Basilica

Today started with an extra treat. Carol made an egg casserole quiche. She also bought us several fruit-filled empanada. These were hand made and delicious. We are so spoiled. We arrived on the work site at about 8:30 AM. Brandy is painting the new front screen door. Chris is painting the trim on the car port/laundry room. We finished on the job site at about 3:00 PM and went back to the dormatory at San Juan UMC. Everybody showered, (thank you God) and got ready for dinner. Before dinner we had our devotion and read the crucifiction story from the book of Matthew. Dinner was scalloped potatoes and ham. For dessert blackberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream. It was "the bomb". After dinner we went to the Basilica of Our Lady of San Juan del Valle National Shrine, San Juan. It is only 8 blocks from the San Juan UMC.We walked the Stations of the Cross at the Basilica. It was very moving to do this as a team just after reading the story at devotion time. This place is beautiful. We went later in the evening and each picture below gets slightly darker. I thinks there is a parallel message here. The grounds were beautiful. The bronze stations were so lifelike. We all liked it so much we are going back tomorrow. Following are pictures of each station. Enjoy, and remember....God loves us so much that he sent Jesus into the world.

Brandy's camera battery ran out of juice and she only took a few pictures. We will go back tomorrow and go inside the Basilica. It closed at 7:00 PM.

Tuesday - Making Progress

The morning started as usual with a 6:30 AM wake-up call. Everybody got ready and we went to the fellowship hall for breakfast. Carol prepared pancakes for us. After breakfast we headed for the job-site. First order of the day was to replace the front door.Here is Chris doing the DEMOLITION!!!! We all love tearing things up.
Here is the replaced door. We will finish the trim work tomorrow.

John and I are reinstalling the soffet on the side of the car port. We had to take it down yesterday to replace the siding. John.........Don't bend any more nails.

Several pieces of siding on this side of the house need replacing. On of the studs was cut in half during a previous repair. Here we are repairing the cut stud.

The siding under the front window was rotten. The old siding was removed.
The grandchildren had fun riding their trikes under the ladder.
They are also ready to collect some candy on Halloween. The Hulkster was really scary.
Here is the marker on the front of the house.
The team is really proud of the work done today. We accomplished a lot.

This team all served together at Camp Hope in Gulfport, Mississippi last year. We all wore our Camp Hope tee shirts today.
Here is Chris painting the siding we replaced yesterday.
The van was filthy. We took some time this evening to clean it out.

We have hamocks to swing on outside our dormatory.
The end of this day came quickly. Carol mad meat loaf for dinner. We also helped Otto make a copy of a DVD. After dinner we had devotion and discussed James 2:14-17, Faith and Deeds

Monday - First Work Day

This morning started at 6:30 AM when we woke up. Breakfast was waiting for us at 7:30 AM. We had scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, coffee, orange juice, cereral, etc. What a great beginning. Otto Lawson, the Home Repair Coordinator met us at breakfast and explained our days work. After breakfast we traveled to our project in the "Colonias" in Las Milpas. Colonias are very poor areas where the housing dense and the people are very poor. Yesterday, Pastor Bob Clark explained the need in Hildago County, Texas. This is one of the poorest counties in the United States. The income level is very low. The per capita income is less than $10,000.

Here is part of our project. The siding on the back of the carport is rotten. We will remove the old siding and replace with new siding.
Here is Chris and John unloding the new siding we will use. Here is Brandy doing what she likes to do........DEMOLITION!!!!!!!
In addition to the siding, the roof leaks. Here we are cutting some flashing. This should help move the water away from the low spot on the roof.
Brandy is contemplating the next move.
Here is the finished product. The roof is patched.

Here is the Jimenez family we are serving. Maria is with her son and her two grandchildren, Junior (4 yrs. old) and Nicki (2 yrs. old.
Why is John attacking Brandy with a hammer? Check out the new siding.
Here is Otto Lawson. He is a really great guy. He is supervising us and is a great teacher. Ottow is the Home Repair Coordinator. Also another look at the new siding.
Here is Carol preoparing our dinner (or supper in the south). We had baked chicken, saled with strawberries, yellow rice, corn, and the best biscuits. What is Chris doing in the refrigerator? Is he looking for ice cream?
This is Joey. Joey is Otto;s dog. He is really cute.
This evening our devotion revolved around fathers. Brandy and Chris has a terriffic discussion about this. We also discussed setting aside time every day to communicate with God. Again.....an awesome day. God continues to bless us.

Arrived

We left the LaQuinta in Dallas at 7:30 AM today.

After filling the gas tank, our first stop was Schlotzsky's Deli, just north of San Antonio, for lunch. Guess who ordered pizza.

We took on fuel again in San Antonio. Chris and John had never seen the Alamo so we decided to stop since we were so close. The San Antonio River Walk is right there so we had to check this out too.

Just south of San Antonio we exited off of I-35 and headed south on Hwy. 281. This was a long boring drive. We stopped in Alice, TX for a pit stop at the Whataburger.

We arrived at our mission home base at 5:00 PM today. We are staying in a dormatory at the San Juan UMC in San Juan, TX.

San Juan is right next to Pharr, TX. We met Pastor Bob Clark and his wife. Also greating us was Carol Lahti, the missions coordinator. Pator Bob Clark serves two churches; the Pharr UMC and the San Jaun UMC. They are about one mile apart. After a brief meeting with Pastor Bob Clark he and his wife joined us for dinner at Las Bogambilias Restaurant. We had a Botana for three. Guess who had the fried chicken and guess who had the chicken Fajita. After dinner we had a devotion time and continued to learn more about each other and our motivations to serve others. It was a very powerful evening. We shared some very interesting and personal stories about how our lives have changed because of service in the name of Jesus Christ.

Tomorrow the work begins. We know we will do home repairs and the project house has been selected. We will learn more tomorrow morning after breakfast.

Made it to Dallas

We assembled at Church of the Shepherd, McClay Campus, at 8:00 AM this morning. Several COS folks came by t pray us out. That was a great surprise even brought brownies. It took a while to pack up the van, get things sorted out, etc. We finally go on our way at 8:30 AM.We stopped in Rolla, MO for fuel. We arrived in Joplin at 1:00 AM and ate lunch. At 5:20 PM we arrived in Atola, OK and fueled up again. We arrived at the LaQuinta Inn (I-35 and I-635) on the north side of Dallas at 7:30 PM. Right on our time estimate of 11 hours. We then went to Michael's Rest. in the parking lot of the LaQuinta for dinner. Pizza was in order for everyone, except for one. Pop quiz.....Who ordered the patty melt? We all packed it in at 10:00 PM and watched the end of the Mizzou / Oklahoma State game. How sad was that? OSU really had the tough defense. Morning comes early. We are all meeting in the lobby of the LaQuinta for the "free" breakfast at 7:00AM. Our plan is to depart by 7:30 AM. God has richly blessed us today. Our team is growing together and we are all anticipating the work will do in the Pharr, TX community.

Departing Tomorrow

This has been a crazy week. It all started Sunday morning when I traveled to Orlando, Florida for business. I returned Wednesday evening and turned around on Thursday morning to catch a 6:00 AM flight to Dallas, Texas for another business trip. I returned this evening (Friday) and immediately began to get ready. What is really crazy is our team will drive to Dallas tomorrow.

I went to the church and picked up the van. I removed two of the van seats to make room for tools and luggage. The church left us several items to give to the Pharr UMC to distribute to the community. I drove the van to my house and loaded it up with tools. I hope I left enough room for the rest of team's luggage. We are all really excited about the opportunity before us to serve.