May Goosta Guarlarjadardia - My First Missions Trip

It's certainly been almost a month since I returned from Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, so I decided to finally write about the trip. I know that I promised some folks I'd be doing this and it's only slightly later than I imagined......yeah.......about that. I'll include some of my actual journal entries in italics

Herewego.

I guess the first event of note was actually getting to the airport; Amanda, our worship leader, finally got her passport a few hours before the plane left! We flew uneventfully - or so we thought. It turns out that we flew the entire way with a bus attached to the plane! It's the only logical explanation because as soon as we exited the plane we were on a bus to the terminal. No jetway, no tram, no walking, just plane-BAM-bus. Kenji, in his consternation, left his passport on the plane and had to retrieve it so he could, you know, come home and stuff. We met Daniel, Isaac, and Steve Shoop and went to the Motel Guadalajara for sandwiches. You can bet that I enjoyed a PB&J as my first meal in Guadalajara. I mean, yeah, they had other options, but why would I pick those? Tch.

Sunday was pretty much incredible. We went to two church services. The first one was Paniel. They had a line of women in the front with purple sashes and tambourines - they danced and played - you could see just how much they love God. I had no choice - I started crying not too long after service started. Their worship was so beautiful. The whole congregation was jumping and waving hands, singing to the Lord with such love, my tears could not do them justice. It was such a joy to worship with them. The second church had air-conditioning. I liked that the whole congregation went up to repent and get themselves right with God. The afternoon was relaxing. Dinner can be summed up by my statement 'I definitely should not have eaten 5 tacos, but they were really delicious.'

Monday was our first day at CUSEA. We played soccer and Loyd just straight pwned after saying he'd pretty much never played and Gramps did a fine job goalkeeping. We lost 5-4 but played a good game. We did the Doctor skit and got laughter. Then we played the cup game and passed out some cups for Punto de Encuentro. It went well. In one of the bathrooms we had listerine to use as soap - it was awesome. Learning patience was an adjustment. There wasn't any mass sermon speaking or tract passing during this trip - it was performance, living, and contact contact contact.

The Devil went agro on Tuesday. We had a cop try and ticket us before we even left the Engage house. After Wal-Mart, yes we went to a Mexican Wal-Mart, we went to CUSEA. I had some stuff go down too. It was a rough morning and afternoon. Amanda and Kenji did worship for us. Afterwards two guys started playing music together. One guy had a violin and the other had something I'd never seen before - it was a keyboard that you had to blow in to for sound to happen. It's a Melodión or a Melódico depending on who you ask. It became my obsession for the next few days. Kenji joined them with the guitar and then they passed the instruments around. Kenji's a beast. Loyd hopped in on guitar and played some American music, including "Drive" by Incubus. The Melodión player knew it and played Brandon's vocals to Loyd's chords. He then played the Lost Woods music from Ocarina of Time. I laughed really hard. El mundo es pequeño.

Afterwards we went to UTEG. We went to Angela's English class and I had to, er, got to do 'the Doctor' again. Laughter again. All girls in the class; sin hombres. We did a presentation, and by we I mean Ali and Jonathan gave a presentation. We went to Alzaga's house/coffee shop. On the way over, I had a little talk with God. Contrary to my preconceptions, Guadalajara has stolen my heart. I really want to come back and help Punto de Encuentro and Engage out when I can. I'd be up for a spring break, summer, or anything trip. God helped give me some peace. I know myself - I get preoccupado with my future. It's clear to me that God's put a calling to go to UCI next summer...God helped slap me around in a comforthing way. Alzaga hosts different languages and wants to practice German tomorrow. God is funny. I'm trying to recordar mi español and este chavo quiere hablar Alleman conmigo. ¡Para la gloria de Jesús! It was basically just awesome to relax and watch Gabe prank Ali and Jonathan. Many good times.

Stacy, Joel, Kenji and I talked about prayer and reflection for a while. It made me really appreciate God's ordination on our lives. I did not want to learn Spanish in High School and I was insistent that I would not live in California. Now, I'm going to live in California again and I want to learn Spanish! I never would have thought. I laugh when I think of Eva practically yelling across campus that we needed to urinate. She didn't say that we needed to use the bathroom but literally urinar, the verb 'to urinate.' Awesome.

Wednesday had some more attack. Joel, Kat, and Isaac got sick. We went to UTEG all day today. We did three presentations. It went The Doctor, Kenji y Amanda singing "Todopoderoso" and Amanda and Loyd doing "Rescue," then the presentation. During the third presentation we played the cup game. We had probably 5 guys play with us. During it, apparently, the girls in the back started singing to "Todopoderoso" and clapping! Loyd gave his testimony and two girls cried. Carlos brought 9 groups total out of 80 - over 10% of UTEG heard today. So cool! We went to Angela's last class and only did the presentation. We had a second round of discussion groups that went much better than the first. Loyd played "Wonderwall" and some of the girls knew it in English. That was very cool.

Thursday we went shopping at San Juan de Díos. I bought an overpriced cowboy hat and an underpriced belt. On the way out I finally found my own Melodión! We went by the Cathedral and it had a real heaviness about it. We then went and had our bus break down (woot woot) and our super-amazing bus driver got his clothes all greasy but managed to beat the brokenness out of it. We picked up two CUSEAns and went to the Zoo! Monkeys sat on heads. Part of our team including Jonathan and Angela corralled escaped lambs and one almost killed Jonathan. I think his exact line was "I thought he was goin' for the tube!" The last safari tour left early and so our 20 peso purchase now goes to the next group. Jonathan accidentally drank tap water from a bottle and didn't die. We had tacos again on the town, awesome, and then some homemade ice cream type stuff. I had strawberry because there was no dairy - it was splendid. They had a Christian store and I found Danilo Montero's CD "Todopoderoso" that the song came from and spent the rest of my pesos on it.

Essentially, that's our trip. We had good times and good food but we, most importantly, made good contact. We had a BUNCH of students write down e-mails so Angela could get in contact with them. We helped them finally get Eva's number and really linked up a few students with the Engage guys. We prayed a lot. I got a soccerball in the kidney's from Gabe because I stalled dancing for 9 minutes. There was celebration because God throws Angel Fiestas for each person that commits their life to Him in Mexico. We sang. We moved cups. God moved hearts. It was fantastic.