So here I lay in my room watching Slumdog Millionaire. We have no group this week, which has resulted in a bit of a week "off." And by "off" I mean that we've still done stuff everyday, we just haven't had a group to tend to. And so far it has been quite a week. Sunday we traveled by bus to Chichen Itza, which is an enormous Mayan ruin about three hours away. On the way, we stopped at a cenote, which is an underground fresh water spring in a big cave. There was a also a tequila museum with free *hiccup* samples. It was an adventurous day. The ruins were quite impressive. Seeing the architecture and how well it has survived over a millennia makes me reconsider my opinion on the existence of extraterrestrial life. There was also a whole bit about almost getting lost and walking around Cancún in the middle of the night, but let's save that part of the story for later. Monday we took a ferry to Isla Mujeres, an island just off the coast of Cancún. I realized I had not been on a boat in two years, a strange realization. The island has public beaches, shops, snorkeling tours, and is home to a Mexican naval base. A very small portion of the island is populated by tourists, and the discovery I made was that the other side of the island, the side no one goes to, is my favorite spot that I've been to all summer. I also got my first sunburn of the summer. Today we had a staff meeting, then took one of the families that Back2Back works with to a movie and dinner. Now I'm sitting in my room, watching Slumdog Millionaire, writing to you fine folks.
Where dreams come true.
Someone wanna photoshop that lady out?
See, this is the kind of beach that I could spend all day at.
Two weeks ago, we hosted a group from Ohio called Apex. They were the home church of one of our interns and are a bit like Riverview on the Involvement with Back2Back Scale. They send groups to all the Mexico locations. A couple of the people had been on a dozenish trips, even to the site in India. One of the girls left a day early because she was spending a month at the Monterrey site. The jackhammer that we have was purchased by a person from Apex and is affectionately named after her. So this was a week that everyone had been looking forward to all summer, and I quickly discovered why. Every person in the group was hard-working, they never complained, they were generous, inclusive, good sports, ready to be challenged, and just plain old awesome. The entire week was one, big, long highlight reel. One night I stayed up til 1am chatting with one of the group members and one of the interns. And it was one of those conversations where you look at the clock at 10:30 and think, "I should go to bed soon," then look at it again and realize that was two and a half hours ago. One of the work days at San Jose, we got into a wheelbarrow race where we were seeing how many loads we could take in 10 minutes, literally sprinting with whole loads of gravel. After one night's music time, everyone started chanting for an encore. They convinced me to play one of my own songs, and everyone listened attentively, applauded when I finished, and demanded that I have a song ready every night from then on. The second to last day they were here, we had a long day of cement pours. While unloading the trompo (cement mixer) at the first site, I got punched in the face by it (it bounced when it hit the ground and came right back and caught me solid in the nose). I felt/heard a pop/crack and fell backward onto the ground. Several group members immediate came over to ask if I was okay and if I needed help. Honestly, I was more just embarrassed, so I had no idea what to say or do. Finally one of them dragged me over to the van and made me put ice on it and sit out for a while. I had already not been having a very good day and this just made it worse. I sat in the van with the ice on for a little while, then just said screw it and jumped in with the pour. Six hours, two cement pours, and a swollen nose later, turned out to be one of the best days all summer. That night, one of the group members came and asked me a bunch of questions about baptism. I told him it wasn't really my area of expertise, but gave him my thoughts on it and a few scriptures he could reference. The next day he got baptized. The whole week was filled with fun, hard, deep, funny, emotional, challenging, rewarding, amazing times. It was very hard to say goodbye, and I miss them all. I kinda wanna make a trip to visit them. Also, one of the guys gave me his leftover Clif Bars. He's basically my new best friend.
The next week (last week) we had a very different group. That may sound negative, but I certainly don't mean it in a negative way, just that it was very, very different. We had a group of 5 middle/high schoolers, 10ish adults, and one little girl. The middle/high schoolers composed a band, which was the primary attraction of the week for our outings. They played 3 or 4 different gigs, while also doing a couple work projects. At the start of the week, I got kinda sick and was out for about a day and half, so it was hard for me to get going and have my heart in it at the beginning. But that changed with the first evening music set. This group sang the loudest and outwardly joined in worship the most passionately of any group all summer. I even had trouble hearing myself over the sound system. As the person behind the mic, in a setting such as that, that is a big encouragement, to not be the only person singing. The big event of the week was an outdoor concert in Bonfil, a neighborhood/town right next to Cancún. They'd been planning it all summer and hung signs all over the streets promoting it. It was intended to be part worship concert, part community event, part promotion of the ministry that we work with, part whatever God wanted to make it into. Now, I would not describe myself as a particularly emotional person. And when I am emotional, I like to do it when no one else is around. But during their sound check, I had a moment, right there in the big old wide open. They did their stage check with the song Promises by Desperation Band. As soon as they started playing it, I was overtaken with emotion and just started bawling. The cause of the emotion was two-fold: First, it took me straight back to playing with my youth group band when I was in high school. That song came out back then and we would play it sometimes. Nights playing with that band were pretty much the greatest moments of my high school years. Particularly because of some really tough times I had during those years, playing in the youth band was where I felt comfortable, where I felt I belonged, where I felt at home. When I felt like nothing made sense, like I had nowhere to go, playing in the band allowed me small times of peace. I was enormously blessed to be a part of that group of kids. I learned so much, got to do so many cool things, and it was really the springboard for so many other things I've had the opportunity of doing in my life, including sitting here in Cancún right now. The acknowledgement of that blessing overwhelmed me. The second part of that moment was seeing where those kids are now and the amazing potential for them to have experiences just like the ones I have had through this gift that they've been given. They already got to go to Cancún for a week and play concerts for hundreds of Mexicans, just wait to see what other experiences they'll have if they keep following God with what they've got. So that was fun. The rest of the week was great, too. They had some fun people in the group, they worked super hard at a concrete pour, and they left a big box of Clif Bars for me. That's the way into my heart right there.
So that's a brief rundown of the past two and a half weeks or so. There's been so much in this trip that I can't even scratch the surface here. I'd love to talk more about it when I get home if you're interested in hearing it.
On an unrelated note, I've now seen Epic, Man of Steel, Despicable Me 2, and Pacific Rim. Was not expecting to have a big move-going summer, but have probably seen more movies here than I would have had I been at home.
That and I found this in my room the other night:
Sweet dreams.
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