Wednesday, January 31st, 2007
Well, I’m not really blogging with much of a purpose aat the moment. I just want to make sure everyone is updated on what’s going to be happening (since it’s the end of the month.) We are leaving El Olivo (the church we’ve been sleeping/ ministering at), and Nestor and his wife Celina to debrief at a waterfall called Misol-Ha. Some of the teams have already been there, and the pictures have been amazing. I’m sure I’ll have a few. Oh yeah, make sure to take a look at everyone’s pictures since I don’t know how to put them on my blog yet (and they take forever to upload with a slow internet connection.) Definitely check out the media team’s stuff, since taking pictures is what some of them DO.
I’ll miss Palenque. I didn’t know I’d fall in love with it when I first got here. It’s such an amazing place that everyone should visit! I’m sad that we have to leave. It’s been moderately warm, with rain showers almost every other day. Scott has been digging fence posts… the ground is pretty much made out of clay. I could probably mold it, bake it in the sun, and come home with some pottery for everyone. I’ll miss Celina’s Mexican cooking! She’s been so good at letting us experience even the cuisine. And I’ll miss the hot sauce (they don’t really sell it.)
I know God is going to continue the work that has begun only less than a month ago. It’s been awesome to see a drunk man walk into the church (a church he tried to rob 2 years ago), accept Jesus as his Savior, come back the next day sober (and he’s come to the church almost every day since that first night), and ask us continually when we’ll be back or what will we do after this year is over. Salud will be a pillar in this church, we can see it already. Nestor has started to take him under his wing as a disciple. It’s been really encouraging to see that the work will continue after we’re gone, not that we need to be here for it to continue.
Tonight is our last church service, some of us are in the process of tearing down tents, scrambling to find items that have been lost since they first unpacked, laying down trying to muster up the energy for tonight, or typing blogs. This place will look in tip top shape for service. The fence will be completed in about an hour. (Scott has been slaving over it… hard to find guys to get this stuff done, but Scott loves anything that entails manual labor and sweat.) The street in front of the church is looking green, since we filled up about 8 trash bags worth of rubbish yesterday. And now we have a mascot, a cow skull, hanging from the rebar in front of the church (a great find from the trash pile).
So, we’ll have a praise and worship service amongst the World Racers tomorrow morning. After that, we’ll eat our last lunch at Nestor and Celina’s, and then we’ll have a free afternoon to get all our junk together, take one last look at Palenque, buy that last souvenir. Tomorrow night we’ll have a girls/ guys night (we still have no idea what to do), and then we’ll be on road to Misol-Ha on Friday morning.
As far as I know, we’ll race to Guatemala with Squad A, stay there for about a week doing ministry, and then Squad B will get shipped off to our respective ministry sites in Nicaragua/ Costa Rica for the rest of the month. Our team and Team Zeo still don’t know what our ministry site will actually be, but we’re praying about where our teams should end up. We’ll see what happens. Be in prayer about the two options (which both include orphans, just in different settings).
I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing about what God is doing in Palenque, Mexico. It’s been exciting to be here and be a part of it. I’ll continue to keep my expectations low, and just allow God to blow me away! I pray the same for you.
