Brenda Ross
Mexico Journal January 2005

Sat 2/12/05

Arrived today in Harlingen.  The trip wasn't bad.    Beth had a spell in Detroit and passed out.  She waited too long too eat.  She felt pretty awful today traveling like that, but she's a real trooper.  The Lord provided a paramedic just att hat moment.  She thought she had taken a wrong turn. We knew better! 

Made it all the way down, and just went to bed early.  Sarah is also sick.  She has that horrible upper respiritory flu that I had last week.  But at least she didn't get the pukey flu!

It's so good to see Mike again, and to get to meet his wife Jan.   She seems real nice.  Also good to see Ben and Jeannie.  It's like coming home.

Well, got to get some sleep.  We have a busy day tomorrow!

Our Praise Gang team consists of Joe and Brenda Ross, Tim and Loretta Hinkley, Barbara Blankenship, Sarah Proffitt, Robert Nowak, Beth Fountain, Roger York, Nathan Struble, Brad Sundberg and Andrew Vincent.

Sun 2/13/05

Had a wonderful service this morning. We did a puppet skit (Go Jonah), Barb shared her Wordless Book, and made Mike and Jan official Praise Gang members. Then I finished up with signing "Al Mundo Dios Amo".  Ben preached on the full armor of God.  We all received a wooden sword.

Salamon and Annette were there.  Annette can't go with us because she is taking care of her grandchildren.  Salomon can't go either.  He had gall bladder last week.  He is doing well, though.  It was so good to see them again.

Our WOTC team for this trip is Mike and Jan, Bart and Sherry and their daughter, Shianne, Martha (a nurse) and Martha (a translator).

We are all in two vans headed to Padilla.  We had no problems at the border.  They didn't even ask to see Robert's documentation.  We've made it through our first checkpoint.

 9:25 pm

Arrived safely in Padilla.  So good to be here.   Frank & Lucio came by.  Also got to meet Lucio's wife, Julia. I still can't remember Mario's wife's name. I'm going to find out and write it down. 

We're all feeling the jet lag.  It's a long trip down.  We took a walk after supper to see Santos' family.  Nobody was home except Julio, the oldest brother.  They had all gone to a party.  We told him we'd see them tomorrow.  Frank was there and interpreted.  Then we walked down to the store and picked up some eggs.

When we got back, we had our evening devotions.  Nathan led the devotions tonight.  It's exciting to see how he's grown and matured.

We all crashed pretty early tonight.  Hope to be well rested for a busy day tomorrow.

Mon 2/14/05

Before I forget, Marcos wife's name is Jarcoba.

8:59 am

It's a hazy morning.  We're just getting ready to eat breakfast.  Beth brought some Beenie Babies, and had a rooster.  She set it up next to Barb's alarm clock.  Beth said she was awake at 12:30 am, and the roosters were already starting up.  We get such a nice chorus of roosters and every morning.  

10:03 pm

Well, I have a lot to catch up on.

This morning after breakfast, Mike needed to look around and see what jobs needed to be done. Some plumbers were there, because there was a leak in the chapel building.  Some kids had written on the front of the building, and it needed to be painted.  Roger, Brad and Andrew worked on the painting.  We took a walk down to the sewing store, and then a little further to another little store with beverages.   Jan wouldn't let us go with Lucio to the store, cause he was needed to translate for the plumbers.  I got a chance to talk to Lucio and Julia later in the morning.  Joe was right-he's quite the crazy man.  He found out I speak some Spanish, then he wouldn’t let me speak English.  We did get a chance to go with him a little later.  We went to the "Wal-mat" store to look for a flashlight.  They didn't have any,   so we stopped at the Panaderia "bakery".  They were baking, and invited us back to see how they baked the bread.  That was pretty cool.  Joe bought a bagful of breads, and we got some nice pictures.

Finally got to see Santos and talk with him for awhile.  He has started school.  He is going to a college in Victoria, and is studying to be a teacher.  He rides the bus over there every day.  It is about 30 miles.  I gave him his 3 red hats, (Santa, knit and baseball), and he managed to get all 3 on his head at the same time.

