Missionaries that don't go to church! Sunday, February 3, I was in Dallas staying with family of David. Nobody went to church since everyone that could otherwise go to church was sick. So I listened to a service on the radio. I spent most of the rest of the day preparing to head into Mexico. Around 5pm, Brad took me to the bus station. At the station, a TV was playing a soccer match. I asked if I could switch it to the Super Bowl, and they said I could. It took a while to find the right channel, but when I did, I was able to watch just about the entire first quarter, though I missed the kickoff.
On The Bus: bathroom occupied by nobody, and No Soap: I had selected the first row of seats in the bus, since I would be able to see out the front window. Unfortunately, the front row didn't have a foot rest. Fortunately, the seat next to me was empty for the entire trip, so I spread out across both seats to sleep. Then after an hour of the bathroom occupied light being on I decided it was just permanently on. That turned out to be the case. Unfortunately, the bathroom had no sink so there was no way to wash my hands. Fortunately, we soon stopped at a convenience place, where I could wash my hands, then I bought a small bottle of hand sanitizer. They showed several movies, the only good one being about a family taking a vacation in an RV, I think the movie was just called "RV." I had seen it before so it was fun to watch it in Spanish too. The bus stopped in downtown Dallas, Waco, and Austin. I don't remember it stopping in San Antonio, though I think it was supposed to.
Crossing the Border in the Middle of the Night: Monday, February 4, the first thing I remember was stopping at the border. While the bus was still on the bridge, in a line of busses, with no cars anywhere, except an occasional car going the other way, I paid close attention to when and where I would have to go to get my travel visa. As we inched forward, someone told me now was the time. Others went into the same little office, a square non-descript building, one story high, that looked completely dark, though it had a door and a rather large window. There was a curtain across the window, and I think it may have said something about immigracion officina on the door, but otherwise it didn't have very good signs. Inside, I had to wait for someone else, then I was able to get my travel papers and pay for them right there. The guy at the desk did pretty much all of the work to fill out my paperwork, including copying information from my passport, which was nice. The cost was $23. Then I was able to get back on the bus. The bus then had to swing around to the inspection stations, where I had to get off the bus and talk to one of the guards. I forget exactly what he did, maybe look in my backpack, or maybe just check my passport and paperwork, but it didn't take very long. Once we were through that point, we were on our way, and I soon fell asleep.
Buses, Roads, and Rest Stops in Mexico: I don't know if we stopped in Monterrey, but when I did wake up, the first stop we came to was a very nice rest area, situated in the median between what was basically an interstate highway. We stopped there for almost an hour as people ate in the restaurant, used the facilities and probably bought stuff at the very nice gift shop as well. I was quite impressed with how nice the place was. On the road again, we stayed on interstate quality roads for the rest of the way to Queteraro. In places, the road was indistinguishable from interstates in the US, with a wide right shoulder, a much narrower left shoulder, well marked lane marking with white on the right and yellow on the left, and even rumple strips! The only thing really different was the style of the road signs. For a long way, I didn't see any toll booths. But as we got closer to Queteraro, there were more toll booths. We stopped in San Louis Potosi, then Queteraro. We then headed west to Celaya, on a lesser but still 4 lane road. After Celaya, the road was 4 lane for a while, then it became 2 lane, but for a long way, there was obvious construction to make it 4 lane. On the last stretch before Morelia, in the past, I took note that there was a causeway across a wide shallow lake before going through a town with narrow streets. This time, the bus took a new bypass road, but it had a rather expensive toll on it. We finally arrived in Morelia at about 6pm. David had indicated he wouldn't pick me up until 9pm, as in their experience the bus rarely arrived much earlier than 8:30 or 9pm.
The Morelia Bus Station: So I went to the internet cafe and e-mailed everyone I could think of (including David) that I had arrived, but nobody replied. When I was done, I just went to one of the restaurants in the bus station that had a table available, and waited. I could see the concourse clearly from there, and was able to watch the steady flow of people coming and going, as well as watch an overhead monitor playing a series of advertisements in a loop. David finally showed up around 9pm.
In Acuitzio: right to work! David took me to their apartment in Acuitzio. The entire family was out on the land, and as soon as David got me settled in and got me started on some projects, he departed for the land as well. I had access to the internet, so I was immediately able to begin doing stuff. One of my first projects was to take a video card out of a computer and restore the computer to its original pattern of using its on-board video. I eventually found the setting in the BIOS that I thought David was referring to, and I changed it to what David had indicated it needed to be changed to. Like David had said, that caused the monitor to not display anything. Then I plugged the monitor into the computer's regular video, but when I turned on the computer, I still got nothing. At that point I realized that a setting in BIOS wasn't right, and that I wouldn't be able to change it without seeing any video. I eventually figured out that I could reset the BIOS by moving a jumper on the main circuit board. But after doing that, I still got nothing. At that point, I think I must have given up and gone to bed!
