Mary:

• Focused on the most important–worshiping God (Christ). Luke 10:38-42
• Faithful in trials. John 11:21-40
• Forsook her greatest possession. Mark 14:3

Judas:

• Criticized intimate worship. Mark 14:4
• Complained about God’s work. Mark 14:4. 5
• Confided with wicked people. Mark 14:10, 11

What struck me is that while many look at missionaries and think that we are willing to give up many things to go live on a foreign field, most of us don’t see that as a hardship. However, we struggle with giving up some things. Maybe your struggle is the thought of giving up regular electricity, or moving away from family. We do give up those things, but personally my struggles are in giving up things of even lesser value.

I don’t think I fall into the category of a Judas, but I am not sure I am a Mary either. Sure, I am willing to give up some comforts to be a missionary, but am I willing to forsake what I see as materialistically important? I am not sure I am there yet.

There are also forums where you can discuss miscellaneous topics in your language of choice. Currently they boast 10 languages that you can learn on the site. Registration is free and there is quite a bit of study you can do without having to shell out bucks. But for paying customers you can get personalized tutoring based on your needs as represented in the reading and audio portions of the site.

You can also interact with real people. But what Internet junkie would want to do that? I will stick to the training sessions and forums where social interaction is limited.

This video was taken at about 10 minutes after the store was to have opened. There were already people leaving the store when we got in line. That makes me think that they opened early. There were no hard drives left. They had a space for the drives that could not have held more than 10 drives to start with. I ran across the street to Wal-Mart while my wife paid for a couple of items. At Wal-Mart I found the drives in a stack of about 80. They had plenty of them. They price-matched Target and I got a good deal.

People bash Wal-Mart all the time, but all in all I think they are doing many things right.

As soon as we got home we started preparing for the coming week. I had a seminary class I was taking and really was not well prepared for it. By Tuesday afternoon I started feeling like my head was back in the game. Fortunately my teacher is one of these wise, practical scholars. He did not expect us to memorize everything he taught. He is more interested in us getting the information on paper so that we can access the material in the future. For my tests this week we had to write a couple of long papers (took me close to 6 hours Thursday night). These papers were “open Bible” essays. As long as we knew how to dig in the Bible and intelligently explain what we had learned, he was satisfied. I don’t know my grade yet, but I feel like I did well and learned much.

The most exciting thing that happened today was that I faked the need for a nap and made my wife drive through Houston.

We made it from the bottom tip of Texas up to Orange, Texas which is just a few miles from the Lousiana border. Should be less than 8 hours from home. Even though we are on better roads we are still traveling pretty slowly. Keeping the speeds between 50 and 60 MPH to make sure we don’t over tax the trailer and its tires.

Day 6 (Preview)
We will skip church tomorrow for the second time in my ability to remember. With a class starting Monday morning I want to try and allow as much time as I can to get home. There is still the possibility of a blow out or some other big event tomorrow. Using the extra time as wisely as we can. We are arriving 48 hours later than what we were planning last Monday morning.

What I needed from the tire shop was a lug wrench to pull the tire off the trailer so that I could run around with the rim in hand to get a new tire installed. I asked at the tire shop that I first visited if they had any 12″ tires. They did! They had 2 tires that were a bit smaller than I needed, but would fit my rim. These were used tires, but one of them looked like it was in pretty good shape. I got a lug wrench off of them and went back to the trailer to get the tire. The process of pulling the tire off went smoothly and I took the rim to the tire shop.

While they put the tire on, I buzzed over to the hotel and picked up the family. We hit an OXXO (Mexican convenience store) for some morning coffee and a totally un-healthy breakfast.

When we got back to the tire shop the tire was ready to go. We went to the trailer to find that it had fallen! Apparently the jack sank into the ground enough to topple the whole mess. Fortunately the jack was not pinned under the trailer in such a way that I could not get it out. It took well over an hour and some help from a passer-by to get the new tire on. Then I had to run the lug wrench back to the tire shop.

