Safe from the Losing Fight

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.

Tuesday didn’t start off as early as Monday. I think a full day on Monday had taken the edge off most of the youth. I still think I ended up getting up about 6am or 6:30am.

Shockingly, the showers were still cold.

Although I was feeling better than Monday, I still wasn’t feeling all that sociable. So I stayed in my tent and read the Bible and worked on the Journal thing we were supposed to do for YUGO. It was mainly a reflection on the previous day. It was trying to get you to think about how things were working out vs how you imagined them.

Breakfast was the same as Monday, but with a different dish.

The children’s ministry meeting was pretty short. They had each team give a high and a low of the previous day. I’m not sure what our high was, actually. Our low was, “no one showed up.” All the other teams said they had about 20 kids show up. After the high/lows they showed us how to do the craft for that day. Like most crafts, it was really easy.

Then came the practice lesson. Since I had been nominated to give the one for the team, I had to give mine on Tuesday (since both my lessons were Tuesday lessons). The group that went before me actually acted theirs out. Since we were made up of two different churches, we had talked about it, but never really practiced it. So I went up there with Nate (aka “John”) and gave it. Nate just helped out with the hook (I need to punch someone bigger than me) and hold the “visuals”. I’m not sure how it went. Most everyone was giving me a freaky look. I’m not sure if that was because I was doing a bad job, or I was the oldest looking youth they had ever seen.

The morning worship service was next. I was feeling better, so I participated. That said, the woman leading it has one of the highest pitched voices I have ever heard. There were times where it was physically painful for me to listen to her. That and the sound was cranked way loud. It also made singing along difficult, since I don’t have a high pitched voice.

The speaker of the week, started laying out his message for the week. He basic message was “You should all be foreign missionaries to places that have never had a missionary before. Go now, go now, go NOW! Why are you still here?!?!” That’s only a partial exaggeration. He had a lot of good points throughout the week though. He talked about how a lot of people tag God onto the end of their life. As in, if they have time, they might do what God wants. As opposed giving everything over to God, and doing what He wants first.

After the worship service, was the daily quiet time. I had been struggling with a bad attitude so far, so I devoted my time to that. I analyzed what I was feeling the best I could. Then I tried to figure out why I was feeling what I was. I found that I resented any kind of assumed leadership over me. I found that I felt like I was being treated like a youth and not an adult. I also found that I was still having serious doubt about God using me. I felt that the cause of all of this was simply me being selfish. I was focusing on my wants and needs, instead of why God had me here in the first place. I also was worrying about how I could work to do good things, instead of trusting God to work through me. I used my quiet time to ask God to give me humility and the heart of a servant. I felt much better after my quiet time.

After the quiet time was the team meetings. I’m not sure what was said during the team meeting, but I do remember the ministry meeting. Joy, Kristy, Noel, and I talked about how to actually get kids to show up. We also tried to come up with a “Plan B” in case all we got were the church kids like Monday. We decided to go to a nearby park and play and invite kids that way. In the evening service, we do crafts like before, but we’d include a little bit of the stories.

Lunch. Same as before, but different.

After lunch we left for the church. We got there a little before we did on Monday. The children’s ministry went to a local park. The park was about nine blocks away, and not the same park the sports ministry was at. Because of cultural differences, we didn’t want little kids around when the big kids/adults were playing in the sports ministry. The park was nice. Probably a little too nice. Noel (aka Bob), Tiger (aka George), Cat, me (aka Jim), and sometimes Elaine were playing four square. I found out everyone plays by slightly different rules. I’m not sure if Mexican kids play four square because no one paid us any attention, much less asked to play. They had a jump rope going too, which was more successful. That actually attracted some attention and some kids joined in for a while. Unfortunately, this was a more affluent part of town, and none of the kids (or their parents) wanted to go to the drug rehab church.

After spending time at the park inviting kids, Noel shuttled us back to the church using the SUV. We waited for the kids and had supper there (sandwiches, as always). None showed up.

The evening service went as before, except this time I didn’t even bother with the collared shirt. There were several members of the congregation who showed up in t-shirts, plus I was going to be in the back, working with kids. Like before, they sang lots of Spanish songs that I didn’t understand. But it had a nice beat, and you could dance to it. And in this church, someone probably did.

The crafts went really well. There was a small turn over in kids. We only had five all together, and two of them had been there on Monday. Kristy went through Monday’s lesson on Jesus really, really quickly. That was so we could explain Monday’s craft (that some of them were doing): “Why does Jesus shoot into the sky like a rocket ship?” I also got involved this time. I got to explain the new craft, since it was tied to the invitation of the lesson I was supposed to have done. It was a folded piece of paper with gift paper on the outside. On the inside was Jesus enclosed in a heart. The message being: having Jesus in your heart is a gift from God. Anyway, I got to present a very concise version of the gospel to explain the craft. I also got to help one of the kids, Valentin. He was there on Monday. He was very quiet and well behaved. I provided him with crayons and glue.

Elaine was back there translating for us. I remember her asking Valentin what the word for glue was. This amused me because I actually knew the answer (goma). We had just learned it in our children’s ministry time that day.

After the service, we went back to YUGO. We managed to get back earlier than Monday, I think. We even made it back in time for snacks.

I don’t remember going to the sharing time, but I guess I must have. But it was the last time we made it.

After the sharing time, I went to bed. It had been a long day, but I considered it better than Monday.

Monday got off to an early start. Did I mention John gets up early? He was gone by the time I woke up the first time. Our tents were right in front of the main bathrooms. I didn’t have a clock or watch so I just got up when it sounded like a reasonable number of people were already up, and I felt reasonable rested. On Monday, a lot of people were up early. I think I ended up getting up between 5am and 6am, closer to 5am.

