missionaryMAC

It's currently Tuesday of the 2nd week of my midsummer "break" that I kind of wish I didn't have and kind of really like a lot. There were never any servant events scheduled for this week, but there were 3 for last week at one point until they all cancelled. So, it went from being the busiest week of the summer, to hardcore planning time for what are now the busiest two weeks of the summer! It's been an ongoing process, but one day last week Chris and I sat down and figured out exactly what is happening each day from July 10-24: who is going where, when, and in what vehicle(s). Here is a list of everything we had to keep in mind: 1. servant event from 7/10-7/17 2. servant event from 7/17-7/24 3. servant event from 7/14 (Wednesday)-7/21 (Wednesday) (half are staying and working in El Paso; the other half are staying and working in Anapra, 4 people are arriving a day early) 4. San Pablo VBS 5. a lady coming from Seward, NE, to help with San Pablo VBS 6. a pastor fro...

From East to West is s fitting title for my blog about University (Purdue is the University) Lutheran Church, seeing as though it was the theme song of their African-themed VBS, and because one of their participants was a visiting scholar from Harbin, China. The group actually did quite a bit more than VBS, although the 305 total children (94 unique) they saw took up the bulk of their time when you include prep time. We were a little shocked to see attendance DOUBLE from Monday to Tuesday, but it held stead in the high 60's/low 70's for the rest of the week, even the day of Mexico's World Cup game vs. France. I didn't have the heart to tell them they were actually pointing from West to East! My job was registration. Every day but Friday (fiesta!!!), I assigned each child a certain animal, which corresponded to their lesson for that day. Rachel (from China) was my helper. She is just beginning to learn the Christian faith and was unsure for a long time whether or not she...

That's what the Dr. at the urgent care clinic said this afternoon when I went in to get my throat looked at. It all started when I woke up with a mild sore throat on Friday, and all I wanted to do all day was take a nap (highly out of character for me). Friday night I started getting chills, and then I was running a fever all day yesterday. My temperature at one point was 102.9, but I'm hoping that was skewed by the fact that I had just driven the un-airconditioned white van to the airport. I actually made 3 trips to the airport total, and then I had to take our rental van back, which of course took forever when still all I wanted to do was take a nap. On top of having a severely high temperature, my sore throat was worse and my whole body ached. At around 3:00 I finally got my wish, and felt a whole lot better after some ice water, A/C, and a 2-hour nap on Chris's couch. I knew I was sick though since I was still tired enough to go to bed fairly early even after that. This...

I found out about this opportunity from the leader of the Hanover College at the end of April: http://www.paraelcamino.com/bibliagratis.asp. It is sponsored by Lutheran Hour Ministries, and allows each person to request 1 free Bible in English or Spanish, although I am not sure what the link for English Bibles is. YLM is always in need of Spanish Bibles, especially since every week when Pastor Heimer and Miguel and sometimes Stephen lead worship at the Border Patrol Detention Center they take a case with them, and it was recently announced in church that they are totally out. The entire form is in Spanish, so if it's not self-explanatory, here is a quick translation: Nombre y apellido = First and last name Direccion = Address Ciudad = City Estado = State Codigo Postal = Zip code Pais = Country Genero = Gender (the choices are definitely self-explanatory!) Esta encargando la Biblia para usted o para otra persona? = Are you requesting this Bible for yourself or someone else? (check t...

Last week I worked with a group from Chris's home congregation, Our Father Lutheran Church in Centennial, CO. All 8 group members had been to the mission at least once, whether on a previous summer trip or on OFLC's annual Thanksgiving trip. Our plan was to pour a slab in Horizon on Monday, finish tiling the sanctuary of San Lucas on Tuesday while the concrete dried, and then start building a kitchen and bath for the Olivas family--owners of the "Wildfire" house--the rest of the week. That ' s almost what happened. Monday went as planned, except the fact that we didn't have a functioning concrete mixer until after lunch so it took 10 hours to finish. It was predicted to be brutally hot, but it honestly wasn't too bad thanks to a layer of clouds. Tuesday is where the F-word (flexibility) comes into play. We arrived at San Lucas, prepped the floor for tile (swept, mopped, moved furniture out of the way, grated down a metal door that would have scraped the f...