Back on the Road
We took it easy heading on to the border. With the fact that the tire shop had a tire that we could use, I estimated that we would be back on the road by 10:30. I missed it by an hour because of the trouble we had getting the trailer up off the ground after it fell. The trip to the border also took longer since we were now running on 2 different sized tires. We were concerned about overheating one tire by running it crooked down the road. Our original estimated time of arrival to cross the border was 2:00 in the afternoon.

Checkpoints
We had one more military checkpoint before getting to the border. They were pulling everyone over and digging through all the cars and suitcases. We got shoved into one line and waited our turn. When they got to us the soldiers suddenly started letting all the cars go through. Supposedly they were checking in waves and we were at the front of the next wave to be let past.

We have nothing to hide, but if we were forced to open our trailer to let them inspect it, it would probably be 4+ hours to pull it all apart and then put it together again. We were thankful for the gift of passing through.

Just one more inspection to go to get across the border. The last one is on the US side and can be a pain.

Border Crossing
We needed to go into the immigration office and cancel our paperwork. This didn’t slow us down much, but we were already way behind our ETA. The only thing that that mattered was we were going to try and eat lunch with some friends. We did not get to the border to cross until 4:00. Lunch plans turned into supper plans.

When we finally got over to the US side we were praying that we would not have to be inspected. Again, nothing to hide, but I did not want to go through the mess of pulling everything apart.

Something about me must sceam “INSPECT ME!” on the US side. We were asked to pull over and let the agents check our vehicle. This happened last time and it took almost an hour. They asked several questions about what we had in the trailer. They looked through the back of the van and asked again what was in the trailer. We have a bookcase strapped to the top of the trailer box that they looked in. They then asked to see what was in the trailer itself. I pulled out the hammer and told them I would have to disassemble the whole thing. They looked at each other and said that I could just go on.

Praise the Lord!

Dinner and a Hotel
We finally crossed the border closer to 5:30 after having to wait in line. We made a quick trip to Wal-Mart to pick up a new tire in the right size so that we can travel with a bit more confidence.

One of our friends that we were supposed to meet for lunch/supper was sick. We did get to meet with another friend and had a nice evening of talking about future plans.

In the process of all our running around my wife checked out some hotels in the area. She found one with a pool and Internet. When we checked in I saw a sign that said “Free Wireless Internet! (In lobby only).” Fortunately they also have wired Internet access in the rooms.

After the kids swam a bit we shoved them into bed. I went to the lobby to sit and do some reading and have a cup of coffee. Super 8 has become one of our favorite hotels because of the price and they really have improved their service. They (usually) have coffee available at any time and their breakfast area is usually open for a nice quiet place to work and read after the kids go to sleep so that I don’t have to have a light on in the room.

Usually. Did I say that already?

At 9:25 I went to the lobby to have my coffee and start my evening reading. I have a class I am starting on Monday that I have to have a pile of reading done for. I was really looking forward to getting a bit done tonight. I got to the lobby to find that it was locked. The man behind the desk waved me over to a hole in the window to talk. Apparently the free wireless Internet that is available only in the lobby gets cut off some time before 9:30 since you are not allowed into the lobby. That meant no coffee and no comfortable reading with actual lights. I got to head back to the room where I would be relegated to the bathroom once again for reading. Some people like the bathroom as a reading room, but when you live in hotels as much as we do, sitting on the side of the tub gets un-comfy after a while.

Super 8, I am not pleased with this location. Nice room. Seems to be a kind staff. But not letting me use the lobby to read after 9:00, not having coffee available and not having wireless Internet outside of the closed lobby (when clearly the technology exists), is not a good customer experience for me.

Day 5 (Preview)
We will get up at whatever time seems good. Breakfast at the hotel. Then start heading our way to Florida. We still have almost 1,000 miles to go to get home. Plenty of things can go wrong. But nothing seems to be quite as awful when we are in our country with cell phone access around people who speak our language.