I had slept pretty well. We had gotten ear plugs from the hotel the night before. Which was a good thing, since John snores pretty loud.

Despite it being hot in Mexico, the showers were cold. Very cold. It took my breath away the first couple of times I stuck my head under the water. Fortunately, it didn’t take long to get accustomed to the water.

Breakfast was at 7:30am, so I had plenty of time to kill. I still wasn’t in a great mood, so I decided to stay in the tent and read my bible.

Breakfast was forgettable. It was the standard “we’re cooking for a lot of people” type cafeteria fare. It wasn’t bad. And when you’re hungry, it tastes pretty good.

After breakfast was the ministry meetings. I was in the children’s ministry, so I went to that one. The coordinators introduced themselves, etc, etc. One of the things they were going to do is ask each team to present one of the lessons during the ministry meetings. So each team would have to present one of their lessons sometime during the week. I immediately knew I was going to be the one from our team to present. I didn’t really want to, so I didn’t volunteer, hoping someone else would step up. But Joy asked me if I would, and I said yes. Oh well.

On Monday, they flipped the schedule around a bit, so I think we had team meetings next. We were supposed to prepare the team for what we were going to be doing that day. We could also split into ministry groups and go over more stuff there. I actually don’t remember what we talked about during this time. I wasn’t really in a good mood. And as we would find out later, it didn’t really matter what we planned for Monday, ‘cause it wouldn’t go like we thought.

Next was the worship time. Not being in a good mood, I didn’t really participate. I didn’t feel that I meant the words in the worship songs. The speaker for the week was a man who had been a missionary to a remote tribe in Papa New Guinea. On this day, he just introduced himself and told a little about his ministry.

After worship, was lunch.

After lunch, we had bathroom duty. Not bad. It had been cleaned recently and we had plenty of people. So it didn’t take long.

After “special services” (what they called bathroom duty), we piled into the van and a SUV to drive out to the church we’d be working with. Apparently someone had decided we should all wear our YUGO shirts the first day. I’m not sure why, because if you’re trying to not freak the locals out, you probably shouldn’t have a bunch of gringos show up dressed the same way. Maybe its just me. Anyway, not only had no one told me this, no one had given me a YUGO shirt. Fortunately Melissa was kind enough to go find me a shirt, after someone told me I was supposed to be wearing one.

The pastors of our church actually came out to the YUGO campsite to lead us to the church. So we crammed everybody inside the van and drove out. The church is actually part of a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center. Right next to a building where a drug dealer works. I’m not sure if that’s the best location or the worst location.

The actual church building was below street level. You had to take wooden stairs down that a Picasso aficionado had designed. There was kind of a courtyard there at the bottom. The sanctuary was to your right, a so-called bathroom to your left, and bunk rooms in front of you. As you might imagine, it was very run down. There were cats and kittens everywhere. Also a couple of chickens. They cooked out in the courtyard.

We went into the sanctuary and met with one of the pastors. We went over what they had done to prepare for us, and what we planned on doing. They were coming up on their three year anniversary so they had already been passing out flyers for that. We prayed and decided that we should go out door to door inviting people to our women’s and children’s ministries. The sports ministry would just go over to a local park and start playing.

The women’s ministry must have got their stuff together quickly, because they left before us. Joy was going out inviting, but wanted someone to go with her. I decided I’d rather go out inviting than wait on kids to show up, so I volunteered to go with her. Unfortunately, the women’s ministry took all the translators with them. So the pastor paired Joy and I with a couple of the brothers from the church. Except they didn’t speak any English, just Spanish.

The inviting went pretty well considering. Mainly the brothers from the church did all the talking. I would just smile, maybe say “Hola”, and hand out a flyer. We did run across a few people who spoke English. One man was a Mormon. He refused a flyer, but he told me that he understood going door to door. Another man was giving me a hard time after he found out I didn’t speak any Spanish. He told me to go to school. We ended up stopping by the park that the sports ministry was playing at. They seemed to have a lot people there playing.

After inviting, we went back to the church and waiting for kids to show up. None did. At one point someone said “Hey Andy, there’s kittens outside.” I thought they said “Hey Andy there’s kids outside.” So I went outside looking for the kids. Elaine had a good laugh at my expense.

We had supper (sandwiches) and prepared for the evening service. Most Mexican churches are fairly conservative, so I was supposed to wear a collared shirt. Unfortunately, mine was long sleeves, and it was very hot in the church. I didn’t understand any of the songs (all in Spanish, and none were English translations). So I just clapped along the best I could. Noel gave his testimony. During this time, we noticed that some of the church kids had shown up. Kristy had the idea to take the kids to the back of the sanctuary and do crafts with them.

The crafts went well. The kids were well behaved, and seemed to enjoying making something. There was one little girl who didn’t like strangers though, and didn’t want to do anything. Her mom (I think) was there, but that didn’t seem to help. There were only about four or five kids and they were jammed around the table. I didn’t get all that involved because there wasn’t room, and because we had such a high teacher to kid ratio. So I just ended up picking out stickers for when the children finished their crafts.

After the service, we hung around for a while. Some people ended up talking with people in the congregation. We finally packed up and headed back to YUGO. When we got back, we unpacked, and went to the sharing service. I think Monday was the night we wrote down what we felt was holding us back, and taped it up on a van. Each day someone from the team would go down and remove a piece of the paper.

At the end of the day, I was feeling a lot better than when I started it. I think actually being at the church and attempting to do some ministry put me in a much better mood. It was more of a “ok, this is why I’m here” kind of thing.

I went to bed as early as possible. It wasn’t long after the sharing time was over.