Moses needed a good editor.

I realize that some of his poetic writing was probably lost in translation, but there are other parts which are clearly his fault. The number one example is his propensity to repeat the excruciating details multiple times. I’m not sure if it was because he liked to hear himself write or because he just thought the Israelites were so dense they needed to read it multiple times. At the end of Exodus, Moses gives all the details of the tabernacle, tent of meeting, the ark, etc as he received the instructions from God. That’s all fine and good. But then he feels the need to repeat them verbatim as he describes how the Israelites built them. It apparently wasn’t good enough to say “And the Israelites built the tabernacle, tent of meeting, ark, etc just as God had commanded them.” No. Moses had to list the very detailed plans of each one all over again. Maybe its just the engineer part of me offended at the inefficiency of his writing.

I was also amused at one of the verses in Numbers. More precisely, Numbers 12:3 (NIV):

(Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.)

Now I firmly believe than the Bible is the inspired word of God, but I’m personally wondering how much “inspiring” Moses needed to write that verse.

I’m not implying Moses wasn’t humble. Not at all. After listening to Israelites complain all the time, I would be stripped of all ego as well. Moses served as their intercessor to God the entire time in which they witnessed the plagues of Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, had seen manna come from heaven, and seen water come from rocks. Despite this, the Israelites continued to doubt Moses’ ability as a leader and often had uplifting feedback such as “Why have you lead us into the desert to die?”

Not that I would have been any better as an Israelite during that time. They were traveling through deserts. The first thing I would have been complaining about is the lack of A/C. And why, for the love of all things noble and good, did we have to walk there? Its so unnatural.

Despite the complaining, Moses never gave up on the Israelites. He was always willing to go to God on their behalf to make sure they had what they needed. If it had been me, I would have given up on them not long after leaving Egypt. I would have prayed to God: “Just between you and me, maybe you should leave these people in the desert, and get yourself some new people. I hear the Midianites are nice.” But Moses put the needs of the Israelites before his own. There’s a word for that.

Before Moses even got started on this journey out of Egypt, he spent about forty years in Midian tending the flocks of another man, his father in law. That had to be a humbling experience. Seeing Moses’ entire life seems to be a lesson in humility, maybe its not that hard to believe that he really was the humblest man on the face of the earth.

The first train of thought was actually pretty short. I was simply noticing the categories that I have in this blog, and how many posts of each kind I have. (Yes, I know I have a lot of spare time.) Even though I have several in the Christianity category, they’re all about the recent missions trip I was on. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it sent me down the path of “is that all God has done in my life recently?” I don’t think those few posts are very representative of what God has done for me. I began musing about what I could possibly write about. The problem is: I’m not a teacher, I’m not a pastor or even a deacon, I’ve never been to seminary or been ordained. I definitely don’t feel comfortable or qualified for writing essays about theology or philosophy. Not being a teacher or inspirational speaker, I don’t think I could write posts about uplifting stories or Bible studies or devotions. So what is it that I could do?

The second train of thought got started during one of my quiet times. I was thinking about evangelism, and how I could grow in that area. The missions trip was the only conscious effort I’ve had recently towards evangelism, and I wanted to change that. But being an introverted self-employed software engineer, I spend most of my time at home. Regular social activities usually involve Christian friends or people from church. I don’t meet that many non-Christian people because of this, so who am I to be a witness to?

That’s where these two trains bumped into each other. The easiest way to evangelize to people is to tell them what God has done for you. All I need to do is tell about how I’ve seen God working in my life. I can leave the teaching up to the experts. As far as to whom do I be a witness to, I can be witness to whomever reads this blog. I honestly don’t think there’s all that many people that ready this blog, but it is an audience, and its still probably larger than the number of people I talk to daily.

So from time to time I’m going to post about what God has done in my life. The first step is to post my testimony, which I’ve already done. I’m not sure how frequently I’ll end up posting, but I’m hoping with a certain regularity. If I’m feeling frisky, I’ll not only post what God has done for me, but what I learned from the experience and how I think it applies to my life. I’m hoping this forces me to be more aware and conscious of how God is moving in my life.

But it wasn’t a personal knowledge. It was strictly a head knowledge. I knew that man was sinful, but it hadn’t occurred to me that I was sinful. I knew that Jesus had come to die for our sins, but I didn’t occur to me that that included me. Although I hadn’t exactly led a hedonistic life up to this point, I was a sinner. I was focused on myself, and what I wanted. As siblings do, I fought with my brothers, and was completely centered on my own wants and needs.

When I was ten, I was attending one of many Sunday morning worship services at my church. At the end of the service, an invitation to accept Jesus was given. I don’t remember what the sermon was on, but I do remember that during the invitation the pastor reminded us that all have sinned and are separated from God because of it. I had heard this countless times before, but this time it made sense. He was talking about me. I was a sinner. I was missing a relationship with God because of my sin. The Holy Spirit used that thought to convict me.