Finally, it works: Tuesday, February 5, David came back later in the day and needed that computer. So we were sending e-mails to a computer guru in New York state asking for suggestions. One of the things he suggested was moving a memory stick from one slot to another, and when I did that, the video finally worked!
Missionaries need web sites and technical help: Wednesday, and Thursday, February 6-7, David and Cherith were there possibly a good part of the day, and David and I got a lot of computer work done, specifically stuff that needed to be done for the web page. I converted the RYCCA site to use PHP, which was a learning curve for me since I knew virtually nothing about PHP. It was tricky at first, but then I understood something that was particularly difficult to understand and I was able to move forward from there. David lined me up with a bunch of work to do because in the evening, he and Cherith headed back to the Land, and wouldn't be back till Friday. I spent all day Thursday doing things David had asked me to do. They included learning about how e-mail addresses are gathered from the internet so junk mail can be sent to them, learning more about PHP, and adding some things to the web sites, among other things.
Million things to do right away! Friday, February 8, I awoke to a knock on the door. It was a man with an old style milk jug. I told him David wasn't there and to try another time. He spoke enough English and I spoke enough Spanish for us to understand each other. The next time there was a knock on the door, it was David. He had a million things that needed to be done right away and they needed to get back to the land because there were people who needed him there as well. He had me adding files to the RYCCA web site and making a few minor changes, and telling me I needed to be ready as soon as possible to go back to the land with him. On the way out of town, we stopped to buy some boleos, (a special bread that's really good), and David spent several minutes talking to the guy running the store. At the land, we had a million things to do there too, in preparation for some guests due to arrive sometime that afternoon.
A Modern Kitchen Sink: Karen and Cherith went out to town in the afternoon, I think all the way to Morelia, which gave me time to put caulking around a pipe under the kitchen sink. Yes, a kitchen sink. The dome where Tim and I had last year prepared our meals over a stove run on propane, and that had a huge open front side with rebar sticking out of rough concrete now had a kitchen sink. A modern United States style kitchen sink. Seated over wood cabinets, and next to a modern stove. And that large open area? It was now fully enclosed, smoothed off and painted. Large glass windows enclosed the area. And the floor was tiled. And there was also a bathroom and a shower in process of being finished. There was also a refrigerator and a separate bedroom where Tim and I had helped build a brick wall last year. There were also two lockable doors that fully enclosed the first floor, making it secure. There was also a second floor that was open, like a patio area, but will eventually be enclosed as well. The solar panel was set up there, with electricity being fed to the first floor. And that was just the "Pickle Palace." The "Toy House," had also largely been completed, with the shower finished, complete with the fiberglass shower wall that I had worked so hard on cutting to the right shape last year, a toilet, tiled floors, and wooden interior walls. There was also a secure door, and a hot water heater mounted just outside. Walls were being worked on to add rooms out the back as well.
Changes to the Camp Land: There were lots of changes on the property as well, including the large water tank at the lower corner having been moved to the upper corner, two large holes dug for places to store water, significantly more work being completed on the main house domes, a "missile silo" in place to hold 3 five gallon buckets for storing equipment for games, several activity areas fixed up and improved, the soccer field leveled with obvious places for goals, and many plants planted. I was quite impressed with the progress. During the afternoon, Micah and I worked hard picking up snips of paper left over from concrete bags, being amazed that even when we thought we were done we would find a new area and find more snips. We burned the snips. Later, we worked on some other small projects, a big one for me was the caulking job. The gap was much too big for the caulk, especially in the hardest to reach area. I used snips of wood that Rosie was picking up to fill in the gaps, but there was little to secure the wood to. David was eager that I get the project done before Karen and Cherith got back, and despite the challenges, we got it done.