We had no idea what town we were in last night. We asked the hotel clerk this morning. We were in the town of Emilio Carranza. It is a very small town. The hotel we stopped at for the night was about 200 yards into town, and there was about that much town left to go when we left the hotel. It is just a speed bump between the larger towns of Cardel and Poza Rica.

About an hour down the road we were able to find a gas station with a convenience store (surprisingly rare in some parts of Mexico). This place happened to also have a pharmacy and a coffee shop. Two things we were looking for. Nice one-stop-shop to get us going.

Nice and Boring
Most of the day was simply drive straight ahead. We only encountered one exciting spot in the road as we passed through Cerro Azul. There was a wire hanging low over the road. The larger trucks were taking turns supporting a boy who would hold up the wire so the trucks on one side of the road could pass for a while. Then, presumably, he would jump onto another truck going the other way and hold the wire up for the opposite traffic.

Because all my trailer wiring got burned yesterday while the welder was working, we took some time to stop at the only Auto Zone we would see on this route and buy a new wiring harness. They did not have exactly what I needed, but I bought something that would work. It was a bit of a pain, but I got the trailer lights working again just north of Tampico.

Welder: Round 2
Going through the town of Soto La Marina my wife was driving. She heard the chains of the trailer start to drag and immediately pulled over. Fortunately, though the trailer broke again in the same place, we were able to pull off the road where there was a group of guys working on a road construction truck. I told them our problem and they pointed me to the welder who was working on another truck.

I think God allowed us to get the trailer patched yesterday just to get us to this guy today. Today’s welder did a much better job in fixing the trailer. The quality of work difference is noticeable. While I never had great confidence in the work done yesterday, I do feel like this welder took care of the job completely.

Before he got started on the job though I was able to remove my new wiring and keep it from getting burned up.

The job took a bit over an hour to complete. By that time it was already dark, but we had also already picked out our planned hotel for the night. With the exception of the road construction that was being done in the immediate area, we know the roads were pretty good all the way to the little town that we were planning to stay in for the night.

New Tire: Round 2
Within 5 minutes of driving away from the welder we punctured a tire on the road. This road is a temporary road that is just rock and dirt while the crew builds a nice new road. Because the road was so rough I did not know that I had a flat until we got back up on the paved road a few minutes later. By that time the tire was shredded. This is one of those new, expensive, hard to find tires that I bought on Monday.

We were able to pull off the road into a wide driveway of some business. We dropped the trailer with plans to take the wheel into one of the larger towns tomorrow and see if we can locate a tire. This will be at least a 2 hour round trip. It might be as long as 7 hours if we have to drive on to the border to find a new tire.

At least, that was the plans. After we got the trailer off the van we realized that we did not have a lug wrench that will work on the trialer. I will have to find a local shop that will let me borrow a lug wrench before I can start the running around tomorrow. Of course, I will also see if I can locate a tire in Soto La Marina before I go too far looking for one. I don’t have much hope of that since it was hard to find one in a town of 1,000,000 people. Finding one in a town of 3,000 is less hopeful.

Day 4 (Preview)
If things go well then we might be back on the road by 2:00 in the afternoon. That means that we should be able to cross the border tomorrow night. That is 24 hours behind our goal to have us home on Saturday. I will definitely miss the meeting I was trying to attend that afternoon. I am currently in jeopardy of having to miss the class that I am supposed to start on Monday morning.

Worst case scenario for tomorrow will be that we hit the 2 big towns on our way to the border and still not find a tire. Then we will have to cross the border to get a new tire and return. The border is only 3 hours from where we are currently, but one of the big towns (our better option) will put us about 3 hours from the border after we drive an hour over to that town. It may be as late as Saturday morning before we even get back to put the tire on the trailer.

At least the $25 hotel we are in for the night has very comfy beds.

Broken Tongue
We had gotten a couple of hours down the road when we crossed a bridge. As we went over the bridge with the “smooth” road, we started bouncing up and down. That nice up and down movement was apparently just right to snap the tongue on our trailer.

