by jimmy | Mar 29, 2009 | buildingaboat, missions, Uncategorized |
HOME SAFE Well I am home and laying on my sleep number bed safe and sound. Thanks for your prayers over the past couple of days. What a journey man I have never walked so much in my life. One of the things I really enjoyed was the walking because when you walk with 7 guys for two days you really get to connect. It is funny though we would be walking and talking and we would get to a light and all kind of clump together then the light change and we would start walking but you would be walking next to a different guy and a either a new conversation would start or one from a block or two ago would continue. I really enjoyed getting to know the guys on the trip with me and the people on the street. This morning was COLD it must have been close to freezing when we woke up at 7 or so. That is sleeping in to the homeless they are usually up and rolling before light. We stayed in a park way on the eastside and started walking back it was great we walked along the lake. A guy really should not be by a lake at 7am and not have a fishing pole that is just not right. We walked through Marcus’s hood and by his mom’s house then over to a run down hotel with some of the toughest looking dudes of front. Next thing I know we are just walking over to have a conversation. We gave them some of the socks the guys had...
by jimmy | Mar 28, 2009 | buildingaboat, missions, Uncategorized |
DAY TWO I am in a park way out in east Austin. There are 7 of us out here from lake hills. We are camping with a homeless guy named Marcus in his spot. Guys have there spots some camp alone and some camp with a buddy. Only dumb guys out for 48 hours camp in groups of 7 like us. We were woken up at 5 am to go and serve in the church we slept behind. We did that until 1 it was hard work but just fantastic. I met tons of people and want to tell you about a couple of them. I am pretty beat we have been walking a bunch. The first guy I want to introduce you to is Jeff we is homeless and walks with crutches. He does not speak well but the man can rock a piano. He played for us this am from heart he does not read music but played some amazing music. I met a woman this am named carol she ran the kitchen at the church. This woman was about 5 feet tall and around 70. She would kick your tail. She reminded me of my aunt tata who was tough as nails but had a huge heart. I really enjoyed joking around with her this am Things are really kept simple out on the street wear your clothes. Get new ones. Find food. Repeat I will tell many more stories tomorrow but tonight i am just beat I have got a really bad headache and so i am going to turn in. ...
by jimmy | Mar 27, 2009 | buildingaboat, missions, Uncategorized |
DAY ONE Well we are currently safe and sound behind university Methodist on Guadalupe. Laying on the ground next to Darrell and Curtis. We walked up here with Kim and her boyfriend Sean. Guys are well fed as the guy at the church brought coffee, mac n cheese, cookies. Pizza run failed though. I am on a retreat called the street retreat. It is put on by mobile loaves and fishes. It is 48 hours on the street with the nothing. No money. No wallet. It is time spent with God and my fellow man. Well tonight started out a little slow i just could not settle down. I was very anxious to start having some experiences and i finally have settled down a bit. We got dropped off at a park at 10th and Colorado. There were about 100 people fed by mobile loaves tonight. I am with about 6 of our guys. The other 18 are somewhere downtown. I really have struggled with bringing this blackberry but i am really glad i did to write you. We got to the church about 8 and started getting ready to lay down. I had a great talk with Sean earlier. He is very well versed in the bible and has quoted a number of scriptures. He talked about the Trinity and compared that to the family. God is the father. The mom is the Holy Spirit and kids are the body of Christ. He discussed how the Spirit is the comforter of man. Thought that was an interesting perspective. We prayed together...
by jimmy | Mar 14, 2009 | buildingaboat, missions, Uncategorized |
This is Raul. He lives at the orphanage. He’s an amazing kid. check out all the pics at…...
by jimmy | Mar 14, 2009 | buildingaboat, missions, Uncategorized |
Well truth be told it is Sunday so really day four but I ended up driving us home so i did not get a chance to write last night. More on that in a minute. I honestly believe that was meant to happen and i needed to be at vhurch this AM for my trip to crystalize. It did. It was not the message but a single song i think written by our worship team. But first a bus ride and a toilet. We got up early again before the sun and made some breakfast for the kids. Again cereal. It was the one thing they wanted cereal and milk a huge treat for them. Then it was time to take the trash to the dump so of course i started cleanning out Darrell’s truck bed so wecould put it in the back but little did I know we had a SCHOOL BUS. The perfect trash deleivery vehicle I mean you know pop open the emergeny door and it is just like a truck except for the obviouse part about loading kids in it later. Oh well when in Mexico I try and do as they do so we loaded it up. The my favorite part of the day Rolando handed me the keys and said aomething in spanishb which i am sure was not dont wreck it. This thing was at least 20 years old. They called it Lazarus because it had already been raised from the dead. So we load up about 8 of the boys and head bumping along the roads. Boys hanging out...
