Thursday morning was interesting, mainly due to the previous day’s events. I got up about the same time (6-6:30am).

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.