Here I am painting Aide's face for the choreography. She was one of the devils cheering on Goliath. Aide is Sandy and Mili's little sister. She is one of our New Generation students.
"Play Time" before the program began
"Mucha Lucha" choreography
The crowd that was watching
Mili gave her testimony in Santa Fe. She shared about what a rebellious teenager she was until she met Jesus and He completely changed her. Now, she's a leader among the youth and in the larger church body!
The Masks Drama. Aide, the one in the background, is the one who puts on all the masks. From L-R:Gollito (an old beggar), Cecilia (tax collector), Gabriella (party girl), Mili & Pedro (a dating couple. Pedro cheats on Mili with Aide), and Ruben (Jesus)
The worship team
After prayer time, we stayed another half hour or so for the kids to all play and hang out some more. It was a great time, and the youth just continue to amaze us. They are really into this, and it's even more awesome because this is their dream. This is something they have wanted to do for a long time, and they are making it happen. We're just standing back and watching as they spread their own wings and soar like eagles, running and walking without growing tired, weary, or faint. God really is amazing!
Wednesday night I spent the whole night packing and getting my apartment ready to leave it for two months. I went to bed at 3 or 4 am (I can't remember anymore), and I got up at 6:30. Then Erika and I took care of last minute details and final goodbyes, grabbed my suitcases, locked up my apartment, and waited in the church for the taxi that was going to take us to Penas to catch a bus to Guad. However, the taxi did not arrive at 9:30 like we had arranged. Finally at 10 am, the two of us walked to his house to find him. Sure enough, he had completely forgotten, so by the time we finally got to Penas it was 11-11:30 am and the last morning bus to Guad had just left. The next bus would arrive at 1 pm, which would get us in Guad too late since Erika's church meets on Thursday nights and her whole family would be at that service....and Guad is an hour ahead of Cofradia time. So, we headed across the highway with all the luggage in tow to check out a couple other bus lines. They arrive every half hour but they have no set schedule. So, we just had to wait and see what buses arrived and where they were headed. By 12:30 we were still not on a bus, and we were quickly arriving at the point where we were not going to arrive in Guad in time to catch her parents before they headed to church. As we watched a couple of buses arriving, Erika said, "well, now we'll see how much faith you have...let's hope this is an Elite bus" (since that's the line we were hoping for). I told her "I HAVE FAITH..just like Joshua told the sun to stand still during battle, I'm declaring that this bus is the one we want!" AND IT WAS!!!
In the end we boarded around 12:30 with the plan to get off the bus at a very small bus station just outside of the beltway (the main bus terminal is on the other side of the city from her family). We had a very uneventful trip to Guad, which was nice. However, upon arriving the driver decided he didn't want to drop us at that small station, which meant we'd have to take a taxi back across the city, and the main terminal is almost an hour from where she lives...that equal expensive taxi fare and missing her parents most definitely. The driver gave various excuses having to do with baggage, even though our bags were three of FIVE bags under the bus and we had our baggage tickets with us, but it really came down to him not wanting to stop. As Erika told me what the driver said, I started praying in my head for the Lord to strike the driver with a crisis of conscience so that he would change his mind and let us off. Sure enough, 10 minutes later as we came upon the station, the driver's buddy came back and told us they were going to let us off!
None of our travel to that point had gone as we planned, and on only 2-3 hours of sleep, I was beginning to fade fast.Now we had to find a taxi that could take us to the church, since Erika's parents had already left their house. One taxi pulled over (we were standing on the side of the beltway with all our bags, by the way), but his taxi meter was broken and the taxi looked a little sketchy. He offered to take us to the church for 80 pesos, but we decided to wait for another taxi. He pulled away, and no other taxis were in sight. We waited for 10 minutes without seeing a taxi. Erika made another comment about my faith, since I'd told her what happened with my prayers for the driver to change his mind, and I said out loud, "Ok, Lord, we really need a taxi right now!" All of sudden there was a nice taxi with a working meter. 20 minutes later we were in front of the church, paying the taxi guy 100 pesos instead of 80 (little bit of divine humor perhaps??), but glad to be loading my bags into her parents car and sitting down in the service. I slept well that night, and it was really cool to hear Erika gush to her family about her week in Cofradia. I had been so worried that she wouldn't have fun or that she'd be bored in our little town since she's used to being pretty busy in the city. But I had nothing to worry about. Sure, it was different, but it seems she had a really stellar time and was really impressed by what the Lord was doing in our youth through the evangelisms, something she said her youth group has never done even though they have far more resources and opportunities available to them. So, our prayer now is that the Lord uses her experience to somehow light her group on fire too!!
Friday morning, Erika's dad and I left for the airport at 4 am (my flight left at 6), and I arrived in LA around 8:30. Customs went well, though I had some trouble pulling up my flight to VA in order to check my bags since I was switching airlines for my east coast flight. By 9:30 however I was sitting at my gate waiting for my flight which was to take off at 2:30 that afternoon. Yes, I had a 6 hour layover in the LA airport. At 2 pm when they began to prepare for boarding, they announced that my flight was overbooked and asked for 2 volunteers to go on a later flight, and they would provide meal vouchers for the wait in LA and a $500 travel voucher for future travel! Since I had yet to buy my ticket to return to Mexico in October and had no idea how I was going to pay for it, this offer peaked my interest. In the end, they only needed 1 person to stay behind, and since I was the first to volunteer, I stayed behind. My new flight home left at 9:30 pm, which means that I was waiting at the same gate in the LA airport for 13 hours, and I arrived at Dulles at 5:30 am. My dad was waiting for me, and we got back to Richmond around mid-morning at which point I promptly went to bed and slept until 6 pm that night! It was an extremely long day, but in the end American Airlines will be paying for my return flight to Mexico, praise the Lord!!!
I had a great conversation with Sandy while I was waiting in the airport about how the Lord had just overwhelmed me with his faithfulness during all my travels. I have had a pretty dry spell spiritually in the last month or so, and I admit that I've asked the Lord several times, "What's going on? I know you're there, but why do you seem so far away? Where do I step from here?" And in the midst of that dry spell have cropped up some age-old worries, like how to pay for things and how to get healthy, etc. Yet, as crazy as all my travels ended up being (especially trying to get from Cofradia to Guadalajara), the overwhelming theme was FAITH...real faith, not just lip service faith. The kind of faith that is so sure of its object that there's no need to second guess or worry cuz it just KNOWS without a doubt that the outcome will be good and right.
As I was relating all this to Sandy, she shared with me that in her quiet time that morning she had forgotten to pray for me as she usually does every day. But before she finished, the Spirit reminded her that I was traveling and she prayed for protection and that the Lord would provide for all my needs. As she shared this with me, I was overwhelmed because that's exactly what he had done even though I, myself, had forgotten to pray such a simple prayer. I told her I'd worried over how to buy my return plane ticket, but I hadn't yet taken it to prayer. But she had, so really...Sandy bought me my plane ticket back to Mexico in October. What an awesome testimony to the Lord's faithfulness. Even when I'm not mindful of my own needs, He is, and He's working all things (even the prayer habits of a 20 year old girl half a continent away) for my good. Now I'm home with my family, resting a lot and enjoying their company. Friday, I fly to Minnesota for time with my grandmother and with my aunt and her family for 2 weeks. Praise the Lord because...
GOD IS GOOD...ALL THE TIME
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