I am sure the trailer is quite weighted down. But I have had it this loaded before. Maybe the former abuse was just what it needed to break it the rest of the way. I have had the trailer for over 10 years. I am not sure how it was used previously. Whatever is the cause, it did break. We were very fortunate that it simply sagged to the ground and I was able to pull over to a stop. It could have just as easily broken and then dug into the asphalt and ripped the back end off our van, or flipped the trailer over onto us.

Off to Find Help
We were on a toll road and only 2 Km from a toll booth. We unhooked the trailer and drove up to the toll booth. I did not pay to go through the booth, but pulled off the side of the road. I did not want to pay $20 and then find out I had to pay it again just to go get my trailer. That wisdom proved to be accurate. If I had left the area, I would have had to pay each time I crossed back in.

For the next 3 hours I worked with a mechanic crew that hangs around the toll plaza for just such occasions trying to figure out how to get the trailer to a welder. There were two obvious solutions, but neither of them seemed practical to the mechanic. One solution was to bring the welder to the trailer. The mechanic’s argument was that the welder needed a generator to plug the welding machine in to. I suggested acetylene welding instead of arc welding. He did not know a welder who had that set-up.

The second solution was to call a tow truck and have the trailer either lifted onto a truck or do one of those amazing tow-truck-guy things that they do with chains. I am sure one could figure that out. I later found out that this was not a good solution for the mechanic because then he would lose the money to someone else. It was not about helping me, but about getting my money.

Mexican Ingenuity
Ultimately we pulled the trailer with my van by the tongue and the mechanic’s truck rode behind the trailer pulling down on the back end with a rope to balance the trailer between the two vehicles on the trailer tires.

We pulled-pushed the trailer 5 Km (just over 3 miles) to the welder. That short trip took probably close to 45 minutes. The mechanic charged me $90 for his work. I felt like I was stuck paying that price since we really could not agree on a price before we knew what was going to be involved. I thought $50 was more justifiable, but paid the $90 anyway.

Welder’s Work
The welder said it would take him an hour to do his part. We agreed on a price of $55 to put the trailer back together and then reinforce the tongue area. It took him 1.5 hours. I got some nice pictures of him working. I will try to upload some later.

Back on the Road
That all took just under 5 hours to complete. With our late start today, we only traveled about 4 hours from where we started this morning. We ended up between 2 larger towns (where we know the hotels) to try and find a place to stay. We were headed for an area called Costa Esmeralda (Emerald Coast) to pull over for the night. When we made our final gas station stop we saw a hotel with Internet. We don’t even really know what town we are in, but we were able to get to bed early for an early start tomorrow.

There is still a slim chance of crossing the border tomorrow night, but not looking real likely.

Day 3 (Preview)
We will continue north through the town of Poza Rica. Actually, we get to skirt around the edge of town. Then through one of our least favorite towns, Tuxpan. From Tuxpan it is a horrible little road for several hours to the city of Tampico. The stretch from Poza Rica to Tampico is probably the worst roads we will encounter on the whole trip. Once we get past Tampico a couple of hours we have very nice roads the rest of the way to the border.

Day 1 minus 3
Saturday we worked to get the last of our items sold that we needed to get out from under so that we could move everything back to the US that we had left. The garage sale went somewhat well, but we did not get rid of everything we needed to.

We packed up most of the trailer on Saturday evening. We could not get everything packed and sealed up until at least Sunday night or Monday morning. Things progressed well with the packing as much as we could do up to that point. In fact, we packed so compactly that we had more room than stuff. Ultimately we did find enough stuff to pack into the holes we had left.

Day 1 minus 2
Sunday I was able to get my long run for the week done. I love that church does not start until 11:00 at our church in Merida. I ran my 8 mile long run and really enjoyed being able to focus on something other than packing for a couple of hours. I took the opportunity to run in some areas of town I don’t normally frequent. Being Sunday morning I did not expect much traffic on my run. For the most part it was pretty clear.

