Dead last. That is where we placed for the first leg of our journey. Thursday we got told our destination and what we were supposed to accomplish to consider this leg of the race complete. Then we packed and loaded onto the buses and headed out. We travelled by bus, for about 40 hours, and woke up with the sun in our eyes, 9 Km. from Palenque.
It is now Saturday, January 6, sitting at the hotel, one shower for everyone (20 pesos per person, a peso is basically equal to a dime ). I haven’t showered for a week. The good thing is that Linnea and I are so stuffed up that we can’t even smell each other.
The finish line was the top of the tallest temple in La Plaza de la Cruces. Mayan ruins. After watching “Apocalypto”, I still don’t understand the area or history, but have some vivid imagery. We toured around for about a half an hour, but mostly Linnea and I enjoyed some alone time in the shade on the cool steps.
We are not feeling very well, and being hungry and tired, we are both feeling emotional and homesick. A year will be a long time to be away. We are really missing Sequoia of course. Today’s devos from ‘Daily Bread’ was about the widow giving all she had. We read this as a team on top of the temple, where I am assuming was a hub of actual human sacrifice. Kind of gives some perspective, as Paul talked about being a living sacrifice. We realize that this year is a sacrifice, though in 60 years I think we will realize this has been no sacrifice at all, in the light of eternity.
We got dropped off in Reynosa, noonish, and had to figure out how to get to palenque. We are all overloaded with bags and needed to find the bus stop in town. Amanda, Shawna, Tana, Stephanie, and Linnea went into a plaza to ask for help. Tim and I stayed outside and guarded the bags. I saw a guy picking through the trash, and then he came up to beg for some money. So with my head spinning and very little spanish, I gave him a dollar. He asked for more and I gave him another. The whole time I was feeling stupid, and asked to pray with him. I think most people have to pay for prayer, so what kind of business is this that I paid to pray for a guy? That whole thing left me wondering about what I was doing, and trying to convince myself that I believed we were living in God’s economy, that the money I gave was given to me to give to others.
We then hopped a trolley to the bus stop, and the girls went to find out about tickets, as a couple of us sat and watched the bags again. A little boy came up, and I could tell he was begging, I was still processing the past experience and wondering if I had been foolish. At this moment I heard “Hey buddy, let’s go!” I assumed this was security trying to get the beggar to scram. I looked up and saw it was Chad Mast, who is our team leader, he was calling the boy to take him for a taco.
When we talk about discipleship, I realize we can talk about it until we are blue in the face, but we need to see it modelled. I mean we need to actually see someone acting like Jesus. Behaving like they believe all this. When Chad grabbed the boy to go eat, I realized the proper actions, and said in the same situation I would do what Chad did, next time.
A couple hours later, we were in the same place, and the same boy came up looking for food. So I got up and bought him two tacos, I got one, and in my limitted spanish, complimented him on his (hated) Yankees hat. So that was a really rewarding experience.
After the race, by the time I typed the above, I had started to crash emotionally, physically, spiritually. I started to doubt what I was doing. After spending so much of my life just doing what I felt like doing, trying to figure out how to work as little as possible, what was I doing in this crowd? So many people, so much going on, trying to know what is going on…. I really felt down on myself. I took a long nap when we got to this school, and managed to eat a sandwich, and go to worship. God really spoke to me during that time and I was encouraged. (I just typed this paragraph more than 24 hours after all the rest, now that I don’t feel like quitting, and forgot how miserable I felt)
This paragraph is being typed on wed, the rest was typed on sun. i had worked on another blog, and somehow erased it, and am now running out of time and energy, as that blog was part two to this, so i will just post this.
