Friday, 3/21/08
We gathered at KCLUMC at 5:30 this morning to finish the final loading of our vehicles.  Besides the mission trippers, another 20 or so folks came to see us off.  After a word of prayer, 22 sleepy youth and adults squeezed into 3 mini vans and a cargo van and headed south on I-5.  The weather was great for the drive and except for our usual stop at the Weed, CA rest area not happening due to construction, the drive went as planned.  We arrived at Turlock UMC at about 5:00. Mark, Laura, Heidi and Audrey used to live here so the church laid out the welcome mat and made us dinner.  After a Good Friday Tennebrae service and our own devotions led by Libby, Audrey and Gabrielle, everyone fell into bed.  9:30 lights out.

Saturday, 3/22/08

Because we had a shorter drive from Turlock this year, we slept in a little this morning and left Turlock First United Methodist Church at 8:00 US time.  (Pastor Martin has reminded me a few times that Mexico has not changed back to Standard time yet.  We learned that lesson last year when we waited outside the hardware store for an hour waiting for it to open.) 

The weather was great and the drive was uneventful.  After lunching at our usual stop in Santa Clarita, we even made it through LA relatively easily and crossed the border at 4:30 US time.  Pastor Martin asked me if we could find the church without an escort as he was going to be out of town all day at a meeting.  We wandered a little bit and then stopped and got enough directions that we made it to the church successfully.

Luis from Mexicali was here along with Mitchell, Pastor Martin’s oldest son, to greet us.  Pastor Martin, the rest of his family and Fernanda and Ruth from Mexicali arrived a couple of hours later with the expected tacos for feasting.  The water at the church was not working so Mark and Marcos tackled that project right away and got it squared away. 

A group of us walked up the street 3 blocks for ice.  Morgan had never been outside of Oregon before so it’s great fun seeing the world through her eyes.

The church here is growing in numbers and is currently having services in the fellowship hall upstairs.  Pastor Martin said the goal for the congregation is that as soon as they fill the fellowship hall to overflowing, they’ll move downstairs into the larger sanctuary for worship.  We set up all of our sleeping quarters downstairs – girls in the sanctuary, boys in the Sunday School rooms.

There’s a sunrise service at 6:00 tomorrow morning and then the usual service at 10:00.  After a potluck feast and siesta, we’ll head out to the colonia to distribute flyers inviting kids in the neighborhood to our Vacation Bible School this week.  We’ll also evaluate the potential colonia work projects that include painting the mobile home that is being used to hold Bible studies.  We’ve already found a myriad projects here at the church and at the parsonage to keep us busy for a few weeks.  There’s only one working shower right now so addressing that need is high on our list.

The weather is beautiful. 75 degrees and sunny.  Hope it holds!

Monday, 3/24/08

Everyone was up and ready to go early so we had worship and devotions at 7:30 and tackled our projects.  Kelly and Mindy led a crew that stayed at the church to paint the entrance hall.  They completed that project and will move onto painting the parsonage ceilings tomorrow.  (We did some drywall patching last year at the parsonage but didn’t have time to get all of the final touches completed.)  Mark, Marcos, Jim and Nic worked on a myriad of plumbing projects and we now have 3 working showers and 5 working toilets!  It’s 9:30 pm and Mark, Libby and Jim are patching the floor in the kitchen of the church in anticipation of laying new floor tiles tomorrow.

Jane and Karen led the team painting the inside of the chapel in the colonia. They have enough to do to keep them busy for more days than we have to work.  Jason and Pastor Martin removed a wall in the chapel and pulled down a section of the ceiling that needs to be replaced. Tomorrow they’ll be adding another wall and finishing up the ceiling drywall.

Laura and Robin led the chapel outside painting crew.  They spent the first part of the day washing the entire building.  Severely needed!  The chapel is surrounded by all dirt roads sp there is plenty of dust.  They completed a coat of primer and will work on getting the building painted tomorrow.

Kevin spent the morning running for store to store.  It’s a lot of work to keep this dynamic crew supplied with all they need!

