Back home

I wanted to let everyone know, that we made it home and are back to work and settling back into the routine. Friday, Sept. 21st, was our last day to work and I spent the morning at Church Rock working on the roof of the parsonage replacing shingles. Luckily, I spent the morning working with Roland, a Navajo from the area. We had a great talk and he told me how he had just returned to the area from a town about 1 1/2 hours north of Church Rock. He went up their after he was threatened, and nearly attacked, by 2 guys that he had fired for being worthless. Roland was a painter and these guys were assigned to his crew by his employer, but they didn't know how to do much of anything. He happened to be in Home Depot with his boss after he had fired them and they were just about to beat him when his boss pulled a gun and told them to leave him alone. He headed out of town to let things cool off, but now was back home to be with his family. I asked him if things had settled down, he said no, but he was happy to be home. I hope things work out for him, really cool guy. He invited me come out early next year and he would take me camping and fishing on the reservation. That would be cool, I'll see if that will work out for next year. I was surprised when he said fishing, since I hadn't seen even a creek since we got there, but he assured me there were lakes further back. We then proceeded to an area that has been dubbed "Kid Canyon" by one of the ladies in our group due to the number of kids that live in the area. When we got there we only saw a few kids, but there were a shitload of dogs, most in pretty bad shape. We handed out some of the toiletry packets that we had, (soap, shampoo, toothpaste, tooth brushes and some other stuff) plus some Bibles. There were a couple of dogs that were none too happy that we were there, made me a little nervous. When we left, Deke said he had something that he wanted to run by us. He said he wanted to go buy some dog food and go back to kid canyon and put down some food for these malnourished dogs. John and I agreed that that would be good, so off to Walmart. When we got there, the suggestion was to buy a bowl for food and a bowl for water. My suggestion was several bowls for food and one for water. Reason being, there were a bunch of dogs that were really hungry, I figured one bowl was a Micheal Vick fantasy of one big dog fight. I was shot down most unceremoniously. After we bought the food, we headed to Tolaki to pass out more packets and now feed a few dogs. I felt a little like a Jehovah's Witness, but without the preaching. We saw people in their yards (If you want to call a patch of dirt a yard), but when we knocked, amazingly there was know one home, must have been the time machine out back. A few answered and we gave them the packets and Bible's if they wanted them, and all did. Not sure if it was because they wanted to read it or because it was free, either way, they got it. We came to the house Frank lives in, he was the guy Chris and I worked on the church roof in Tolaki with. He had 3 big dogs and 2 puppies that we saw. We asked if we could feed them and he said sure. Deke and John put one bowl of food down for the 5 dogs and a fight broke out almost immediately. (It's so good to be right, but being the Christian that I'm trying to be, I said nothing) There was the Alpha male dog who was hogging the bowl which had enough food in it for 10 dogs, but I'm guessing by looking at them, they don't eat very often. The 2 puppies weren't getting anything, so Deke took a pile of food for them. Before we left, the Alpha male had his bowl and the other 2 big dogs had chased off the puppies for the other pile. I see it in Mexico as well, but I don't understand why you have pets if you can't afford to feed them. Seeing the reaction at Tolaki just reinforced what I knew was going to happen with all of the dogs at kid canyon, which it did. I didn't go to KC the second time, but I spoke to a few of the ladies that went up with Deke and John and they said the dogs were going at it pretty good. I was really uncomfortable with the door to door thing, if you know me you know that ain't my thing, but we were welcomed most places pretty warmly and since we weren't preaching to them, we didn't get the same looks I used to give people who came to my door to preach to me. We had Navajo Taco's for supper, which is fried bread with meat (there was hamburger, beans and something else in the "meat", might have been mutton since they seem to eat a lot of that), lettuce, onions, tomato's, cheese and then you had salsa or green chili's to choose from. I had the fresh green chili's and that was great. We got on the road home about 9:00pm or so. We drove through NM and into north Texas where we pulled over for some gas at about 1am. We found a closed gas station, but the pumps still worked and since it was the first place we had seen in a half hour, needed to fill up. I got out to pump the gas and grabbed a hold of the pump, only to realize that bright lights, plus middle of nowhere Texas, plus 1am equals a shitload of bugs. The pump was covered in bugs that I now had crawling all over my hand. I jerked my hand away and since I had to pee really bad, tried not to piss myself. I knocked the bugs off the handle, since I didn't think hundreds of bugs in the gas tank would help our fuel economy, and began the filling process. As I mentioned, I needed to pee really bad, so I set off to find a bathroom, but as I mentioned, the station was closed. Now any of you who have traveled with me or Brian know, we don't have the largest bladder capacity, so I wasn't going to be able to wait until we got out of middle of know where Texas to pee, so I went behind the building to, well, do my business. There are a few things that scared me about this option:



1. There were several, I'll guess lonely, truckers in the area that I though might find it entertaining to see a guy pissing in public. I had no interest in recreating the "squeal like a pig" scene from Deliverance, so I was concerned.

