Week 5

Well one more week down, two to go for me.  It is incredible how fast this is going!  I had all these things I was going to do this summer that I haven't even started.  Time flies when you're having fun, right?  Especially this week, it went by so fast.  I think I'm finally to the point that I can get videos done a little faster.  Today, jump day (the song if Jump by Van Halen) usually takes me until 5:30 or 6, but I was done around 4:30 or so, I had time to finish the tender moments video before dinner, well almost finish.  I made a few changes tonight as well...just some touch up stuff.  I'm already duplicating and it's only 11:15, I've got one set done and halfway done with the second set.  I decided to make 5 sets this week (25 videos) instead of just 20 because I've actually sold out the passed two weeks and I hate having to charge an extra $5 to people, I figured I can handle staying up a little bit longer tonight.  I may have cursed myself by making more, I probably won't even sell 15 now, but I just hate when kids don't want to buy a video because they have to order it and pay an extra $5.  Hopefully I haven't cursed myself.

The kids this week started off slow, just like normal.  They have slowly come around.  This was a strange week for Mission Discovery (well to me anyway).  Only one of the groups  had been here before and there were 6 groups so most of them really didn't know what to expect.  So I kind of expected them to be a little slow in getting used to things.  They really ended up being a lot of fun.  They were from all over the country.  One group, our biggest one, was from Ohio, one from Detroit, one from Florida, one from New Orleans, one from Arkansas not too far from the MO border and I'm not sure where the other one was from?  They really have turned out to be a lot of fun.  I had a problem with one girl.  Seemed as though she had a problem with males.  Anytime I asked if she wanted to do something for the video she looked at me like I was from a different planet, but whatever just take it and go on.  If she doesn't want to be on the video that's fine, but to look at me like it was awful to even ask her to be in a video...I know I have strange hair, but seriously.  No, seriously though that wasn't anything big.  I hope that is the only kind of problem I have the rest of the summer, something as simple as that!

Now for the amazing part of the week.  We had a group that everyone of the kids at their site got saved at VBS (and I think that was like 4 or 5 kids) so that was an awesome blessing.  There is a really cool story involving a young Mexican girl named Ruth.  She worked last week at Carl's site in Rio Bravo.  I think the story is we built for her family 2 years ago (we as in MD) and she came to check us out last week when we were in Rio Bravo.  She became pretty familiar with the staff.  Well we get to the work site Monday morning in Reynosa which is about 20 miles or so from Rio Bravo and Ruth is in the Colonia we are working in.  I guess some how she figured out that we were going to be in the Colonia and took a bus there and was staying with family near there.  Anyway, found out last week she was not saved.  Rob spoke with her some last week about God, but was not real successful.  Well this week she hung out at Carl's site again and rode around with Rob some.  Today Rob asked Auristella (a lady who works VBS for us, who speaks spanish) to tell Ruth that he was praying for her hoping that she would become a Christian so that if he never saw her on earth again, he could see her in Heaven.  Rob went to round up a group that was late getting out of the Colonia and when he came back Auristella told him that his prayers had already worked and he need to go pray with her and Ruth and the pastor and his wife of the church in that Colonia.  And Ruth became a Christian then and there.  The strange thing is, her dad is a pastor.  She told Auristella that every body she knew that was a Christian was mean to her.  Her brother was a Christian and was mean to her, then began to stray away from the Lord and his attitude changed toward her for the better, then he recommitted his life to Christ and she said he became mean to her again so she didn't have a good outlook on Christians.  Well after spending the passed 2 weeks with the mission discovery staff and the kids that have come down here she saw that there are Christians out there that are good people.  So that was a really awesome experience. 

Tonight was a pretty emotional night.  Rob gave his testimony tonight and it stirred the emotions of everybody in the room.  It brought back some rough memories for me as well.  He told about Heather and for those of you who don't know, Heather Hock was a very good friend of Rob's in High school who ended up going to University of Missouri-Rolla and Rob went to SMS in Springfield so they didn't get to see each other much.  She ended up committing suicide on a night that Rob actually drove through Rolla and had thought about stopping to see Heather but decided not to because he had to drive to Springfield and it was after a concert and he was tired so he just went home, well that was the night that Heather decided to overdose on pills.  So of course Rob blamed himself for the longest time.  I won't go much farther if you ever want to hear about it you could ask Rob, it's hard from him to talk about...it tore him up tonight like it always does talking about it.  He retired to his room tonight and hasn't been out.  This effected me greatly as well because when Heather committed suicide I was dating her sister Melissa.  So I pretty much experience it first hand.  Rob speaking about it tonight really stirred some emotions in me that hadn't been stirred in a year or so.  I had a tear run down my cheek and I think the last time I actually cried was at my grandpa's funeral just over 2 years ago.   It was kind of a rough night, but I am done for the night and that is very exciting!  Done before 12:30 that is a record!  Hope everybody is doing great.  God is working down here, it’s awesome to see!  Thank you all for the prayers.  Please pray for Rob and Melissa, I called her tonight and when I mentioned that Rob gave his testimony and talked about Heather and as soon as I said that she went silent and didn’t have anything else to say to me.  Just said thanks for calling and things were great and said she’d talk to me some other time.  So I’m not real sure what to think about that whole situation.  Kinda sucks!  So keep her in your prayers!  I’m only here for 2 more weeks…craziness!  Thank you all for the prayers, God bless!

PHil