Satan never Quits

I stole this from Erin, because I was trying to figure out a way to write about this, then I saw hers and it was exactly what I was trying to say, so she gave me permission to steal it and edit it a little bit as long as I cited my references in MLA style. Unfortunately, at Concordia, we have to do APA style, so I don't know MLA, but hopefully she will forgive me for not citing in that style. Thanks for letting me steal another Erin.

Satan never quits trying to prevent us from doing what we do best. The title of this blog came from something someone said to Erin in conversation--Becky, YLM's bookkeeper.

In case you haven't heard, a car bomb was detonated by gang members in Juarez on Thursday, July 15. The bombing took place somewhere near downtown Juarez, killed 4 people, and injured between 16 and 20 others. On Saturday of that week, police found a graffiti threat allegedly written by the gang that pulled off the car bomb, saying that if the authorities didn't stop "supporting" the rival gang, they would bomb another car in 15 days with 10x as much explosives. That date is this Sunday, August 1. I was actually in Juarez on the Saturday that the threat was found, at Gaby's quince. However, based on the bombing itself and the subsequent threat, we as a mission staff made the decision to keep groups out of Juarez until further notice. I suppose we'll make a new decision within a week or so of Sunday, since by then we will have been able to determine if it was an empty threat or if more things are going to get blown up. Satan never quits.

The decision has affected 3 groups thus far. One was not thrilled about it, but finally understood and we are amazingly pleased with the response from the other two. We were expecting some resistance, maybe a cancellation or two, but have been met with humble submission, praise for our hard work in arranging stateside alternatives, and thankfulness for our concern over everyone's safety. It feels good to know that people trust our decisions: it feels good when groups trust us in telling them that Juarez is reasonably safe, and it feels equally good when groups trust us in telling them it's best not to be over there.

As we were frantically running to Lowe's, designing flyers, and making phone calls last week in order to plan for next week's 2 groups that we pulled out of Juarez at the last minute, we were also trying to plan for this week's group (St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Barrington, IL) too, that was never scheduled to be in Juarez at all. They are running 2 Vacation Bible schools and wanted to do a house as well, so Erin, Felipe, Sergio, a couple of our Workforce Solutions volunteers, and I arrived at the trailer home of a fellow Workforce Solutions volunteer on Thursday morning to pour the slab. A drive-by by the Socorro Police Department, a drive-by by the City of Socorro Planning and Zoning Commission, and a visit to the Planning and Zoning office later, we arrived in Horizon City, at the Garcias,' whom we just finshed building a home for last week with the group from Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Flushing, MI; a blog about them should be before this one. Turns out you need a permit in Socorro...and plans, drawn to scale. Satan never quits. What are plans??? ;) We elected to build the Garcia's ANOTHER house yes, out of desperation because the slab needed to be done that day, but also because they are a wonderful family and can honestly use the additional space, even with 300 extra square feet already. We did finally finish pouring and smoothing around 5:30, and the construction portion of the Barrington group finished on Thursday afternoon. One of next week's groups is going to tile the floor. Satan never quits, but neither do we.

Here are a few pictures of the slab (well, mainly of the adorable Garcia girls...):

Elizabeth and Nadia with the turtle that they found in the road earlier that day. They named it Princess and it entertained them for hours, until its rightful owners came to claim it.

I let all the girls write their names in the concrete. See mine right above hers?

Even Erin, and all names are still visible. More pics to come in the next blogs

I'm not sure how much moisture a newly poured slab can withstand, but I'm glad that Horizon City missed the bulk of this and only got a few sprinkles!

Better than raking leaves

Arriving on Wednesday of the two weeks of craziness was a group from Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Flushing Michigan. Last year for their servant event, they went to a location that had them rake leaves in the forest all week. Seems like an exercise in futility to me, so of course there was some kidding all week about sending them to rake. They were originally going to stay in Anapra with a group from Caro Michigan, but elected to stay stateside instead. We had them do a full build in Horizon and work on the addition to the Wildfire house. I took the team to the Garcia household where we had the full build. The family of 5 was cramped into one room that served as bedroom, living room, and kitchen. They were very excited to be receiving the blessing of this new home and David's (the father) speech as we presented the keys threatened to make many eyes water.

This was a good week, very hot, and it had it's challenges. I messed up laying out the first wall because it was a little shorter than normal, and just did my stud set up like the center was normal, so we had to take part of the wall apart and fix it, then, just as the roof was being finished, hurricane Carolyn (Carolyn was the group leader, and we thought it would be fun to name the storm after her) came through. About an hour of heavy rain, wind, and hail put us at a standstill, and damaged the roll roofing enough that we would have to redo it the next day.

A lot of progress was made at Mayra (Wildfire) house addition as well. For information and photos of that project with Holy Cross, check out Erin's blog, it should be up in the next day or so. We are building another addition for the Garcia family this week, not only because they desperately need the space ,but because God threw us a curve ball this week when we were getting ready to pour our slab for the week in Soccoro and the Planning and Zoning truck drives up and informs us we need permits, etc. for that work. We needed a house build immediately, called them to see their interest, and 90 minutes later, we were making concrete. He may have thrown us a curve ball, but because we believe in flexibility, we were able to knock it out of the park.

Please check out the video at the end of the blog, it will make you smile. I promise.

