It was a long day, but a good day today. I was awakened by the POWER wake up call at 6:10 am. I had slept through the whole night, which was extremely unusual for me. I thought at first it was my roommate’s alarm going off. I was dead to the world. I made it down for a quick breakfast of cereal and O.J. I must have been still half asleep, as I sat down with a gentleman that I thought was part of our group because he was wearing the same color shirt that we all were wearing yesterday. He was from Ohio and was a business executive traveling to one of the many factories set up across the border in Reynosa. He had been restoring an old church in his home town, and was curious what our group was doing. I told him to be on the look out for our large white POWER vans in the next several weeks, as our group & the next two groups would be traveling around town. Then it was scrambling into the van only to wait for what Marty thought was a straggler. The so called straggler was in a van the whole time, but the shot gun in charge of his van did not hear him from the back of the van, so we waited until Marty could figure it out. Not much of a delay however, and we were off to Border Mission headquarters, where we were met by a fairly large contingent from the Alianza Church in Reynosa and had our morning devotion. The folks from Alianza were there to help us get all the prizes, equipment and other things for the festival to be held later in the day across the border. Clay shared the story of Nabul, David and Abigail from I Samuel, chapter 25. Abigail helped David learn the lesson to not do things with his own strength, but rather wait on the Lord. Then we were on the road across the border once again. The border crossings have gone very smooth this year, with little delay. I was in a big group (3 vans) that went to The Big Heart Orphanage on what I think is the south side of Reynosa (it is a big city). We took a circuitous route through town, due to some large mud holes caused by recent rains. The streets were not what one would consider typical U.S. city streets. The orphanage was a very impressive complex of large 2 story concrete buildings, with high walls, heavy metal gates, and concrete parking areas inside the wall. They even had a full scale gymnasium with basketball courts. Our task today was to build wood walls inside existing concrete walls in 4 classrooms, for the purpose of installing drywall and lighting. My team was led by a very competent and level headed man, and it was a pleasure working together in the small, dark rooms. We had a chop saw set up outside the rooms, and all groups waited patiently in line for their special wood cuts. Ray and all the team leaders did a great job keeping things running smoothly. I believe that all 4 rooms had wood walls and some wiring in place by the time we had to leave for lunch at the Alianza Church. I thought that the festival we had last year at the Refugio Orphanage was big. The one at Alianza Church was much bigger, with about 3,000 children there with their parents. Over 700 soccer balls were given away, along with hats, and all kinds of other little toys. Our POWER was joined by a small POWER group from Texas. The church provided as many translators as there were POWER men to help with the games that we did for the children. We had a ring toss game, hockey game, basketball game, golf game, and soccer skills game, just to mention a few. In addition, the church had a merry go round, a bumper car game, a large mechanized teeter totter, lamb and baby pig pens set up, face painting, jolly jumps, and much more! POWER has been working with the Alianza Church for many years, and acquaintances were renewed once again. The festival lasted almost till dark. It is always one of the highlights of the trip for me.
A tired but joy filled POWER group piled back in the vans and crossed the border back to Texas, where we gorged ourselves at a Golden Corral restaurant. Betsy Chacon and a few others from Refugio Orphanage joined us for dinner, then it was a short drive back to the Best Western Hotel. We get to sleep in tomorrow till around 8 am. Yea