But at the moment I didn’t have the courage to walk down to the front and speak with someone about it. After we had gotten home from church, I told my dad that I was interested in giving my life to Christ. We talked about it, and he assured me he would be supportive of whatever decision I made.

The next Sunday, the same thing happened: the Holy Spirit used the invitation to convict me. This time, however, I asked my dad if he would go with me down to the altar. He practically carried me. Once there one of the counselors led me through accepting Christ. I acknowledged that I was sinner, that I was separated from God because of it, and was unable to do anything myself to earn my salvation. I acknowledged that Jesus died for my sins, and rose again. I repented and asked Jesus to forgive my sins and to be my Savior and the Lord of my life.

The change in my life was immediate. There was an emotional change. I felt a joy and a peace that I had never felt before. There was also a change in the direction of my life. I was no longer wholly centered on myself but actually concerned with the fate of others. I became concerned for one of my friend’s salvation. Within a year I had shared Jesus with this friend, using a tract, and he had come to know the Lord as his personal savior.

Although I grew up in the church, and was surrounded by Christians, that wasn’t enough. I wasn’t saved by just knowing about Jesus and what he had done, or by just going to church, or having Christian parents. It was by grace I was saved through faith. It was a personal decision I made, not something I inherited or earned.

Ephesians 2:8-9 explains this: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast.” Acts 15:11 reinforces this. “No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”

I went with Elaine’s church. We went with a group called YUGO, which is really targeted towards youth groups (despite we were a young adults group). Since we were such a small group, we were teamed with another small church from Idaho to make a team.

As a team, we were partnered with a local church. With the support of the church, we had a children’s ministry (VBS style), women’s ministry, a sport’s ministry, and then helped out with an evening worship service. I served in the children’s minstry.

I’m going to write about the trip here, but I’m going to back-date the posts. So I’ll post an entry for each day, dated the day it happened.

Elaine woke me up. I’m don’t remember when though. Got a shower and had some cereal and bread for breakfast.

Elaine had to work that morning, so she was taking conference calls and whatnot. I borrowed her cell phone and made some calls. I finally got ahold of Mike. He hadn’t gotten any of my messages. He agreed to pick me up from the airport, and offered to let me crash at his place if I couldn’t get into my apartment. I called the apartment complex next, and let them know what happen. Fortunately, it was Carrie who picked up. She recognized me by voice. She agreed to get duplicates made of my keys and find me a gate key. I arrange for Mike to go pick up the keys. A while later, Mike called me back when he was in my apartment. I had a fun time trying to remember where I kept my spare car keys, and directing him to them. But he eventually found them.

Elaine also helped me get my flight info (since my itinerary was in the backpack that was stolen). We ended up having to go to her dad’s office (a few blocks away) to print it out though. We also swung by Albertsons to get me some lunch, since I’d be in the airport during that time. Elaine also loaned me her backpack to carry all this stuff.

Even though my flight didn’t leave until 2:30pm, Elaine got me there a little before noon. We didn’t know how long security would be for me. First, I have to say the San Jose airport is not laid out well. They have lines waiting to just get into lines. And figuring which line I needed to get into to talk to a person wasn’t easy. The man who helped me get a boarding pass wasn’t fazed at all when I told him I didn’t have any ID. He just printed out a pass, and wrote “ID stolen” at the top of it. As I would find out later, it also printed out “SSSS” in a couple places on the ticket.

The woman at the head of the security line didn’t seem too fazed by me not having ID either. She circled the two “SSSS”’s on my ticket and sent me through. I went through the metal detectors like always. Then the screener looked at my ticket, saw the “SSSS” and told me I had been marked for a secondary screening. That involved him patting me down and going through my carry on bag. He tested several things in my bag for explosives.

But that was it. I waited for my flight to leave. It left on time and was uneventful.

Mike met me at the baggage claim. He gave me my keys and drove me out to the remote parking lot. I asked him to wait for me since I didn’t know if I could get the car out. I had the keys to it and cash on me, but I didn’t have the ticket they gave me on the way in. You know, the one they use to figure out how long you’ve been there. I had trouble tracking down someone who knew what happens when you don’t have the ticket. I eventually just walked up to the man in the booth and asked him. At first he asked if I had a driver’s license, and I said no. But he said the proof of auto insurance would work.

So I went and got my car and drove up to the booth. They took my auto insurance card and started work. I’m not sure how they knew, but they knew exactly how long I’d been there. All they did was make a phone call. Mike said they took pictures of my license plate on the way in. There was a little bit of confusion, because he didn’t think I had money on me at first. So they were just going to send me a bill. But I had the cash and just settled up then.