Delayed Guest Arrival: Rosie and I did the dishes, but that turned out to be a bit of a fiasco as our dish washing methods were quite different and ended up clashing. We joked through the whole process though, but eventually I realized my time would be better spent sweeping the floor, so I focused on that. When we got done, Karen and Cherith still hadn't arrived. In fact, they were quite delayed and I think didn't get back until after dark. Karen reported that she had gotten a call from our guests saying they had been delayed, but were expected to arrive soon. It got dark, and we ate dinner, then I talked with David about as much as I knew about astronomy as I could think of. As it got colder, we built a fire, also hoping that might help our guests find the land. Finally, David and the others all went to bed, then I went to bed. After being in bed a while, I heard a car approaching. Then I heard it struggling up a hill, revving the engine, and spitting rocks. After hearing that for a while, and hearing the sound get closer and louder, as if they might even be on the property, I decided to see if it was our guests. I got dressed and went out. Sure enough, it was them. And fortunately, they spoke English! I guided them to a better parking place. Then I tapped on the glass of the dome to try to get David up. I wasn't sure where they were supposed to go! David finally did get up and we got them to their tents.
Fun with Guests and "Joseph" in the Pit: Saturday, February 9, we all ate breakfast together. We then spent most of the day doing things with the guests. I spent most of the day playing games with the kids. There were at least 3 adults in the group, and 4 kids, two young boys about 5 or 6, an older boy maybe 14, and a girl. We played in the tree house for a long time, played tetherball, and played soccer. The older Mexican boy was quite good at soccer and could have consisted of his own team and still beat the rest of us. A large pit just beyond the soccer field had vertical walls higher than any of us was tall. The soccer ball went in there several times, and one of us had to jump in the hole to get it out. I did this twice, and I felt like Joseph when his brothers dumped him in a pit when they didn't know what else to do with him. I had to have help to be pulled out of the pit. I don't know if I would have been able to do it on my own. In the evening, we had good discussions about other things as well.
Church in Mexico: I know the song but not in Spanish! Sunday, February 10, we all went to a church in Morelia. I rode with the Mexican family in their vehicle. The church had loud music, even for my taste, but they did sing a few songs I recognized and therefore enjoyed, including "Over the Mountains and the Sea" and "How Great Thou Art" (both in Spanish, of course). After church, we stayed and talked with others for a long time. Then David and I decided to take me back to the land, where I would stay overnight by myself. David and the whole family were at the apartment. On the way there, I took more notes for the road map showing how to get to the land. David showed me a few things and got me set up for the night, then departed.
The Many Things Missionaries and their Helpers Do: Monday, February 11, I awoke to the birds chirping and the sun shining brightly into the dome. David and family showed up around 10am. I did some math flash cards with David's kids, which I think was the first time I did them with them. In the afternoon, it rained, and actually rained pretty hard. We couldn't do a whole lot, so I taught the kids how to play a card game. They really enjoyed that. Tuesday, February 12, we were all still at the land. I forget what I did, but I'm sure David had us working on something. He's always got something for us to do. I think I did another round of Flash Cards with the kids, and they were both able to cut their time nearly in half. I think we stayed one more night on the land. I began working on a template that could be used for the various different activities to be done during camp sessions. Wednesday, February 13, Cherith, David, and I all went back to the apartment in Aquitzio. David had me focus on developing an activity for camp. We had been working on a template that could be used for a broad range of activities, so that individual leaders could select different activities for their group based on the group's needs. At the apartment, I continued to try to develop the template, but focused mainly on developing my activity. I had chosen astronomy, and was coming up with something that would demonstrate phases of the moon. I also began to struggle with some computer issues. I was able to get images to show up in David's Open Office program. David had tried a couple different graphics cards to make that work. Uninstalling one of those cards resulted in the problems I had caused when I first arrived when the computer wouldn't function at all. But now I discovered that all that was needed was a change in a setting! I was also able to get his printer to print duplex by finding the right setting in the right place. But another problem was more tricky. One Windows XP computer was not able to send e-mail, and sometimes couldn't even receive e-mail. I tried lots of different things, including searching the web for answers, but none of them helped. I even tried to set up the same e-mail in the almost untouched Windows XP I had on my own computer, but that didn't work either! I finally found the answer when I came across a note on the web site of our e-mail provider, that said I should change a certain port setting to something else. And that did the trick. Computer work for David continued into the next day. Part of an afternoon, I spent taking care of some personal things. David returned in the evening, then Eliesaire, one of David's friends who sells computer hardware, came in the evening and we did some computer stuff. I also at some point while at the apartment introduced David to the T puzzle. I had made one out of paper, and let him try it. It took him a little while to figure it out, but he was able to do it without any hints. He then decided that camp should have a giant T puzzle, with each piece big enough that it would be difficult to move more than one piece at a time.
