Safe from the Losing Fight

On Friday I got up at the usual time: when my unconsciousness ended. First job was the shower. Unlike the day before, I actually had soap and shampoo on the way in. The penguins playing in the water were nice enough to scrub my back.

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.

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.

Wednesday. Whew. As someone would say at the end “it was our best day and our worst day.”

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.