I let Mike know that I was all squared away, so we split up and went home. I made sure I followed the speed limits, because I wasn’t sure what would happen if I got pulled over with no license on me. It took me a little longer than usual to get home, but I made it.

Thus ended my missions trip to Tijuana, Mexico.

As usual John got up early. I’m not sure what time. He came back and got Tiger. About 7am or so they came back for Phil. Now Phil isn’t easy to get up. At this point I was sort of half awake. I knew they were there, but I was still dozing a bit. I think Tiger was trying to get Phil up, in that brotherly sort of way. Phil didn’t want to get up, so he was thrashing around — and managed to kick me right in the gut. I sat up immediately, just out of reflex. I think I scared Tiger because he ran back to his bed. I just laid back down and tried to get some sleep.

I eventually got up, and got a hot shower. I then went and met Elaine at her room and most of us went down to the lobby. Eventually everyone showed up and we checked out. We asked the concierge about directions to an IHOP about two hours away. They wanted to give us directions to one just around the block. The idea was we’d just munch on snacks in the morning then stop for a brunch or early lunch at IHOP.

We took off and the drive up to IHOP was pretty uneventful. John and his sons had already eaten breakfast, so they just ordered drinks. Elaine and I ordered a dish and split it. Well, mainly I ate. Elaine was very engrossed in teaching Phil sign language.

We switched drivers for the next leg. Elaine was driving, with me riding shotgun. Noel and Melissa ended up passing out in the back seat. It was nice because it gave Elaine and me some time to talk about the missions trip.

About 1pm or so John and the other vehicle stopped to get lunch (since John and his boys didn’t have brunch). The problem was they didn’t call us until they had already stopped. We were right behind them, but in traffic. So we didn’t see them get off, and they didn’t tell us where they went until we had passed the exit. So we stopped at the next exit and got gas. We spoke with Kristy and there was a lot of confusion as to if we were ahead of them or behind them. Somehow we decided they were still ahead of us. So we drove north until we hit 152. At that point, we knew we were ahead of them. So then we had to decide if we would just meet them at the gas station we stopped at, or go all the way back to where they were. Eventually, Melissa made the executive decision to go all the way back to them. That took a while because we had driven so far past them.

Anyway, John split off in his van to go home, and the rest of us drove the rest of the way to Kristy and Noel’s house. We unpacked everything out of the rental car that had to be returned that day. We originally thought we would go to a evening church service. But it was fairly out of the way for most of the people. So instead we just had a short worship and prayer time at Kristy and Noel’s house. Kristy and Noel agreed to take one of the rental cars back that day.

Elaine, Joy, Carol, Melissa, and I all piled into Elaine’s car. We dropped Melissa off at her parents house, then continued on to Casa Wong Ho Chao. We got everything unloaded. That’s when we found out that Carol’s car had been vandalized while we were gone. They smashed her driver’s side window.

Neither Elaine or I were very hungry yet, so we just went on over to her parent’s house. They were out for a walk when we got there. Elaine started nosing around for food, because we were getting a bit peckish. Her dad got back first, and we ended up talking about identity theft. He had clipped out an article about the veterans’ records being stolen. It was pretty interesting because it gave advice on what to do when your identity had been stolen. Her mom got home soon afterwards, and actually cooked up some stir fry for us. It was broccoli and some sort of fish product. It was really tasty. We also had some pot stickers. This gave me a chance to show off my mad chopstick skillz. Those skillz that make Asians say: “Are you physically handicapped?” We also had some watermelon. It was good, but Elaine didn’t want me spitting seeds at her. Spoilsport.

Her sister was there too. She’s definitely an extrovert. She was telling us about her visiting her boyfriend in Denmark. She had a funny story involving rubber and her trying to be friendly and polite. It was quite amusing.

We washed some clothes because I didn’t know how long it would be before I could sleep in my own bed (I had my keys stolen). After eating, Elaine and I watched most of a John Wayne movie. It was one of her dad’s favorites: Hamtaro. We didn’t make it all the way through though, because it got late and we were tired.

The bed they gave me was comfortable. I slept well.

I got up at the usual time. A couple of the groups were most of the way packed by then. The shower was just as cold as all the other days. After the shower I took a walk, just to have some time to myself.

By the time I got back, some more people were up. We talked for a bit, and I packed up as much as I could of my stuff. We went to breakfast as soon as possible.

On the last day, each team was assigned a duty. We drew bathroom duty again. So after breakfast we went and clean the bathrooms. I got to scrub the sinks again.

We immediately got to the task of packing up. It took us a while, since some of us (ahem, me) didn’t know what we were doing. But the Idaho guys were really helpful in getting the tents down and put away. During this time the coordinators came by to check the bathrooms and make sure they were clean. Some of the guys had to go back and re-clean some things that had gotten dirtied in the meantime.