After church we went and grabbed a quick lunch. I had become quite preoccupied with the tires and slightly bent axle on our trailer. The old tires were pretty chewed up and there was not much tread left on one of the tires. This was actually the cause of lack of sleep Saturday night. But Sunday afternoon I took the trailer to a friend of mine to see what could be done about straightening the axle before putting on new tires. I was very disappointed when he told me I would have a hard time finding tires since it was an odd size in Mexico. These trailer tires are so common in the US you can find them at any Wal-Mart, but apparently not common at all in Mexico. We even considered the possibility of adapting my axle to accept different wheels or replacing the axle altogether. That is what I got to mull over while sitting in church Sunday night.

After the evening service we got together with a group of friends for a meal. One of the pastors had some ideas of where I might be able to get tires for my rims. On Monday morning he was able to give me phone numbers to call.

Day 1 minus 1
We were supposed to leave Monday. The earlier the better, but were determined that if we could have left before 5:00 pm we would still have enough time to get a couple of hours down the road and not have to push so hard the rest of the week. We are trying to be home by Saturday afternoon. We will see how the week progresses.

I had an appointment with a man at 10:00 to come and buy the rest of the items we had for sale. While waiting for him I called tire shops and finally found some tires that would fit. They were not terribly expensive, but about twice what I would have had to pay in the US. I also got a chance to sell a few more items. The man I was supposed to meet with did not show up by 10:40 so I called his work and got his cell number. He told me he would be there in an hour or so. I emphasized to him when I first set up the appointment how critical it was that he be on time since I did not live at the place where the items were stored and I was really crunched for time. That apparently meant nothing to him. I asked him to call me when he was close and I would run some errands while waiting for him. He finally showed up an hour and 40 minutes late. Typical. I also ended up not selling anything to him. He was only interested in 2 items and offered me only 1/3 of what I was asking.

Then to the other end of town I went to pick up the tires. I grabbed them and met my friend who helped me the day before and we took the tires to be mounted. After the mounting process, he insisted that I have the axle fixed. I knew at this point our departure was in jeopardy. Fortunately the process of bending the axle into place only took about 30 minutes at the local alignment shop.

Back home to finish packing and hit the road. I did not get back to the house until 3:30. We did not finish packing the trailer until 6:00. So much for leaving Monday.

We went and had a nice meal that night and also picked up a few more items that would help keep our stuff dry in the trailer. The trailer is a simple flat bed with a short rail around it. We built a 4′ X 8′ X 4′ plywood box on it. With the extra time I was able to caulk all the joints and do a pretty good job of wrapping the box in a tarp. The biggest issue is that if we have to open the box for any military, police or customs checkpoints, I will probably never get it sealed up as well as it is now.

Day 1
We got up at 5:30 with the goal of having the van packed and on the road sometime between 6 and 7 AM. A few hangups here and there and we finally left town at 9:00. In the process we bought Wal-Mart out of their whole stock of duct tape. We have plenty to seal up any holes or leaks in the tarps.

After a couple of early naps between my wife and I (and driver changes), we were finally awake enough to make some time. We intentionally traveled slower than normal because of the added weight of the trailer. When we pulled this trailer with our Suburban when it was similarly loaded, there was no noticeable difference in the way the truck handled. Not true with a Honda Odyssey. Starting up and slowing down are much more of a challenge. Even at the slower speed we were only 1 hour behind our normal schedule of making it to the city of Villahermosa, Tabasco.

At one point along the way today we did something we have thought about many times, but have never done. We pulled our van off the side of the highway and enjoyed a little wading in the gulf waters. We had talked about swimming. Though we could not see the waves from the road, they were pretty strong. But when you got down to the water line you could see that there was quite a strong pushing and pulling of the water. For prudence sake we just waded a while.

When we left Villahermosa we knew we could make it to the city of Coatzacoalcos in 2 hours. Within 30 minutes of leaving Villahermosa we were in a tremendous thunderstorm. The best thing for our trailer and contents is to keep moving in rain. I have everything packed in such a way that it is best protected from water entering the front and being blown off as we are moving. While I don’t think we have any major leaks, if there are any, they are going to be most easily exploited when the trailer is sitting stationary.

