It is interesting to see freeway signs that show the way to Mexico. 'That's odd,' I think, 'I thought we were already in the country of Mexico.' But here in Mexico they refer to Mexico City as simply "Mexico." The population in that city is 32 million! Oh my gosh! I cannot believe that. When I was at the Austin airport, my family checked in at the gate, but I was turned away due to ticket name not matching my passport name. Seems Doug does not equal Douglas. I had to pay $38 for that little infraction and change to my ticket. That's long gone now, though. I'm loving it here in Mexico.
Pastor Damon and I left first thing in the morning to meet another group from the US, who came down from the McAllen, Texas area. One good thing for an organization like this is lots of Christians in the US (and especially from nearby Texas) will enjoy coming down for short-term missions trips to help out what they're doing here. We met this group (10 people) at a Home Depot to buy paint, some rollers/brushes and headed to the medical clinic. Damon bought me a Coke. It was a Mexican Coke, and they sweeten the soft drink here differently than in the USA. I think they use real sugar (uh, I talked about this yesterday)... I looked around a convenience store we stopped at and checked out the candy, sweets, drinks, and magazines. I always like to jump into a retail shop in other cultures or places just to see what's different. The Coke was really good.
When we arrived at the clinic, we milled around awhile figuring out what was where, etc. I didn't like standing around, so I assigned myself to trash detail and started picking up paper, cups, cans, butts, wrappers, etc. Once we were ready to start, a guy (I think it was the clinic administrator, Sergio Rodriguez) explained to us what the clinic was about, how it started, who supports it, how the building was provided for, and what he wanted us to do. Part of his description included a beautiful statement that I liked. He spoke in Spanish and used his hands a lot. Damon translated for most of us English speakers. He said something like,
"We cannot love God (as he lifted his hands up as in worship) and ignore our neighbor."
He really drove home the point that we are to serve others and love others here on earth. I knew I wanted to share that in my blog today as soon as I heard it.
I met a family from McAllen whose daughter went to the University of Texas. I had met her in the store earlier, as she was looking at local candy, too. She was a journalism student and just got a job at the State Capital, doing communications for a State Representative. Her parents were asking me about cool churches in Austin, of which there are many (Hope Chapel, Calvary Chapel, Stone Church, Gateway, Westlake Bible, Hope in the City, and several others).
I helped paint at the clinic. They painted the exterior and were going to do some trim in the inside hallways. One guy decided to buy a new weed eater when he saw the loose wires wrapped around the weed eater they had there. They were using two wires that I imagine they would jam into the two ports of the power socket. "Life is short, but not that short."
After leaving the crew working at the Bethesda Clinic, I went with Damon to the church, where we were able to finish the tinting of the windows high near the ceiling of the sanctuary. They finished installing a light fixture in the youth room, and we enjoyed quite a nice spread of sandwiches and fruit for lunch. My eyes got real big when I saw a giant plate/bowl of guacamole. I feel a little bit like toast now, as we've been going for most of the day and we've got dust on us.
The women at the church gave each other pedicures today. They had a hot wax machine, and they put warm wax on their hands to soften their skin up. An old friend that used to work as our Managing Editor at HM, David Allen, used to use one of those machines, because it would encase your hands and wrist in hot wax, which would warm the hands and joints up well, bringing relief to carpel tunnel and other such computer workstation ailments. It feels kinda cool (warm, actually), and it's fun to peel off the wax later. I played a little ping pong with my daughter Rachel in between cutting pieces of window tinting material. It was fun to see her improve her serve so quickly. We moved around the scaffolding and a giant carpet with a drumset on it.
Watch out for those Mexican cokes!!
Posted by: ma at July 30, 2008 09:21 PM