We were one of the last groups to finish packing. We prayed before we left and agreed to meet up with the Idaho group on the other side of the border.

Crossing the border wasn’t too bad. The line to it wasn’t that long. They did ask our car for IDs. Fortunately the border guard believed me when I said I was a US national. He wanted to see the police report and the stolen passport report from the consulate. Its apparently all computerized, so he just looked it up from his terminal. The Idaho group said they didn’t even get asked for ID. They had offered to let me ride with them across the border.

We met the Idaho group at a Ranch 99 in San Diego. We were originally thinking there would be lots of Asian restaurants around and we could pick one to go to. But all that was really there was a couple of restaurants inside the Ranch 99. So we went to one of them. I think the guys from CFC wanted to show the Idaho people some real Chinese food. It was a headache getting the food ordered though. We did it family style, so there was a lot of confusion of who would order what and if we would have enough food. I don’t know if I technically ordered anything since I never saw a menu, and I didn’t have any money to pay for it anyway. Not that it mattered since it was family style. I have to admit I was starting to lose patience though, because I was hungry and they were all arguing about who was getting what. I’m not that picky, so my feeling was “just order something, and I’ll eat it. As long as its not the foot of chicken.”

I felt much better after I got some food in me. The food was pretty good, especially the honey shrimp. Tiger packed away the food, while Phil barely touched his. He actually disappeared for about twenty minutes. Not sure where he went. He had piled food high enough on his plate that people thought it was a serving dish. We ended up having to order some more food because there were a few of us that were still hungry.

After we ate, we milled about the Ranch 99 for a while. I think the Idaho people went in search of chopsticks or something. I know they ended up with some Bolba (sp?). It looked pretty good. Elaine and I went looking for snack foods. We got some for us and some for Mike and Amanda. We got them Pocky, some White Rabbit, and other sweets.

We said goodbye to the Idaho people at the Ranch 99. We took a picture, and those of us who still had phones loaned them to the Idaho team so they could call home. (They had both their phones stolen).

Afterwards, we continued up to Burbank where we had a hotel waiting for us. We were originally going to go see “Cars” but decided we’d just go swimming instead. So we took showers (hot ones at that) and went down to the pool.

Swimming was a lot of fun. It’d been a while since I had the opportunity to. Mainly we just joked around and swam a little bit. There was the occasional water fight. We also were trying to teach Noel how to float. He floated a lot like a rock, and I don’t mean pumice. He started getting the hang of it after a while.

On their way back to their room, Kristy and Noel found a sauna. I don’t know who but someone came back to the pool and told us about it. Anyway, we all ended up in there. We talked about what to do the rest of the evening.

We went upstairs and took showers. Most of us were just going across the street to the Black Angus for supper. John decided that Tiger and Phil needed to be in bed by the time we were supposed to get back. So they went somewhere else to eat. The Black Angus was good. I hadn’t had a steak in a while, so it definitely hit the spot. Elaine and I order a steak and some chicken strips and shared.

It was about 10:30pm or 11pm by the time we were done eating. Despite being pretty early, Elaine and I were tired. So we stopped by an ATM then called it a night.

Like before, I was sharing a room with John, Tiger, and Phil. This time, apparently Phil had drawn the short straw and I was to share a bed with him. When I got in, they were all asleep. Like Tiger before, Phil was managing to take up the entire bed. His body was on one side, while he was using the pillow from the other side. He was a lot harder to move than Tiger. I literally picked him and moved him to his side twice. But he immediately rolled back over to take up the entire bed. On the third try, Phil woke up long enough for me to point him to his side. I then put a pillow between us, for all the good that did.

Being in a real bed again, I slept pretty well.

After my daily hosing down, I decided I needed to take walk. There was a trail around the edge of the YUGO property that took you away from most of the people. Being an introvert, being around people all the time (especially large groups) is pretty draining on me. I was pretty burned out emotionally. I was actually really surprised that it took me until Friday before it started catching up to me. I figured the burn out would hit me Tuesday or Wednesday. Anyway, the walk allowed me to get away from people and recharge a bit.

I apparently made a friend on my walk. When I first started out, one of the many dogs that hang around the campsite followed. I don’t know the dog’s name, although he had one. He was about medium sized, and had long black fur, with tan underneath. I say “he” because it was marking its territory about every ten feet. On my way back to my tent, the dog took a different way back. But he kept sight of me, and met me at my tent. I sat down in a chair and he plopped down next to me. I gave him a little scratch on the head and then left him alone. Which apparently wasn’t enough. Because he then stuck his head in my lap and started whimpering. So I was obligated to pet him. That lasted until Tiger and Phil noticed him and started harassing him.

Breakfast was something. Food allegedly.