This storm was so strong and violent that traveling 20 MPH at times seemed risky. So much for movement. While I am not normally a pessimist, I don’t see any way that our stuff stayed dry. It was a torrential downpour for 40 minutes. By the time we got to the hotel it had slowed down, but the streets in the city were totally flooded. What did not get wet in the rain probably got soaked from the bottom up with the trailer buried under water for 30 minutes. On the bright side: if we make it home this weekend and anything is dry, then I should be pleased.

It is currently still raining and the trailer has been sitting in the rain for a couple of hours. Sigh.

Day 2 (preview)
We plan to be on the road somewhat early tomorrow. The hotel we are in does not start serving breakfast until 6:30. So we probably won’t be on the road until at least 7:00. Best case scenario is that we will make it to within 4 or 5 hours of the border. We should make it to within 10 hours tomorrow barring any major road problems. Then we will travel all day on Thursday to be able to cross that evening. If we do make good time and distance tomorrow then we can cross on Thursday and get a few hours up into Texas before having to shut down for the night.

I will keep you posted as I can.

We will be there for 3 nights. I am the guest speaker this year. Since I have been gone a year (we left a week after camp last year) then I get to be the special guest. I am still doing basically the same things I did last year except I didn’t have to do as much of the planning. Can’t get much better than that. Well, it could. I could be given special napping privileges while everyone else is outside playing in the sun. But, alas, I get to help run the games too.

So, while I have now committed to being a better blogger, I step away from the Internet for a few days. Look forward to some pictures this weekend.

When we left Mexico back in August of last year, we packed up most of our stuff and put it in a storage room. We did not know where we were going next at that time. There was a possibility that we would be staying in Mexico, but not in this area. It made sense to not sell all our furniture until we knew what part of the country, or world, we were going to next. Now that we know where we are going, we need to get rid of this stuff. Most of it is impersonal household items like couches, fans, trash cans and office supplies. Having been apart from these items over the last year, it seems to be a bit easier to put a price on something and watch it walk away.

Currently we are just selling to our friends. Later this week we open the floodgates to the general public. There is still a lot of processing to do to get ready for the opening of the garage sell on Friday. Coupled with that, we are preparing for a camp next week. There is a lot to fill our time with this week that could throw us off our goal of being packed up before camp starts on Tuesday.

As I said, this move is in stages. After this packing up time we will be taking what is left back to the US and putting it in storage there. We will continue to travel throughout the fall and then figure out how to get the necessary items into a few suitcases and start flapping our wings towards Argentina.

Among the things I have enjoyed doing while back in town is running on some of the same roads and paths that have become so familiar in my running career. I have not logged a lot of miles since being back, but I have enjoyed them.

We started the week with about 80 campers. This grew all week with our final count up to 95. That is a good number landing right in our average range of campers. I am always amazed as to how many people come to camp based on how poorly we advertise. Out of the group of missionaries that have mostly been there the last 5 years, only 4 of the group of 10 were able to be there. We had plenty of help and teachers though since we mostly have the pastors and their wives do the teaching.

We probably had 15 people who had never been to camp before. One man from the state of Hidalgo (a new group this year) accepted the Lord as his savior. There were also 2 hearing men who surrendered to service.

Wednesday was our “battle day.” We had a dog bite, a lady step on a nail, a man get stomach cramps bad enough to justify an emergency room visit. There were three trips to the doctor for various reasons. Dissension in the camp among 2 groups grew to a head, however, as camp director I did not know anything about it until late that night. I was able to resolve it, in a way, on Thursday morning. While it seemed everything might fall apart on Wednesday, that was the day that the one man was saved. Everything worked out fine by Friday. I think we were all friends again by the time we parted ways.

