Safe from the Losing Fight

Saturday was supposed to be a day of traveling.

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.

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.