Viva la Mexico!

There have been a few times in my life when I've done some pretty spontaneous and silly things, but this one was a lot of fun. I left work at 5:00p on Friday and drove straight through to El Paso that night from Colorado Springs. Yeah, that was interesting. The first leg of the trip was beautiful - the sun was setting over the Rocky Mountains, weather was perfect. Good day for a road trip. Then it started getting dark - and darker. My eyes started getting tired. But the Mountain Dew and caramel Apple Pops help get me through the night. I pulled into El Paso at 3:00a and parked in a church parking lot. I was so nervous that a cop was going to pull up and think I was a Mexican hopping border so something that it took a while to fall asleep. But I woke up at 5:22a and crossed the border.

Driving into Mexico by yourself at 5:30 on a Friday morning is quite different than it normally has been. I've been to Juarez at least 10 times now. But my one day excursion was by far the best trip I've had. By the time I got there that morning - everyone was still asleep. Juan wasn't awake to open the gate - so I had to hop the fence. Thanks to Tim Kuenker, I didn't rip a hole in my jeans. Seeing everyone there was awesome. I remember some of these friends from when they were still in junior high (like 6 - 8 years ago). Now seeing them all in college, thinking about careers, walking with Christ - it was kick butt awesome. And totally worth the 10 hour drive.

They had already worked on the house the day before and by the time we got to the site - I saw a solid foundation, all four walls up, the roof on, blackboard covering the whole house and partly chicken wired! UNBELIEVABLE that they finished all that in one day. Of course, they had lunch delivered, it wasn't hot at all and siesta wasn't necessary - but come on, none of the houses we've worked on have ever been done so quickly. On Saturday I worked the whole day after only two hours of sleep. Granted I did chicken wire and electricity all day - but it was fun. The entire house was finished by Saturday afternoon at 4:00. Craziness. So, we did the dedication, watched the family and everyone else cry and then headed for Peter Piper's where I proceeded to then pass out on the table.

All in all, it was an awesome trip and will probably be my last with all of those people. Thus, it's bittersweet. Hopefully where I'm going in Dallas I'll find people like those I miss in St. Louis. They are good people.

More later... taking a nap now.