After lunch and a brief siesta, we gathered at 2:30 to run through the Vacation Bible School plans and refresh our craft training.  We arrived at the park in the colonia at 3:45 and were greeted by quite a few neighborhood kids.  They helped us unload and setup and we got down to business.  The weather was beautiful, very little wind, and VBS went off without a hitch.  At one point I counted 150 kids watching the puppet show and skit and we went through over 200 of some of our crafts.  All of our team had a great time with the kids and spirits were high when we wrapped up at around 5:30.

We got back to the church for a 7:00 dinner, evening worship, recap of the day, planning for tomorrow and had lights out at 9:30.  Great day and a LOT accomplished!

Tuesday, 3/25/08

Once again, everyone was up early and ready to roll.  The morning was a little cool and cloudy but the sun popped through by 8:30 and it was another beautiful mid-70’s day.  We had morning worship and devotions at 7:15 and were busy working by 8:00.  There were 3 distinct work groups at the chapel.  Laura and Robin’s group finished up painting the outside and just has some touch up and trim to do tomorrow.  Jane and Karen’s group worked on painting the inside and only has the ceiling and trim to finish and Jim, pastor Martin’s and Jason’s group tore out a counter and is building a wall to separate the kitchen area from the worship space.  (This is an older single-wide mobile home.)  There is a young family that lives in the chapel as caretakers and they have a bedroom in the back.  Our goal is to finish all 3 pieces tomorrow and spend Thursday morning – a short work day, working at the church.  We also will be planting 22 plants around the chapel so part of the painting group has been taking turn digging holes in the hard ground.  Fortunately both Laura and Robin are gardeners so they have a planting plan all laid out. 

The church work team has also split into 3 groups.  Kelly and Mindy’s painting group made enough headway on their projects that they also started painting some of the wooden Sunday School tables and chairs.  They should be able to wrap up the painting tomorrow.  Libby and Mark continued with their tile laying project in the kitchen and are hoping to finish up tonight.  (They have to work around the cooking schedule because you know how important food is to the whole mission team!)  Tomorrow we’ll have 6 additional tillers working on the church entryway and the 2 bathrooms.  Marcos and Nic did some electrical work, finished up some plumbing and prepared to replace a couple of windows.

After lunch and siesta, we gathered to organize for today’s VBS. We had 12 or so of the local youth and adults helping us today.  It was great!  Having the extra hands and the additional Spanish speakers really kept things running smoothly.  We had a similar number of kids – 200 or so, and the skits, songs, puppet shows, face painting, balloon animals and crafts went very well.  Tomorrow we give out the Spanish Bibles that we brought.  We may not have enough as we only brought 200.  It’s always fun but the distribution is usually very frenetic.

We wrapped up VBS about 6:00 and made it back to the church for dinner at 6:30.  After worship, a recap and planning meeting, everyone had about an hour of relax or shower time before lights out at 9:30.

Wednesday, 3/26/08

The work crews have been so enthusiastic that, once again, we met for worship at 7:15 and were working by 8:00.  The construction crew at the chapel finished the wall they were working on but the mud wasn’t dry enough to paint so we’re going to have a few folks come back Thursday morning to finish up painting the ceiling, the new wall and the kitchen.  Gabrielle said that she has spent so much time on the ladder the last 3 days that she has totally gotten over her fear of ladders!  It’s great to have her long reach painting the outside trim of the chapel. 

The plantings look great and a contingent of local people did a lot of weeding.  We picked up some colored bark dust (Never seen it before.) so there is some nice blue around the green of the plants.  A couple of ladies from the neighborhood brought us snacks and iced drinks on Tuesday and on Wednesday they brought us some excellent pizza!  As we wrapped up Wednesday, we filled 10 or so bags with garbage from the area so loaded the bags into the cargo van and took them back to the church to be picked up.

The floor crew at the church has another 3 or so hours of work so we’ll be continuing that chore on Thursday morning.  The painting crew at the church finished the ceiling of the parsonage and some touch-up around both the church and parsonage.  There are quite a few small projects around the church and parsonage that we’ll be working on tomorrow morning. 

After lunch and siesta, we headed out for VBS.  Again, we had a large number of Tijuana youth and adults helping us.  A good thing since, once again, we had 200+ kids!  The crafts, face painting etc went great.  This year we did live skits for the first time and handed out tracts with the parable that we acted out.  On Monday, Pastor Jim read the scripture for the skit, on Tuesday Laura was the reader and on Wednesday it was Mariah.  The skits went well but we will do a little tweaking for next year.  We borrowed a few puppets from a friend of Jane’s and the new puppet faces were very well received.