In Mexico, People Show Up When They Want To: Saturday, February 16, I woke up at 7:57am. David had told me that someone might be at the land at 8am to deliver a dump truck load of something. Nobody showed up though. I began to fix some breakfast, when another fellow showed up. I was expecting him too. He was a Christian and spoke English quite well. He worked on the tiles around the dome, and we also had some good fellowship. He had come from Morelia on the morning bus, and was going to take the afternoon bus back. So when he was done, I walked with him over to Loma Caliente, the small town across the lake from Los Domos. I wanted to see if there was anything worth purchasing at the little tienda that was over there. We found the tienda, and I was able to buy a small loaf of bread, but they didn't have any bananas. Then, as we were getting ready to go our separate ways, a dump truck came by. I wondered if it might be the one David was expecting to show up at 8am that morning. The truck stopped at the bottom of the hill just a few steps from where we were. My new Mexican friend who spoke English was able to ask the driver if he was headed to Los Domos. And it turned out he was! He had to stop where he had stopped to take care of some things, feeding some animals, I was told. But I could ride back with him. The driver didn't speak much English, but I was able to speak enough Spanish, so we were able to communicate some things. On the way, he stopped near a field and called out to people who were working there. One guy came to the truck, and hung on to the outside the rest of the way to Los Domos! When we got there, they asked me where David wanted the stuff dumped. I wasn't sure. I don't think David had told me. I had thought David would have told them. But apparently not. So that took a while to communicate, but we decided to dump the stones in 3 different places. We put some at the bottom, some up at the top, then the last load, a bit to my dismay, was dumped half way up the road to the top, right on the road!
Bricks and Mortar February 18-20, we focused on building the water tank in the lower corner of the property. That involved moving bricks and mortar, making sure the Mexican worker had enough supply to work with. I also did flash cards with the kids, and worked on some computer projects a little bit.
God provided a display of His Wonder: Wednesday, February 20, in the evening, just after sunset, we had a full lunar eclipse. It was a beautiful night, as were most nights, and all of us on the land got to watch most of it, at least until the first bit of moon re-emerged into direct sunlight. I then went to bed. But even then I unzipped the door of my tent and peaked at the moon a few times before going to sleep, watching as the shadow disappeared from the moon.
Computer work with no internet and little power isn't easyThursday, February 21, I believe David, Cherith, and I returned to the apartment. A sense of urgency was building as we realized my time was beginning to run down. David needed me to do a number of things with the web site so it could be used for activities for camp the following summer. I tried to download as much information as I needed to get this done, then Friday afternoon, we had to go back to the land. February 22-25, I was at the land on my own. This time, there were no visitors. Unfortunately, I was unable to do a whole lot of stuff for David, since I found I didn't have all I needed. And by Monday, I had tested the limits of running the computer off the computer battery and solar panel. So we made plans for me to spend as much time at the apartment as possible.
God Provides Water but not a Flood!: Tuesday-Thursday, February 26-28, I think is when David took me back to the apartment, and refocused my energies on the database, which he really needed so he could send out a mailing to get some support, something he hadn't done in too long. David went back to the land that eveing, but returned and stayed for much of Wednesday to do taxes and other things. It was probably later that afternoon after David had left and wouldn't be back for 2 days when I discovered the water tank on the roof was empty. I flushed the toilet but the toilet tank didn't refill. I went on the roof to discover the water storage tank was nearly empty. I followed the pipe that filled the roof tank to where it exited the roof and went down into a separate secured area next to the building where I was. I could see a shut-off valve down there but it was at ground level, far beyond anything I could reach. I had no idea how to get into that area, as it would require a key to do so safely. And there was no shut off valve anywhere along the section of pipe I could get to. Fortunately, I still had drinking water, so I went back to work. Then after a while I realized I was hearing the sound of water running through a pipe. I went back to the roof and discovered that the tank was half full, and being filled with water! I didn't know what to do about this as I couldn't get into the secured area. As I was investigating from street level, a man came out of a door next to this apartment, and I asked if he spoke English. He didn't. So in my best horrible Spanish, I said, "turn off water!" and pointed to the roof, making hand motions of a tank overflowing. He finally figured out what I was saying, and he opened the doors, as he had a key, to where the pump and valves were. From there it was pretty easy to figure out what was what, and we got the water shut off. I then went back to the roof and saw that the tank was about 95% full. God provided the water when I needed it, and God shut the water off at the right time! I found out later that the same day this happened, the apartment of a girl I had been talkng to had also been flooded!
