Day 3

MONDAY

6:30 - Wake up time, Bible time.

7:15 - Breakfast time and devos.

9:00 - I volunteer to help cut celery. I've never cut celery before! A couple of us girls make PB+J's for everyone including all the orphans. They're going to come to the beach with us!

10:00 - We load up in our vans.

11:00 - At the beach! The rutty road behind us, I look across the vast expanse of water and then behind us at the towering sand dunes. An occasional ATV crisscrosses over the hills.

11:30 - Busy playing Infection Tag. Some people play football, others talk, still others look for shells or play in the ocean.

12:30 - Well past my knees in ocean water when calls come from the adults. Lunch time! 

1:00 - In line for the food, I notice a boy named Daniel staring at me. I make a funny face and he does a fish face. Throughout the whole week, we kept up the comedy!

1:15 -  I eat with Jazera, a 12 yr. old ranch girl who speaks very good English.

Getting food in line at the beach. Jazera is in the red shirt next to me.

This is Daniel.

2:00 - Head off to the the dunes for jumps, jumps, and more jumps.

4:00 - We travel back the way we came
Head over the dunes 
pass the sandy lane
Start the vans 
the vans are full
with seashells and with sandy rolls
Head over the rutty road comes next 
In the car we hold our breath
no one becomes 
too car sick
we drive and drive 
who knows the time?
finally we are at the ranch
back from sand dune lane.

5:30 - Dinner!

6:30 - Devotions, songs, announcements, and recap of the day. In a circle, everyone goes around sharing what their favorite part of the day was or something they learned. Eli happens to start out talking two nights in a row and so the tradition got started. Every night, Eli starts out the circle and then the people on either side of him try to make the other person go first since its was hard to think of something right off the bat. By the time the circle gets completed and everyone has talked, it's late. Time for bed!

Eli in the green sweatshirt starting out the circle

Day 2

SUNDAY

9:45 - Church starts in 15 minutes. Not a big problem if I wasn't on the worship team. But I am. And we haven't practiced...at all. Three of us go up to practice without finding the other two who were supposed to practice with us. In the church, we find there is no piano. We do not have a guitarist so that means only vocals? This will not work! I race down to our team to find a guitarist and recruit Zach. Isaac has the Mexicanos bring out a keyboard from storage which they set up for us. The missing two from our worship team come up. The church is now filled.

10:00 - We stand there whispering on stage. What song does this verse belong to? It's all in Spanish! (I know Spanish but I don't know it under pressure) The Mexicanos file us off the stage so that they can do their worship songs first.

10:40 - It's time. We get on the stage only to face big black mics. Now, we were told we wouldn't have to use the mics. But should we? Unamed starts singing into the mic...off key. I edge a little closer to my own mic in angst, trying to sing over her and at the same time not use the mic (also peering behind me to look at the screen because the verses in front of me are in a weird order)! Andrew tries to share my mic but I stand my ground which means it now looks like he's hiding behind me. Do you get the picture? It is not a pretty one. We definitely weren't put together!

Here's all the gracious worshippers

Side note: When I tried to think of what we did for Sunday for this blog post, I couldn't remember anything significant. I had already blocked out the mortifying experience!

12:00 - My Bible is missing. It disappeared from my seat! This is the Bible that Gabrielle gave me for my Italy and Greece mission trip. It is very precious and filled with notes of what God's taught me in the last 4 years. I ask around. No one has seen it. I'm filled with despair.

1:00 - We go on a tour of the ranch. We see the outside of all the buildings and get to watch their pigs, horses, and goats.

1:45 - We play Ga Ga ball with the orphans. This is a game where you only use your hands to hit the ball and if your leg is touched by the ball, you're out!







5:00 - One of the house moms and her troop find my Bible for me. All I can say is, "Gracias!"

9:00 - We sit under the stars, under the sweeping trees on Mexican blankets. The highway weaves around in the background, occasional trucks flash by. I see a shooting star fly down. Then people start taking selfies and I leave. 

10:30 - Lights out. In bed. Peaceful.