2. Did I mention there were bugs? I didn't want them on my hands, you can bet I don't want them anywhere else.

3. The last thing that caught my eye was a sign that read, "This premises has 24 hour video surveillance."

Well I went anyway, behind a dumpster, just like the good Lord had intended. We finally stopped for the night in Amarillo, TX and got a few hours sleep before we hit the road again. We stopped off at a McDonalds, we travel in style and only eat at the finest establishments, and I had a good laugh, even though John didn't see the humor at first. If you have been to a McDonalds anytime recently, and you have unless you are a vegetarian or a communist, you might have noticed that all of their drive thru windows are put in for the SUV's of this country. That makes it more fun for a car of smaller stature to give their money and receive their purchase. Lets focus on the second part of that. The Prius is small, so the bottom of the drive thru window is the top of the Prius window, so when you reach out, you reach out past the window frame and then up. This would then tell you to bring your purchase down and in. Take into account that we are driving a lot of miles and a little sleep, and you might do like John and forget the down part. He grasped my EXTRA LARGE Coke (nectar of God) and pulled it into the car, without the down, and proceeded to dump said nectar into his lap, rendering it less than desirable. My first instinct was to laugh, which I now know was incorrect (live and learn). He was less than happy at the outcome of the "in" move. I realized my error in my reaction and stifled further snickering. The kid working the drive thru appeared to be 8 years old, so in his stunned look, asked John if he wanted napkins. Seemed like a silly question to me, my response would have been "No, I'll just soak in it Madge." (How many of you oldies got that reference?), but John just said yes. The fetus handed John about 5 napkins, to soak up an extra large Coke (nectar of God) which John responded with "Keep'em comin." The kid handed him a wet towel, which didn't help John's mood. He sped off and pulled into the parking lot so he could get the ice out of his crotch. Since we were hauling all of our dirty clothes with us, he had something to change into, so as he put it, he went into the truck stop bathroom and he "got to get naked in front of a few truckers" (see my "squeal" comment from above). After about 100 miles, he thought it was funny, just in time to be pulled over by a Texas State Trooper. It seems that those signs that say "Speed Limit 70" are NOT a suggestion, but a rule. (Live and learn) The guy walked up to the car and introduced himself as a Texas State Trooper, which seemed a little redundant since we had been watching his flashing lights for a short time. He asked for John's license and said he'd be right back with a warning, which was good news. I feared a ticket my push John over the edge and we'd do a Thelma and Louise (another damn reference) The cop was back a few minutes later with a warning and gave us a piece of info that will be valuable should you drive in Texas, or at least the very tippy top of it. "The speed limit is 70 mph, we'll give you 75mph, but anything over that, we'll stop and visit with you." Good to know. The rest of the trip was good, I dropped John off in Kansas City, he was meeting up with friends to go to the Chiefs game on Sunday, and I headed home. I had a great time on this trip, but I know its the return trips that make all of the difference. You start to see the same people over and over again, they begin to know you and most importantly, trust you. That is when the real connection is made. They are used to people making a one time trip, they look for people to come back again and then they connect with the people who come back a third time. After that, its like family, which we are, one God, all brothers and sisters in Christ.