The children’s meeting ministry was really short. They went over the craft, then had the last team present a lesson. We got done so early that our team’s children group just stayed and went over what we would do that day. We decided that we should keep the afternoon’s as they were, but change the way we did the evening service. We felt that it was important to give as many invitations as possible. To that end, we would give two lessons in the evening. I was going to give the lesson on Cornelius, even though I hadn’t prepared it. Because of the previous day’s overcrowding we would keep the kids on street level as long as possible. We would also attempt to split up the group when doing crafts so they would have room and we could keep some semblance of control. We also spent time in prayer over that evening. It was something we hadn’t done the previous day.

The worship service was about the same. The speaker finished up his talk on advocating being a foreign missionary.

My quiet time was mainly focused on keeping God’s will in mind when I got back on Monday.

I don’t remember what we did during team meeting time. The children’s ministry didn’t really meet since we had covered everything earlier.

Lunch was hamburgers. Afterwards I spent a little time going over the Cornelius lesson. I found out John was going to be translating for me, so agreed to try to meet at supper to go over it.

We headed out to the park next to the church. The kids showed up pretty quickly. We had the jump rope, frisbee, and a volleyball going. Noel, Brian (one of the Idaho youth), and I were taking turns turning the jump rope. It seemed like this time went by pretty quickly. One of the Idaho youth gave his testimony. We also passed out tracts and tried to go over them with the kids. I wasn’t so successful with this since I don’t speak Spanish.

We didn’t want the kids showing up when we were having supper, so we decided to go to the park that was nine blocks away. Yep, the same park we got robbed at. We parked in a better, more visible spot. Also John, Noel, and Kristy took turns sitting in the vehicles while we had supper.

Right after wolfing down some food, I started working on the Cornelius lesson. John was eager to practice it, but I hadn’t even got it together in English. I also got Kristy and Elaine to help make one of the visuals I wanted to use. We didn’t spend a whole lot of time at the park, and went back to the church.

Once we got to the church, John and I did get together and go over my lesson. I think it really helped him make sure he knew all the words he needed. It helped me a lot just to have a real run through with it. Doing a run through of a lesson really helps me to cement it in my mind.

As soon as the first kids started arriving we started playing games. We had some jump rope, and then they played a Mexican game. I don’t remember the name in Spanish, but in English it means Ocean, Earth, and Sky. They stand on a line (representing Earth) then “sky” is in front of the line, and “ocean” was behind the line. Someone would call out a sequence of ocean, earth, and sky. Everyone else had hop in the right place to follow that sequence. Anyone who messed up the sequence, was out. The game continued until there was only one person left.

After playing some games, Kristy gave a lesson on Peter escaping from prison. The kids were pretty attentive. We also had a couple of the Idaho youth sitting with the kids, which seemed to help. Kristy did the lesson by picking out kids to play the different roles. The kids loved that. Kristy gave an invitation and lead them in a prayer.

We sang songs after the first lesson. Being the helpful person I am, I held the poster board with the lyrics on it. It was something to do seeing I don’t have a great voice and don’t speak Spanish. We actually sang several songs that Joy picked out. At the end we sang slower songs in the hopes of calming the kids down.

Then it was my turn to present the Cornelius lesson. It went pretty well. I think I did much better presenting, even though I had a lot less preparation. I kept better eye contact (not staring at the translator waiting for them to finish). The eye contact also seemed to really help with keeping control and attention. If someone was misbehaving, I just had to make eye contact and they would straighten out. It just felt like everyone was paying a lot better attention than they had the previous days. I really feel that was the Holy Spirit’s work.

I asked the kids if they knew what sin was. I got a lot of examples of sin. It was really refreshing to learn they at least knew what sin was. I then presented the rest of the gospel. Like Kristy, I lead them in the sinner’s prayer. Its hard to tell if there were any decisions made. The kids all prayed out loud and together. It was hard to tell if they were just repeating what I said, or if they meant it.

Nevertheless, I was ecstatic that we got to present the gospel at least twice. I was happy that the kids at least had the opportunity to make a decision.

Afterwards we went down to the room to do crafts. We didn’t have as many kids as Thursday. We had about twenty kids again, which was actually nice. Joy went over how to do the craft and passed out the materials. We took the quiet girls and Valentin, who was always well behaved, down to the back of the sanctuary. They worked on the crafts there quietly. That gave us even more room upstairs so the kids could spread out and work on the craft. The kids were well behaved and relatively quiet.

The evening service had special music and aspecial speaker again. But they didn’t go over as much as they did on Thursday. At the end of the service, the church asked all of us (from CFC and Idaho) to come stand at the front of the church. Matt (Idaho youth pastor) prayed over the church. Then the church prayed over us, and there was some laying on of hands by the pastors. This church was one where everyone prayed at the same time, out loud.

