Yesterday...started slowly, I suppose, for me. We had devotions on Galatians chapter 5. Funny thing was that Victor accidentally read Ephesians 5, but the passage harmonized well with what we had all read. And Mark Stephens did Galatians 4 by accident, with similar harmony.
I journaled and spent some time reflecting on the trip so far while the ladies had their devotions. After our morning meeting, I decided not to go on the visitations (it was a short visit anyway since it was a visit to Victor and Jose, who were working) and instead started a game of catch with the Mexican kids in the street. This was a lot of fun, both for me and for the kids. Peter joined in and then we decided to throw some batting practice for the kids. We played in the field across the street from Mamma Mago's house. This went well and we were almost through a full rotation of about 12 kids when one of the boys nailed another with a rock, right below the eye. I dealt with this situation and then left to go prepare for VBS.
This was the last of the 3 days of VBS, and it went well. Somehow we forgot the backgrounds for the skit, which was disappointing. The VBS lesson was "Operacion Rescate", which was about a polluting factory that changes its ways and then the town gets cleaned up. It was a metaphor for our salvation in Christ, but perhaps, maybe, there was a left of center environmental message in there also. Anyway, the background drawings, which Laura and I had made, were the factory, some trees, some houses, and a river. The first 2 days of VBS they are polluted, and then the on the last day they are clean. Forever clean. Unfortunately, we forgot them, so we improvised by finding some trash in the schoolyard and then picking it up as part of the skit. In Boquillas, there is trash around, so it wasn't hard to find.
Our classroom was the 6-8 year old boys, and we had 20 boys. Slightly chaotic. Some of the boys I could tell were not going to memorize their verse. Perhaps for some of them, it was distracting to have some strange looking gringo kneeling next to them. Anyway, for the boys who were struggling, I decided to just read and repeat the verse several times with them and then give them a toy. It was funny because I detected that Sonja was more hard core than this. I think that she went back and demanded more from some of the boys after I had moved on.
After VBS, which ended at 7:00 pm, we went straight back to setup for our compressed, 1 night "Wild at Heart" meeting, which started at 7:00 pm. I could hear music again as we walked down the hill to Mamma Mago's, and I was wondering if we were walking into a repeat of the previous night. But the band was setup on the other side of the courtyard and only played a few songs.
Steve Aldrich introduced the topic in English and Donato translated to Spanish. I could tell that the men gathered enjoyed Steve's introduction. Next, we had decided to play "The Ultimate Prize" video. After a 5 minute technical glitch with the projector (first, no sound; then I rewired the sound, but had no video; had to reboot the projector and we were in business), we watched the movie in Spanish.
After this, Steve shared the story of his "father wound", which was powerful stuff. The men gathered had a sheet of paper to make notes from their own lives throughout. And they did. After Steve was done, nobody got up to leave. With a courtyard full of men, that is what I would expect. But nobody left. Steve invited men to share some of their own story, and one man did. He shared about having grown up as an orphan and stressed the importance of making the most of the time that you have with your loved ones. Donato then shared his story of redemption and how it changed his family life. Overall, it was a great discussion and I hope that God will use it to speak into the lives of the men of Boquillas.
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