While Mike and Lucio were out checking on a water bill, they went to a village called El Tablero.   They asked the children if we came back in the afternoon, would they come to see a service.  They said yes, so off we went.

After we got the clowns made up, we scooted over to the village.   We broke up into 3 groups to invite people to our service.  People came from everywhere, and we ended up with around 150 people.  There were lots of children.  We started with some music, then we did the Don't Monkey Around With The Devil puppet skit.   'Butones' then shared her wordless book beads.   We followed that with Go Jonah, then I did my signing.  After that, the team went behind the van to pray while Bart preached.  There were between 60 to 70 salvations.  We then passed out candy and stickers to the kids, and rice, milk and spaghetti to the adults.  Then we started praying for special needs.  The most heart-wrenching was a young woman whose daughter had shot herself a year ago.  She wanted prayer to continue being strong in the Lord, even though her heart was broken.

We were all pretty pooped when we got back to the mission.   Sure felt good to relax.  Had spaghetti for supper.  Margarito came with his wife Juanita, and his daughter Dominique.  Afterwards, young Martha was practicing her guitar in the front chapel room, and as we all came in, one-by-one, it turned into a regular worship session. We must have sang for an hour.  Pour Martha's fingers couldn't have had much skin left on them.

Roger led our evening devotions.

Well, I must get to sleep!  I'll never get up in the morning.

Tues 2/15/05

This morning was a gorgeous morning.  Mike picked today to go down to the river for morning devotions.  Licha came down with us, and I got to meet her daughter, Maria.   She is so sweet, and knows just a few words of English.  Santos also came down.

Nathan and Roger wanted to be baptized down at the river.  It was a beautiful service.  I took my whistle to play Amazing Grace.  I love playing music with Mike on guitar.

On the way back, we stopped at Lichen's house.  She is the lady with 14 children.  Her house is about the size of our music room, about 10 x 10.  She is so proud of that house. She asked for prayer, and I prayed for her and her home.

When we returned to the mission house, I pulled out my Jesus dollar folding.  I was able to quickly remember how to do the starburst heart fold, but the other fold took more time.   I showed Santos how to do them, and he picked them right up.  Lucio was another story..he's easily distracted, and couldn’t quite get it..  

Margarito's wife, Juanita, cooked fresh fish for us for lunch. It was wonderful!  She can cook for us anytime.  There was also rice and white cheese.

After lunch, we got the clowns dressed up, and headed for the Guemez Detention Center,  This is the place Joe and Tim went to last October.  It was amazing, they let us all in, and let one person sign in for the whole group. 

There were about 17 youth at the service.  The space we were in was quite small, and we had to set up a tiny puppet stage.  We continued to do the same program, but was more difficult in that small space.

From backstage, it was difficult to tell if there was much response.  Even during the message, which Brad gave, I had difficulty seeing any response.  They seemed to really drag their feet at the invitation.  But once they started coming, there were, I think, about 8 boys that were saved.  Then the whole atmosphere changed.  We were then able to talk with many of them.  Joe, of course, had quite an audience with his magic.  It was a hard place to leave, and a hard place to stay. 

We stopped by the mission house to pick up Jan and a few more supplies.  Then we headed for the orphanage.

The orphanage is run by a missionary. and has been here about 30 years. There are around 50 children. They ranged in age from about 3 to late teens. They are so adorable!  We did a puppet show for them, and the clowns passed out beads and candy.  Nobody wanted to leave.  We just kept playing with them.  I think a couple of them would have been smuggled back with us if it was possible.

I brought my tatting down with me.  When I went through my stuff, I found 4 necklaces that I had made.   I had a chance to show Jarcoba and Julia my tatting.  They hadn't seen anything like that.  I gave each of them a necklace, and still had two left to give to Jan and Sherry.

Supper was Ponchos chicken.  Mmm, mmm.  Lucio and Roger got cutting up pretty bad. We decided Lucio would make a great clown.  He said he's not interested, but we have two more days to work on him.