After the service, we hung around for a while and talked with people. We also loaded up the van and SUV. I remember talking to a member who was going to school to be a pastor. Noel was there, and at his lead, we laid hands on the man and prayed for him. After a while, a lot of us ended up sitting in the van with the doors open waiting on a few people. The no-PDA rules were being bent a bit, and I had my arm around Elaine. He asked if we were dating, and we said yes. He came and sat in the passenger’s seat and started talking to us. Elaine and John were there so they were translating for him and us.

I remember there being some small talk and such. Most of what he said I don’t remember. But there was something that did stick out. He was one of the pastors who was laying hands on people at the end of the service. He said that when he laid hands on Elaine he felt an unction on her. Since I don’t speak Spanish I’m a little hazy on what he said exactly. I also seemed to have gotten a few different translations of what he said. The gist of it was, he said Elaine had the potential of being a great worship leader. That she would be able to say the name of Jesus and people would be healed. Then he said I would be there, although he didn’t go into any detail. He asked me if I had anything to ask. I said “no.” I had no idea how to even respond to that.

We eventually said our last goodbyes and headed back to YUGO. We were way too late for the sharing time.

I went to bed in a good mood.

When I was getting my stuff ready to get a shower, I remembered that my toiletries were in the backpack that was stolen. So I had no soap or shampoo. Oh well. I needed to at least rinse off. Fortunately my shower picking skills are a notch above the rest, and I snagged one someone had left soap in.

Guess what? The shower was still cold.

Since I didn’t have a Bible or journal, I couldn’t do my devotion or anything in the morning. So I sat outside the tent in an attempt to be sociable. I’m not sure how successful was in that venture.

Breakfast was something we had before.

Thursday was Elaine’s birthday. I had gotten her a card, but guess where it was? In the backpack that was stolen. So the group got together and made her a card. Noel did the front and everyone signed it. I rather liked it. We had to keep it hidden from her until it was ready to present. We were planning on presenting it during lunch (we had lunch duty) in front of everyone. Melissa really wanted to do the initial announcement and I figured having someone with a big mouth do it would be a good idea. (haha)

I also started asking around if anyone had spare or extra toiletries. Fortunately Melissa had snagged several extras from the hotel earlier. She had extra soap, shampoo, toothbrush, toothpaste, and… wait for it… a shaving kit. She was particularly proud of the shaving kit. She kept asking me to shave, just so I would use it. No one had extra deodorant, so Elaine loaned me money and I went and bought some from the YUGO store.

The children’s ministry meeting was the usual. They went over crafts and had a couple of teams present a lesson. They also got a few teams to demonstrate some songs they had learned during the week.

The worship service was good. The speaker went further into his message of convincing youth to be foreign missionaries.

I had to borrow a bible for my devotions and quiet time. My focus on Thursday was mainly staying on task and not allowing the theft to distract me.

We had our team meeting time. The children’s ministry just picked which lessons we were going to present.

We had lunch early because we had lunch duty. I was originally assigned to wash dishes, but quickly was promoted to server. They obviously saw my potential in gravy serving. It was pretty easy. We ran out of mashed potatoes pretty quickly. They had parmesan chicken, and they didn’t know if they had enough. So half way through, they started cutting the chicken in half. Then at the end, they started giving out whole ones again.

Anyway, Melissa made sure the kitchen coordinators knew what was up. Melissa and I would go out in front everyone and make the announcement. One of the coordinators lured Elaine out to where she needed to be. Elaine was wiping tables, and she kept telling Elaine to wipe one that was closer and closer to us. Anyway, Melissa pretty much did all the talking, while I modeled the card. We didn’t give out her age because I didn’t know how sensitive she’d be about it. We were right next to the table with all the coordinators. They commented on how young Elaine looked, and how she didn’t look 30.

I also told Elaine what the card I had bought her said. It was extremely sweet and sappy. She was suitable impressed.

We finished up the kitchen duties, which didn’t take much.

Afterwards, I checked with the office to see if the phones were up yet. They weren’t. I wanted to check with the US Consulate and see if I could get out of the country.

After lunch, we headed out to the church. On the way I used Elaine’s phone (she had a Cingular signal) to call the US passport services. I let them know my passport was stolen, and asked how I could get ID to get back into the country. She said I had to file a police report, then go to the US consulate before they could issue any ID. She was nice enough to give me the address of the consulate in Tijuana.

So at this point Elaine and I left the rest of the group to walk to the church. We went to one of the pastor’s home to get help. One of them agreed to go with us and help us file and police report and find the consulate. At this time, I was making phone calls to Mike and parents trying to get a hold of a copy of my birth certificate. The woman told me I would probably need one.