Friday I was asked if I could take 3 people to the bus station. This is the first year that I have not been in a hurry to get away from camp. I got everyone off and started the trip to the bus station. My 3 had grown to 10. I took them and they said that there were still 7 more that needed a ride. I returned for the next group to find out that there were 9 more after that. On three trips to the buses I hauled 26 people in my van with only 3 seats. The back end was full of luggage. Only in Mexico can you pack 9 people at a time in 3 seats.

We took our time getting away from camp since we have no particular time schedule to get anywhere. The only town on our route that was of any size was only 1 hour away. We got into town in search of a hotel that had certain amenities. I turned down one hotel because of not having all we wanted. Every other hotel we found was full to capacity. I finally returned to the first place (almost 2 hours later) and they only had one room left, but their Internet connection was out. I have already been a week without Internet and if I am taking the next few days like they were a vacation, I really want some communication abilities.

The reason all the hotels are full has to do with this being the weekend between the 2 big summer vacation weeks in Mexico. We are also in La Huasteca region. It would be like Yellowstone NP to US citizens.

We finally found a hotel that had a room available. Our casual evening in town to relax and eat at a fancy restaurant and get some reading done ended up with us grabbing a greasy chicken from a grocery store and eating it in our room at 9:30 at night. Rarely is anything as easy as it seems it should be.

After Gettysburg we spend a few days in Syracuse, New York with some dear friends. He is the pastor of a deaf church and president of a mission board. I was privileged to preach for him on the Wednesday night that we were there. We have always loved his church people and the fellowship we have with them. Bro. Steve took us to a science museum one day while we were there. Steve is a geek from the 50s. As a child he attended a special session for electronic engineers on transistors when they first came out. He has been a hardware hacker ever since. The science museum turned him into a kid with the rest of us.

After NY we were back in PA for the camp that I was speaking at. It is a camp for children (hearing) ages 7 to 12. Not my favorite group to work with. But the beauty of this camp was that I was just the speaker. I only had to show up for my sessions and was not expected to entertain the children the whole time. Thank the Lord.

It was a wonderful week. There were at least 7 who accepted the Lord as their Savior.

From Sunday to Sunday that week I spoke in 13 different services at 7 different venues! Busy. I also coordinated getting some body work done on our van after our neighbor in Florida backed into it. How many weeks ago were we in Florida? Well, it didn’t get fixed immediately after the crash, but we got it fixed that week in PA.

We made the long trip from northern PA to Pensacola, FL in a day and a half. This allowed us to be home 3 full days and a partial day to get ready for the next month long trip. During that week we put 2 new tires on the van, installed a transmission cooler and air bags for our rear springs. The cooler and air bags are to help with having to tow a trailer out of Mexico with the things we are bringing home.

Friday afternoon we left FL and bedded down in LA. Saturday from Baton Rouge to McAllen (border town) TX. Sunday I preached in a church in McAllen and then prepared the final things we needed to cross the border into Mexico. The crossing went very well and now we are in a hotel a couple of hours south of the border. We are only about 3 hours away from our destination tomorrow which is the start of our northern Mexico deaf camp.

We will be at camp for a week and then drive to Merida (where we lived the last 4 years). In Merida we will be selling/packing/giving away stuff that we had stored there. Then we have another week of deaf camp in the Yucatan area of Mexico. It will be tough saying good-bye to everyone this time. We know we are not going to be coming back any time soon. Last year when we left we knew we would be back this summer. But now that time is upon us and we will say our “farewells” this time around.

In some ways it seems we are coming home. In 16 years of marriage we have never spent so much time in one place as we have the city of Merida. Even though we were at the Bill Rice Ranch for 6 years, we traveled 9 months of the year. With the exception of a couple of weeks each summer, we have lived in Merida year round for 4 years. It is certainly home for our children and home for us. Will be fun being back there, but tough to leave this time around.

I better be careful or I will get all drippy eyed.

The pastor was supposed to be working on my ride. At 9:00 Friday night I asked him who was taking me to the airport. Somehow something so important to me did not seem that important to him. It slipped his mind. Fortunately Raul, one of the two men who was a possible driver, happened to be at the church with us that night. The pastor got it all lined out.