by jimmy | Mar 14, 2009 | buildingaboat, missions, Uncategorized |
What a great day. You know what I mean; the kind of day were every ounce of great is squeezed out drip by drip and it seems to last forever. That was today. The are great parts of a great day and not so great great parts. Web got up early before the sun and started up some cereal for the kids. We were outside just hanging around waiting to ring the breakfast bell and the sun was coming up. It was gorgeous there we about 5 or 6 of us just talking and here come the kids. Man one hug after another just like they were ours it was a beautiful moment. After we ate we were loading the kids in one of our vans so Mike M could run them to school. For the record a 15 passenger van does hold at least 23 kids. Now that was funny. We got the kids off to school and started our day of work. We split into four teams and were needing to bleach, prime and paint the walls of four bathrooms. Sounds simple right wrong. It took us the entire day and my dogs barked about noon and ran off about four. Now it is 10 and we are sitting in the kitchen watching walle. We had a great time joking around a giving each other a hard time. There is a great group down here and i have enjoyed our time serving together. We had hamburgers and hot dogs for lunch plus some gorditas from in town man they were good. Z took...
by jimmy | Mar 14, 2009 | buildingaboat, missions, Uncategorized |
Well it is a little after 10 and we are beat. We got here about 4 today and there were a few kids hanging around so we cranked up a kickball game with some interesting bases and evoling rules. Seemed alot like the 72 olympics must have been. I still dont know exactly what constitutes a foul ball or if there ever was a tag on a fly ball rule. The bases were pretty funny. First was in its normal positon although about 20 feet from home. Second was direction behind first and was the side of a school house which had about 10 older kids in class while we were bouncing balls off the side of thwe house andthe roof. We were all hoping it was english class. Third base was very confusing. There were three tetherball poles straight left from second up next to the fence. The middle pole was third. And trust me you would get beaned if you went to the wrong pole. Home was a patch of grass about 10 feet from where you kicked from. Took some time but we settled into the rules pretty much except for the foul ball thing. It was a blast. I was tired after that but then the next wave of kids got out of school about 6. We played a little bit of tag then it was a free for all with piggy back rides and spinning around in a circle swinging around kid after kid. Man I got serious dizzy and fell down at least five times. Of course once you fell down the dog...
by jimmy | Mar 14, 2009 | buildingaboat, missions, Uncategorized |
Off again… We are headed South in two vans and a truck pulling a seventeen foot trailer, next stop the border then Pan de Vida orphanage. This is my last trip down for a while which I am sure Mark is glad to hear. I am sitting next to Jeannie in the back of the van. We are loaded with snacks, sinners and all sorts of things for the orphange including toys, washer dryer, lawnmower, chest of drawers, food, water and much more. Would like to give a shout out the guy driving his Van Lines 18 wheeler about five feet from the back of the van. Dude? It is a church van. We had a good send off this AM and Mac and Chris prayed us off then we headed out. We are just south of san antonio headed to a small town just outside of matamoras called sandoval. We will be staying there two nights and heading back saturday. This trip is going to be a little different in that we are going to be at the orphanage and doing some painting and other odd jobs. I am really excited about being on the trip with Jeannie and shaing this with her. She has not been on one of these trips and i cant wait for her to meet these kids. And NO we are not bringing one home. Sorry grandparents. I really want her to meet Z. I have talked to a lot of you about him but if you have not read his testimony visit www.helfofGod.com. He is an...
by jimmy | Feb 9, 2009 | buildingaboat, missions, Uncategorized |
Well I am hanging in the Houston airport with all my fingers and toes. I am sitting with Peggy Jenkins one of the women that went on our trip. She is one of the “chicas de concreta” she lives in Austin and we are waiting our flight. We had another great day with work in the AM and a tearful dedication service for the Hart’s. The day started with our “reverse migrant worker” van ride, that is 16 gringos in a 12 person van. When you open the doors one falls out. We started out at Casa B with concrete again and except for the 30+ mph winds it was pretty easy. We had lots of people helping and was a lot of fun because we really got to joke around and razz each other. We got to see walls rise from the ground, pipes laid in the trenches and of course lots of floors. You know I am not sure I have really described the concrete process but it is not “pull concrete truck up and dump concrete on ground and spread” it is far more painful. First you take 10-12 large wheelbarrows of the grey sand and dump them on the ground in a large circle. Then drop 6 100 lbs bags of concrete on top and spread out. Next you shovel everything into a big pile and then spread it back out. Are you having fun yet? Next come the rocks, the stuff like on the train tracks, and shovel 10 wheelbarrows of rock into the wheelbarrows and dump into the circle. Just add water. Maybe...
by jimmy | Feb 8, 2009 | buildingaboat, missions, Uncategorized |
Day 3 Ouch. Well I was introduced to an old enemy today no it is not the Devil but it is definently a tool straight from you know where. It is called the tamper. It is a tool that we use to tamp down dirt before we pour the concrete floors of the houses we are building. It is about 15 pounds of steel with a flt bottom that you just lift straight up and slam to the ground over and over and over. We poured the floor foranother house today I got some great pictures of the family we built the house for. They were so excited the kiids hung around the house all day and played. Their current house has a rubber tarp on the floor and I cannot help but think about how excited they must be to get a concrete floor. Their are three kids and the mom all living together in one room. After those floors we dug more trenches and this time we found the rocks not so much fun. We dug these for all the plumbing for huge addition to the Casa B clinic. Trenches had to be 24 inches deep and we probably dug 150 feet of them. The highlight of my day and maybe this trip was this evening and a celebration taking place across the city. I am not sure what it is called but all the churches have some services and then parade to a larger central church. Now this is not the normal US parade this is mostly on foot. Well except for the band playing out...