We went back to the park to get a vehicle. Noel had the keys and he agreed to drive us around. We had to first take the pastor to his house to get changed, get his ID, etc. After, he took us to the local police department. It didn’t Elaine and the pastor long to find where we needed to go. The officer was really helpful and we got police reports for all the important documents that were stolen. The pastor and Elaine were great at getting things translated and communicated correctly. When we got done we went back out to the car, and reviewed the reports. That’s when we found out they spelt my name wrong. The pastor and Elaine felt it was serious enough to go back. Fortunately the records were electronic, so the officer just fixed my name and reprinted the reports.

We left to go find the US Consulate. About this time, my parents got back to me and told me they didn’t have a copy of my birth certificate. They just had a birth record from the hospital where I was born. I only knew where one copy was, and I would need Mike to get it for me. But he hadn’t returned any of my calls. On the way to the consulate, we had to stop a couple of times so the pastor could ask for directions.

When we first got there, the guards told us the section we needed to talk to was already closed. Their hours were 8am to 11am Monday – Thursday. We decided to go up anyway, just so we knew where it was. We also copied down some numbers given on the window there, and called the after hours numbers. I was told it wasn’t quite after hours yet, and to call back in an hour. By a person, not a recording.

There was a person at the window, and the pastor was talking to her. She eventually told us there was someone there who could help us right now. So an older lady came up to the window and spoke with me. I told her my passport had been stolen. She told me that I wouldn’t have a problem getting back across the border (I am a very pale man), and that she could go ahead and file a stolen passport report. I agreed that that would be best.

So security let me in. They were Mexican and didn’t speak any English. So we communicated through gestures. It was pretty standard. Metal detector, etc. After going through, I had to go outside (but inside the consulate). That took me around to another outside door that went back inside. I’m sure there’s a logical reason for this, but I don’t know what it was. Why not an indoor hallway? Anyway, I filled a report there, and the woman assured she would file a report immediately. She also gave me a copy of the report, which had my passport number on it so it could be checked (this would be important later).

All this done, I felt a lot better. We went back to the park where the kids were playing. They were actually wrapping up by then. I would later learn that I was supposed to give one of my lessons that afternoon (that I had just missed). Instead, Joy had to give it. Not only that, we had all the visuals and such that was supposed to be used in the SUV we were driving around. But Joy told me it went really well because Annais and Sapphira had a lot of people dying.

We went back to the church to eat and get ready for the evening service. Supper was the usual sandwiches. The only problem was the kids knew where the church was and showed up while we were trying to eat. It was also the time we cornered one of the pastors and had him give us a history of the church. It was amazing to hear how God was working through them. Their big concern was buying the land they were currently using, then improving it. The problem was they had no money. All of it went for medication and running the rehab center.

We decided to start the children’s ministry outside. They did songs and games up on street level. Meanwhile Noel and I were downstairs in the room preparing Noel’s lesson. Noel was going over it, and I was holding the visuals and just trying to be helpful. After running around Tijuana filing police reports and consulate reports, it was hard to get back into the groove of ministry. Anyway, they got done with the songs and games sooner than Noel or I expected. We went up to street level and Noel gave his lesson. Being the helpful person I am, I held the visuals. We had a hard time keeping the attention of some of the kids. A lot of boys sat in the back and didn’t pay attention.

Afterwards we went down to the room to do crafts. The craft for that day was comparatively complicated. Lots of cutting and gluing and string things together with yarn. So there was a lot of mass confusion when trying to do the craft. Plus we had kids still arriving. We ended up with more kids than we had the night before. We were so packed into the room, that the kids didn’t have room to spread out to do the craft. We had kids out in the “hall” (the “hall” was outdoors) we were so crowded. The boys were also getting way out of control, and refused to listen.

This was also the anniversary night of the church. The evening service had special music and a special speaker. This meant the service was going very long. So even though the craft was really difficult and took a good amount of time, the kids still got done before the service was over. We couldn’t just let them go, or they’d disturb the evening service. So we had to keep the kids corralled, which was very difficult, and get them to work on some activity sheets.

Afterwards, we had to clean up. It was insane the mess that was made. But we got everything cleaned up and pack away. We left for YUGO.

We got there late and the sharing service was already over.

It was a very long and tiring day. I went to bed as soon as possible.

It started out the same as the other days. I got up about the same time.

Shower. Cold. Still.

After doing my impression of a polar bear, I read my devotions and worked on the YUGO journal.

Breakfast was the same as it was on Monday. Or Tuesday. Whatever.

The children’s ministry meeting was about the same. They went over the craft and had a couple of teams give one of their lessons. Just about everyone was acting them out.

The worship service was the same. The speaker went on in his message of trying to convince the youth they should go into foreign missions to a land that had never had a missionary. I remember him really stressing obeying God as opposed to living a good Christian life. He was talking about how raising Christian kids was a given, as was most of the other things Christians strive for. He really railed against the comfortable Christian life that so many Christians have picked out for themselves. I remember getting a lot of this message. It really challenged me to make sure that I was living God’s will and not mine.