I told the other missionary who my driver would be. By his immediate reaction I knew I was in trouble. The missionary said that this man thinks nothing wrong with showing up to an event an hour and a half late. Something I could not afford.

Since Raul lived an hour away from the church that would mean he had to leave his house at 4:00 to come and get me. What were the chances of that working out? At the pastor’s suggestion Raul decided to sleep at the church with us and then go home after taking me to the airport.

A major birthday party was taking place at the church the next day for Raul’s daughter. I finally kicked the decorating crew out of the church building a little after 1:00 am so I could go to bed. I have no idea when Raul went to sleep. I slept from 1:30 to 4:45 and had the great joy of awakening my driver a couple minutes before 5:00.

A little trouble getting Raul’s wife from the girl’s sleeping area and finding the keys to the gate so we could leave and we were off.

A few blocks into the trip and Raul asked me if I was in a hurry. I said that I needed to be at the airport at 6:00. Whatever that took. He decided we were in a hurry. We took off and my seat tipped backwards. Quite a feat for a 30 year old Volkswagen Rabbit. We sped down the major north-south road in town flashing our lights at any car that was somewhat close to us warning them to get out of the way. We could not make a left hand turn at the intersection we wanted so he turned right onto a one way street going against us. Raul executed a nice U-turn and sent us off the direction of the airport.

I asked him to stop at an OXXO so I could get a cup of coffee (and steady my nerves). It took a few minutes to pour up the coffee and grab his wife a Coke.

When we got close to the airport there were speed bumps. My seat that tilted backwards every time we accelerated also slid violently forward when he slammed on his brakes for that first speed bump. “Knees, meet dashboard.”

Even with the stop at OXXO for the coffee I was at the airport in just over 30 minutes. Some of the time was made up because of there not being much traffic at 5:00 in the morning. But the rest of it was clearly due to some wild driving. I guess I don’t mind it so much if I am the one behind the wheel, but sitting helplessly in the passenger’s seat makes me a bit uncomfortable.

Whew!

Some of the men at the meeting with me had mattresses. They were all claimed by someone else before I got a chance to grab one. Fortunately I had a sleeping bag (albeit a very thin one) to sleep on. One of the missionary ladies tossed in a comforter she had as extra padding. Traveling light, I did not have a pillow. My zippered hoodie, stuffed with clothes, served as a pillow for the week.

It was very musical in the church too. All the men seemed to snore on a different key. Quite a chorus. My friend Gary kindly provided a set of earplugs to use the rest of the week. I was thankful.

One of our cooks was arriving on Tuesday morning (our first morning) but did not have keys to the gate. She honked her horn at 6:30 (after a bed time of close to 2:00 am) to get someone to open the gate for her. Did I mention this was a group of Deaf I was with? Gary and I were the only ones who heard the honking. I decided to let him take care of it and I slipped back into dream land.

The second morning I was up before the cook arrived. This time her brother was supposed to have the key when he dropped her off. He forgot it at home. One thing I get great enjoyment from is waking people up. I had the privilege of waking the pastor from the floor of the church to get the keys.

The third morning the keys were not to be found. I got to wake the pastor once again, but this time the keys were not with him. He sent me upstairs to look in the kitchen. I did not find them there. The pastor had to get totally up this time and search for 30 minutes until they were located.

Friday the head cook did not come. That was too bad. It could be the explanation as to why we did not have breakfast served until 11:30 that morning. Fortunately there was plenty of coffee and cookies to keep me alive.

I had to leave by 5:00 Saturday morning. This meant that I could not use my earplugs and still hear my alarm. Since I did not get to settle into my spot on the floor until 1:30, that meant for a short final night. The lack of earplugs did not affect me negatively though. I was so tired that I did not hear any snoring.

By the way, after about 3 nights on the floor, you get used to it. I don’t think it has ever taken me more than 4 nights to get to where I was sleeping well. It is not as horrible as it sounds.