A weekend on the land by myself The following Saturday, March 1, David took me back to the land, then he and the rest of the family went back to their apartment in Acuitzio. I was by myself on the land Saturday night, and all day Sunday. I was able to work on my computer quite a bit since we had a solar panel, which I used until it got dark, then the computer battery which I used until about midnight. On Sunday, I read a book called Blessed Child by Ted Dekker and Tim LaHay. It provided some good spiritual insight, so it became my "church" for the day. It was a pretty thick paperback book, but I managed to read all but the last couple dozen pages by the end of the day.
Work on what you want, I guess Monday, March 3, some workers returned before David did, and though I tried to direct them to a couple projects David had for them, all three of them headed for the water tank we had been working on, and started mixing mortar and laying brick. I helped with providing supplies as best I could, and unfortunately at times they had to wait on me. David arrived around 10am, and we continued the work. I think by the end of the day, David and I went back to Acuitzio since we needed to be able to print labels and work on his database, and I didn't have much time left to do that.
Label Frustration: Tuesday-Thursday, March 4-6, David and I struggled with the labels and the database. We were using Open Office, which on the technical end of things I didn't know much about, so I learned as I went. And it was a struggle since the software would often do unexpected things, and that was quite frustrating. Fortunately, before I departed, we had labels just about ready to go. To give an example of one of the frustrations, when I went to print all the labels for David to review, I made sure it used the printer's duplex feature so it would save paper. So I was quite surprised as I saw the duplex feature working, each page being pulled back into the printer to have the other side printed on, but when the paper finally came back, the other side was blank! I went back and checked my settings, and found another setting that said to insert a blank page between each printed page! By then there wasn't anything I could do. Another frustration was all the settings that had to be set just right for labels to print correctly. One error caused blank lines in parts of the address to print incorrectly, in another case, it was possible to print an entire set of labels for each person in the database. When I cancelled this second operation half way through, I found I had generated over 1000 pages! I'm glad I hadn't sent that to the printer!
More "behind the scenes" Missionary Helper Work: Meanwhile I struggled with getting labels to display properly, which I finally succeeded at doing, then focused on the database, which after some struggling began to take shape. Each night, I went online to get more information that I needed.
Headed Home: Thursday, March 6, in the early afternoon, David drove me to the bus station. We got there in plenty of time, but his car wouldn't restart until it had cooled down enough, so he was stuck at the unloading platform at the bus station for about 20 minutes until the car had cooled down enough. I was able to remain with him for most of this time, so we chatted about various things. My bus departed on time, then to my surprise when we got to the "interstate" north of Morelia, we headed east toward Mexico City! I had never been this way before, so I didn't know how close to Mexico City we would get. After a while, I figured there was another way to go north toward Qeteraro, remembering having seen something like that on a map. That's indeed what we did. We were on this interstate about an hour before heading north. I was surprised that we stopped in a town that we didn't go to when going south. I was also surprised that when we rejoined the other route, we weren't yet to Celaya, which was a stop we had made going south. I had figured we would be further toward Qeteraro than that.
Road reflector lights that Blink! After the stop in Qeteraro and after it had gotten dark, the bus was on an interstate quality road with reflector lights in the middle. In certain places along the highway, these lights were blinking. Apparently, in Mexico in some areas, these lights blink!
The desire to return to Mexico is Strong, but the database software was weak. In the morning, the bus reached the border. It took 2 hours and 45 minutes before we were on our way again. I knew at this point that we probably wouldn't get to Dallas on time. I worked on the database for David using the computer's battery, entering David's changes and creating a data entry form. We were further delayed north of San Antonio due to heavy traffic. We didn't get to Dallas until after 5pm. At Garland, the end of the line for this bus, I was still at the bus station waiting to be picked up when the bus going back to Morelia departed. How I longed to be on that bus! I stayed with friends in Garland that evening, and continued to work on the labels in the database. My first shock when I opened up the database was that the form I had created earlier wasn't there! I spent some minutes trying to find out what had happened with it, then when I checked records I had changed, I found the changes weren't there either! Finally I resigned myself to re-entering the changes. I then ran the labels and spot checked them only to find that some of the re-entered changes hadn't been saved either! I realized one thing I was probably doing wrong, so I corrected for that and finally after checking and checking again, got all the label corrections made as best I could determine. The final document of labels was fooling me too, as I would search for names but not find them. It said it was doing a wrap-around search, but when I clicked at the beginning of the document and did the search, the name would be found, despite not being found the first time.
At that point, my trip to Mexico was complete. I still needed to get back to Tennessee, however, I had done all the work I could do for David until another time.
Visit Camps International web site to learn more about doing Christian camps in different countries.