Framing the first wall

Carrying some siding over

Teaching Corey

Nadia, the youngest

First wall is up

Dora was my excellent helper

Elizabeth, Nadia, and Dora with leaves for Gary to rake

Electric is ran

I had each girl put in one romex staple

Just about ready to roof

Marking for the rafters

Barricading the window opening from Hurricane Carolyn

Hurricane Carolyn

The extent of the Hurricane's damage

Covered it to keep it from leaking until next day of work

Each girl got to sign their name. I also had them sign the new slab in the corners. Photos to come next week.

Dedication

Elizabeth helping to paint

Dora, Elizabeth, and Nadia in the finished room

Maria (mom) made us mole (molay) one day. It is only the second plate of mole I have ever like (The other was made by Elvira's mom)

The girls dancing around and through the frame of their new house (Think they are excited?)

The Godfather Part II (Kind Of)

You may remember the original godfather blog, but here is kind of a sequel. In Mexican culture, it is common to have many sets of "godparents" for different things. Perhaps it is in sponsoring a bible and candle for a first communion, a pair of shoes for a baby, or even a dress for a quinceanera. When Gaby, who is Panchis daughter from San Lucas in Anapra, asked Erin and I to be the Padrinos (Godparents/sponsors) of the dress for her 15th birthday celebration, we couldn't say no, even though it meant a good financial investment. I learned when my parents sponsored Diana's party that searching out sponsors is common and expected. My parents actually sponsored Gaby's cake.

The service and party were held at San Lucas in Anapra and everything was decorated for the event. There was even a servant event group able to enjoy the festivities as well. We got to see Gaby in her beautiful PINK dress, and had some AMAZING food, but missed the rest of the festivities. Unfortunately, darkness won out on the event. We can't really tell people they have to be out of Mexico by dark, and stay there partying, so as dusk approached, we had to leave. I had told Panchis we had to leave at 8 pm (really it was 8:30, but I wanted to build in some filler time), and because one event starts after another ends, the ceremonial shoe and dress changing, and giving of the last doll by the father, which was supposed to start at 8, didn't begin until 9:35. (A little bird told me). Apparently, I was supposed to receive the old shoes or something, and Panchis was crushed when I told her we had to go, but there was no other choice. I am still beating myself up a little bit because I don't know if I made the right decision basically forcing my parents and Erin to leave the party, but I did. It may have even caused some friction between Panchis and myself, but we will work it out.

What makes me the most sad, was the fact that my parents didn't even get to see the cake they paid for cut, or taste it, but the same bird told me it tasted like any other wedding cake you would have ever ate.

Despite all the setbacks, I am confident it was a wonderful party, and an event Gaby will remember forever. She looked fantastic in her dress, as did Panchis and I am happy I was able to help support such a big event in Gaby's life.

All decorated in white and pink. (Go figure)

Looks nice

The Godparents of the dress with the dress

Panchis, Mom, and I

The ceremony, doesn't the floor look great?

Gaby at the altar

Reaffirming her baptism with Pastor Hernandez

Gaby with Pastors (Hernandez, Heimer, Lozano)

Erin and Luna. Luna is Gaby's niece, and Erin drove her mom to the hospital at like 3 in morning on Memorial Day when she was born. I think there might be a picture of me holding her, but I don't know where it is.

Gaby preparing her niece for her party in 15 years

Sitting by some of her cakes

That is A LOT of cake

You don't know how to make crab cakes

Was the first line out of their mouth when I told them that they always sold out when I made Maryland Crab Cakes as a special at one of my restaurants when I was a chef. I will give them a little bit of credit though, seeing as they were from Maryland. It is not very often that the mission gets a servant event group from the east coast. In order to convince them that I knew what I was talking about, I had to take them through my recipe, and finally, after I mentioned lump crap meat, jumbo lump crab meat, and Old Bay Seasoning, they accepted me as one of their own.

I believe this was the first time that they had ever done a servant event, and they chose us because we were flexible with dates and they could come when it worked for everyone. By the time they left, they were trying to figure out how to come back again soon. This was a great group, I have never seen so many people willing to do whatever is thrown at them. They were a huge asset to our "Fixin' Up The Place" campaign and as the photos below will show you, they went CRAZY!!!!

One of the leaders and I hit it off really well as they came down the escalator at the airport and I was holding my shirt out from my chest like a big tent, so they could see it said Ysleta Lutheran Mission. They all came down in matching shirts (which makes it very easy to find them in the airport, hint to future groups :), so I told them that they must be who I was looking for. Erin was parking the car, so when Melch (Dave) came up to me and introduced himself, I said I was Erin, and his wife busted me because she had talked to Erin on the phone and knew she was female. Oops. So from there, we hit it off and gave each other a hard time (pretty much always joking) for the rest of the week. On the car ride back, there was a girl in the group who was super smart, but had no common sense, and he decided that I was her mentor and she had to be with me all week. I had a good time telling her that the ice cream trucks were free in El Paso, and telling the server at Cattleman's it was her birthday.

Overall, it was a good, but busy week. The crazy weeks are calming down, so hopefully I will get up this long list of blogs I want to write soon. Have a great weekend.

Tiling in the dorms

Team Tile

Cutting the last piece

Cove base

New sound booth in the church

Coming together

Painted, tiled, and that is the trap door to reach the wires once we run them for the music ministry

Over roof on building 8

Plywood

Roofing felt and flashing

Nothing quite like tarring in 100 degree heat

Painting the outside of the dorms

Picture of the paint team, taken by the roof team

More painting of number 12

More dorm painting

You should see it live

Painting the church

Ladder picture

Isn't it fantastic. Check out the new cross.

They also built a new ramp from the front part to the toilets/showers in the men's bathroom in the dorms, but no one thought to take a picture of that.