Wednesday’s VBS culminates with distribution of Spanish Bibles.  Pastor Martin suggested that we set up some tables outside of the gazebo and have the kids line up there.  The new system worked very well except for small stampede to get out of the gazebo and into one of the lines.  We were about 50 Bibles short of what we needed.  As Jane said, “It’s like we’re handing out gold.  The kids are so excited to get a Bible of their own!”  This certainly was a highlight of the week and spirits were high as we wrapped up the evening with dinner and worship.  After dinner, we had what has become our traditional communion/prayer service Wednesday evening.  It ended around 10:00 and everyone fell into bed.  We have a lighter work schedule Thursday so set an 8:00 wake-up.

Thursday, 3/27/08

Pastor Jim had to be at the border by 5:30 am to take the bus to the San Diego airport and fly home.  Pastor Martin, Jane, Jessica, Jason, Luis and Karen dropped Jim off and drove out to the chapel to finish up the projects.  They were back to the church by 9:30, exhausted but happy to have wrapped things up.

Mark and the tilers were up laying floors by 7:15 and everyone began cleaning, packing and putting finishing touches on projects as soon as they had eaten breakfast.

Per usual, Karen and Robin organized the breakfasts and the ladies of the church, led by Pastor Martin’s wife Marta, prepared our lunches and dinners all week.  The food was amazing and I’m sure that most of us put on a few pounds this week despite all of the activity!  We had incredible meals and were surprised by the variety.

Nic hopped onto the roof and retarred around one of the dormers.  Marcos pulled out one of the toilets and I picked up a replacement.  (We battled the leaking toilet last year and again this year and decided to try a more direct attack!)  Work teams vacuumed, washed windows, swept, organized and packed tools, cleaned all of the vehicles, changed light switch plates, rewired plug-ins, mopped the new floors, laid molding, replaced lights and generally finished up projects while preparing us for departure.

We left at about noon for Ensenada, about a 90 minute drive. Pastor Martin and his family came with us as well as Luis and Fernanda from Mexicali (Ruth, Luis’s sister, had to leave Thursday morning to go back home to take a college entrance test.)  One of the parishioners that did a huge amount of with us everyday, Felipe, came with his wife, Norma, and son and a couple of the other teens that were helping us all week.  All told there were 36 of us!  We had a great time shopping and hanging out.  A group paid $2 for a 35 minute boat ride and saw dolphins and seals and a number of girls had their hair wrapped.  We all sat together at a local outside fish restaurant and had dinner before heading back to the church. 

Thursday evening is always a tough and tearful time because we start our goodbyes.  We loaded the vans and did a lot of talking and hugging before falling into bed around 10:30.

Mark and a couple of the tiling crew stayed up until midnight for the 3^rd night in a row working on the floors. 

Friday morning would be an early start!

Friday, 3/28/08

Our goal was to pull out of the church parking lot by 5:00 am, Tijuana time so we were up and moving by 4:00.  After packing up all of our sleeping bags and remaining gear and another round of tearful hugs, we headed for the border.  It took us just short of an hour to get across and our cargo van was searched.  We headed up I-5 into San Diego at 7:30 US time.  The drive through LA was easy and, after a stop in the park in Santa Clarita to stretch our legs, we headed into the grapevine.  We lunched at a rest area (The Tijuana church ladies had packed us lunches.) and arrived at Redding at 7:30 pm.  The United Methodist Church in Redding had sent us a key so we moved in, ordered pizza and unwound from a long travel day.  After worship, devotions and a team recap of the week, we had lights out at 10:30.

Saturday, 3/29/08

On the road again!  We left Redding UMC at 7:45 after breakfast and devotions. The drive was easy and the roads free of snow.  The inclement weather has been great for driving on the entire trip with only an occasional rain shower.  Everyone snacked out on cookies and leftover pizza so we decided to skip a stop for lunch and opted for ice cream at Rice Hill.  Arrival time in Keizer was 2:15.  Thank the Lord for a safe journey and an incredible experience.