After the worship service was quiet time. I remember Joy, John, and few other people talking about the speaker. He was pretty galvanizing and was very focused on foreign missions to places that have never had a missionary before. The conversation was about if people agreed with him and all his points, etc. John made some good points about the speaker being a soldier (metaphorically. The speaker also used the same word to describe himself). He was trying to kick the youth in the butt to knock them out of their comfort zones, and get them seriously thinking about missions, and if that’s where God was calling them.

During my quiet time, I found myself dwelling on the speaker’s message. I had been really challenged about following God’s will, and not my own. Its something I’ve always struggled with, and this just brought it back to the front. I made a list of agendas and goals of mine that got ahead of God’s will in my life. Number one was my career. I logically followed through with answering questions like: What would it look like if I followed God’s will? and How do I ensure I’m following God’s will? I actually wrote it down at the time, for all the good that did. It was a very productive time for me.

During the team meeting, the children’s ministry decided that we were going to go to the same park as the sport’s ministry. It was close by and there were kids around. We actually would play in the road right in front of the park since it wasn’t heavily traveled. That way we didn’t interfere with the sport’s ministry.

Lunch. It was some sort of food-like substance.

After lunch, we went to the church. The children’s ministry originally had the idea of starting a few people playing, and then sending some people out inviting. But after a little bit of playing, it became apparent that no inviting was necessary. We just had the frisbee and jump rope going, but that was enough. We had about 20 or 25 kids there playing. It was great. I didn’t play any frisbee, but turned the jump rope a whole lot.

After playing for a while, we decided to give one of the lessons. We managed to get most of the kids sitting down in some shade. The “hook” of the lesson was to tie a kid’s legs together and have them try to run. I picked two kids to do this, and had them try to run a telephone pole and back. I probably tied their legs too closely together because they just hopped their way over to the pole. About that time, the ribbon came off, and they just ran back. It was quite amusing. The lesson was on Peter and John and when God healed the lame man. They kids listened fairly well, but there were a few distractions. I don’t think the lesson went as well as it could have though. I was having trouble working with a translator, in this case Elaine. I kept looking at her to see when she was done translating. I also should have been closer to the kids, and kept better eye contact. Oh well. I didn’t present the gospel this time because they were getting very restless. Instead I just invited them to the church that night, and to invite friends as well.

We played some more, then we packed it in to go have supper. We decided to go to the other park (the one 9 blocks away). Now on Monday and Tuesday, we had gone to the church first and locked our bags in a room there. But on this day, we didn’t go to the church first, so some of us had our bags with us. The park was “nice” so some of us just left our bags in the van.

We went into the park and had supper. It was nice to not have supper in the church.

When we got back to the van, things went south. We discovered someone had broken into van by jimmying the lock. They stole three bags. Matt’s, the Idaho youth paster, Alan’s, one of the Idaho adults, and mine. Matt and Alan had some things in their bags, but really only their cell phones were of worth.

Unfortunately, I was not so lucky. I had only brought two bags with me from Texas. A soft-side and a backpack. The soft-side contained all my clothes. Since I was packing for ten days, my soft-side didn’t have any room for anything but clothes. So my toiletries, Bible, etc were all in my backpack, which was stolen. I had also been storing my valuables in there, like my cell phone, passport, wallet, and keys. On Monday and Tuesday the bag was locked up in a room in the church so it was fine. Unfortunately, being locked in a van is not the same thing. It was not a smart move on my part.

As everyone I spoke to afterwards was more than happy to point out, I shouldn’t have done that. I should have kept my passport hidden on my body (lots of ways to do that), and kept my wallet and keys on me.

Meanwhile, we had to get back to church and prepare for the evening service. The robbery was a pretty big distraction. Elaine and I ended up praying at the church that God would help us put this aside and do God’s work.

We had discovered that there was a room above the sanctuary that we could use for the children’s ministry. Which was a good thing. Because before we knew it, about twenty kids showed up. At first, we tried to keep them in the service, with the understanding that after the music we would take them up to the room and do crafts. But they kept running in and out, so we rounded them up and took them upstairs. We did crafts and Joy gave a lesson. The timing was good; the kids finished up about the time the evening service was over. The kids were fairly well behaved, but there were a few kids who were hard to keep from disrupting.

After the service we went back to YUGO. We told the coordinators and such about the robbery. Unfortunately, their phone and internet system was down. The children’s coordinator let me borrow her cell phone to make some calls. I called all my credit card companies and canceled the cards. I also called Cingular and canceled my phone. They apparently only got to a couple of my credit cards, and some of the transactions had failed. I felt a lot better after making the calls canceling everything.

By the end of the phone calls, the sharing service was over. I think a few people from our team did manage to go, but I was on the phone and didn’t make it.

Despite all the action during the day, I slept pretty well.