Wed 2/16/05

Morning devotions-2 hours. The hot seat was set out in the middle of our circle, and a number of people took their turn receiving prayer and sharing.  Didn't finish until lunchtime.

Lucio and Julia took Joe, Robert and I to the taco stand for lunch. Yum! 

Licha gave me a peso as a gift.  She so much appreciated me praying for her yesterday at her house. She says I am her friend always, and gave me an old peso as a gift.  The old pesos have no monetary value, but coming from Licha, it is special.

Packed up and headed to Pastor Margarito's church.  Split up to invite neighbors to service.  Had a group of boys on bikes helping us.  Had a bike and a basketball to raffle off. Many children attended.

Got to meet Joe's friend, Lupita.  She is 17 years old, and has a deformity in her feet that causes her to walk on the sides of her feet.   But her face is all smiles and sunshine.   She came back to the mission with us to visit Jan. 

Thurs 2/17/05

Kept waking up last night.  Was wide awake at 5:30 am.  Good devotions this morning.  We had lots of extra guests, including a Christian comedian that did some great animal impressions, and missionaries from the village in the mountains where we're going today.  The comedian was just walking by as he was looking for work.    His wife left him and their daughter 10 months ago.  We had prayer for him.

Maria is really picking up a lot of English.  Each day we write down more words.  Roger is really enjoying Licha's family.  He tells them his name is Presidente Bush, and they call him Gordito. 

Had about a 2 hour drive to San Carlos in the mountains.   Billy, the missionary there, has been there for 30 years.  We broke into groups to invite people to the service.  Joe, I, and Bart went with Paco.  He lives in the town, and seemed to be related to at least half of them.    We got to meet many of them, and got to stop at his house and meet his family.  His daughter is engaged to George, who lives in Charlotte, NC., and is down right now visiting his grandparents.

They were slow coming, but eventually the church was filled to overflowing.  Billy said that is the most people they've had in the church in 10 years.  Many people came forward to pray for healing.  There was an older man there with his wife.  She was in a wheelchair because she had broken her hip 3 years earlier, and she has not been able to walk since.  He was a powerful prayer warrior, and energized all of us with his praises to God, sitting up in the front of the church.  Before all the praying was done, he had his hands on Tim's head and was praying for him.  It was pretty incredible.  I had the privilege of praying for a woman with diabetes who had lost some of her fingers and toes.  I could see her poor feet were bloody as I held her leg during prayer.

11:00 pm

It was another long ride back to Padilla, but went quickly amid much laughter.  We learned it's a dangerous thing to let Roger and Nathan sit next to each other.

We saw Licha, Maria, and Deborah when we got back.  It was a bittersweet time of seeing our new friends again, and knowing we are leaving tomorrow.  Licha has taken us as her family, and means every bit of it. 

We had a good time of devotions tonight.  Things are a bit late because of the long trip to the mountains.   The general feeling is one of feeling so incredibly blessed by God.   It's humbling to meet these people that have so little and don't realize it, who are so content in their circumstances.  They are so sincere and honest in their faith.

Fri 2/18/05

It was a short night.  I only got 6 hours of sleep-2 hours short of what I need. Tomorrow will be worse with our early flight out.

We got everything packed up and cleaned up pretty quickly.   Note to self-take down a toilet brush next year.

Coba came over this morning to see us off.  Also, Lucio and Julia, Pastor Margarito and PastorJuan rode with us to the border.  We were being met at the border with 2 older vans that they drove back to Padilla.

Instead of driving into Texas to get to Progresso like we did last year, we stayed on the Mexican side.   It was raining and cold, and we had a couple people who have trouble with a lot of walking.  We had lunch at Arturos.  Planned on buying a bunch of stuff, but we only had an hour and a half to shop.   All I bought was 2 dresses and a necklace.   Joe picked up some vanilla, and some sunglasses.

Sat 2/19/05

Traveled home today.  It has been an incredible trip.  The lives changed this week have not just been the people we’ve encountered.  Our lives will never be the same again.  Many are already talking about returning – some long term.  Praise God!