As Much As We Can
“This might be the only mission trip some of these guys ever go on,” said Mark LeDuc last night — early this morning, really — before we hit the sack. It was about 2 AM, and the IHOP bible study group hadn’t returned to their dorm beds yet. There were three or four of us in the main meeting room still. Mark was talking about why the POWER leadership team was so driven to get in as much during each week along the border.
There is very little down time during the annual POWER trips. In fact while most of the guys started the trip yesterday in Del Rio at Faith Mission, an advance team has been here since January 5. Concrete foundations don’t just appear magically. Building materials have to be brought in and delivered to each site — and not just in Acuna; all along the border where each project site is located. 382 miles between Del Rio and Brownsville, TX.
Welcome to Day 2. “It’s dark outside, but there is plenty of light inside,” said Doug Wible as he kicked things off with the group this morning. Assignments were announced, and the vans took off. And before you knew it, ten hours had passed, and the crews were back at Faith Mission, eating dinner.
What happened during those ten hours? A lot!
Cases of English and Spanish language bibles were palletized for distribution to missions along the border. Damon Nevatt of East Hills described the work that was done today. POWER has distributed thousands of bibles to the border communities since starting these trips.
When asked the progress on his project, Ray Hahn of Sandals Church said, “done!” They had started a house for Christian and Yazmine Viegas. “It’s coming along great. The guys all got together, and knocked it out, and we’re way ahead of where we should be.”
Scott Anderson of New Day Christian Fellowship talked about how far along they had gotten on building a house for Pastor Armando. Walls and siding were up. Roof and ceiling joists in place. “A lot of neighbors ended up showing up in the afternoon — they were kind of amazed at what took place today,” he said.
Cody Gibbs of Calvary Bible Church and Pat Schmelling of Faith Mission described the Youth Center being built in Acuna. Schmelling talked about the core group of Christian teens who would be ministered to through the center.
But that wasn’t all: there was a visit to a large group of men in a local prison, resulting in thirty or so coming down for prayer lead by the POWER team that made the visit.
There was a JOY tour visiting local kids, passing out beanies and gloves and candy, followed by a visit to an orphanage.
“That’s what happened today; the FIRST day,” said Wible. “So you can see when men unite for one reason and one purpose, we send them to so many places — and look at all the good that was done.”
Written by David McKnight
Pictures provided by Chis Cho, Micah Davenport, Eric Yakura & Daniel Balboa