faces on the kids, and there were many more dads coming with their children than there were last year. There were at least 750 people who enjoyed hot dogs, cotton candy, family photographs and a whole bunch of games, where they won small prizes, plus over 100 soccer balls were given out. To top the day off, after everybody pitched in to clean up, there was a large screen TV set up in their dining hall, and we all got to watch the entire Super Bowl along with numerous kids and staff. It was a long but very rewarding day. That is all for now.