God Bless

Thursday

Today was a pretty uneventful day. We worked on the tub surround in the parsonage and I painted a little. I guess I had a little excitement with the painting. We were painting the peak of the church, and I had to climb about 2 stories up and lean over to paint. I don't like heights, so I was a little shaky. After I did one section, the other Mark on the trip volunteered to do the next section, my hero. We had borrowed the ladder from a local lumber yard called Gallup lumber, so we took it back and I had a chance to talk to the owner, Michael, for awhile. He had let us borrow this huge ladder for free and does a lot of things to help out with the mission. He is a really cool guy and later came to where we were having dinner and we gave him a plaque expressing our thanks. He said he would put it up in the front of the store, where I noticed he had several plaques from other organizations. I'm sorry I don't have any pictures from today, but I didn't think anyone would want to see pictures of me working in a bathroom and I don't have any of me on the ladder from hell. There are several things that I'm going to miss when this trip is over. The first is being referred to as a young guy. I am one of the younger people, but I think I'm older than most people think. I think my bald head and protruding stomach must scream out late 20's to early 30's. If they only knew. Another thing I will miss is the daily connection with the people I'm working with. A lot of them have shared their stories and they are amazing. To hear people's triumphs and struggles and how they have gotten through it with their faith is inspiring. I didn't share my story this year because I didn't think I had a story, but after a evening with several of the ladies on the trip, who asked for my story, I'm told I do. I owe the base of my faith to mom and Miller, since they were the ones who drug me to church as a kid. Then, when I fell away, I would say that a lot of it was do to being drug to church for all those years and for me being arrogant and thinking I could disprove the existence of God, which I did in my mind. The thing I've realized is that I was using today's world to cancel out everything I had learned as a kid. I'm from Missouri, show me. I didn't think I could be shown, so I didn't open my eyes, mind or especially my heart. I met Marcy and I wanted to impress her, so I said I would go to church with her, even though I had no intention of ever believing again. I thought I could fool everyone, I had with so many other things in my life. Well little did I know that this was all in God's plan, that this was step one in a process to bring me back into the fold. I went to church, I listened and thought, are these people serious? I had never been to a church with live music, so I right away thought, cult? I've been to a lot of church's in my day, thanks to Miller's job and friends, and I had never seen anything like this. I can't just take the word of these people, so I started to look into religion and this God thing on my own. I read a book called A Case For Christ, written by a man who was a non-believer. He talked to scientists, religious leaders, historians and all kinds of both believers and non-believers. The case was overwhelming that Christ did exist. It's written, in non religious books, just regular books, that there was a man who was called Jesus Christ and that he performed miracles. I can't tell you everything in the book, but it is a good read, especially if you don't think God is real. I know where your coming from, I was there, but look into it before you discount it. In one of the devotions given tonight, there was a quote that I don't know exactly, but it said that you are put in a place, not to move someone from 1 to 10 in their faith, but maybe from 5 to 6. I wanted to thank Marcy from moving me from a -100, to a positive number. I'm not sure where I am on the scale, but I'm climbing. For those of you who read this blog, just to see what I've done, you just got a short faith story from me. With all of the stories I've heard this week, I wanted to get that off my chest, now back to the cursing and crappy pictures:)

Wednesday

WOW! What a day. I started it off with a 6:15am hike to an old cemetery up a winding road, in the dark. There are a few places I don't like, hospitals, unless its for a baby, Walmart, ever, and cemeteries. My family had a stretch where we were together every year for a funeral. First for my mom, then my dad, then there were my grandmothers and a grandfather. These were some of the finest people I have ever known in my life. They taught me so much, were always there for me and gave birth to more of the finest people I've ever known. I know I'm biased, but I wouldn't trade my family for anything in the world. On top of me not liking cemeteries, I sure as hell don't like them in the dark. We finally arrived just as the sun was coming up, so we were able to read the headstones. They were all pretty recent, early 2000's up until just last month. One that caught our attention was of a Navajo lady, I can't pronounce or spell her name, that had lived to young age of 117 years old. Can you imagine what she saw as she went through her life? We wandered around and started finding headstones from 1920's and the 1930's. There were a lot of war veterans, from WWII, Vietnam and the current war in Iraq. The place seemed to be over run with native grasses and plants, so some of the markers were buried in plants so you couldn't see them. If I'm buried in the ground, I sure hope someone will come and at least uncover my headstone(plus drop off a fresh coke every once in awhile). We made it out to Tolaki and Chris and I started work on putting in a tub surround in the parsonage. It went well, but since we were only working half day, we were only able to replace the drywall and put up one section of the surround. I really have no idea what I'm doing, but Chris has a clue, so I do what I'm told. I feel like we are working pretty well together, I hope he feels the same. We came back to Rehoboth and had lunch with some of the Navajos and then headed out to Red Rock state park for a hike. This place in incredible. Here are some pictures, but you know the scoop, can't do the place justice. The first picture shows John checking out the map to see how far and which way to go. The rock behind him is common to what we saw throughout the hike. The second is more along the way. The third is of our destination. It's called church rock because it looks like church steeples. I don't see it, but hey, they didn't ask me. As you may remember, church rock church is one of the places we are working, this is where it got its name. The hike was really cool, lots of ups and downs and a total elevation change of 700 feet. I'm in terrible shape, but I actually surprised myself and did pretty good. There was one time when I was pretty winded, but we took a rest and I was ready to go. Thankfully we had water so I didn't pass out from dehydration. Don't worry Marcy, I put on lots of sunscreen so I wouldn't burn. If I hadn't, I would be a crispy critter right now. I'll include several more pictures at the bottom, but look at the one with the goats. These crazy bastards were walking on the smooth rock face and stood right on the edge. There wasn't anything to eat around there, so I don't know what there were doing there, but they are goats, who are you going to complain to? We made it to the base, or as close as we could and made it back safely. We finished the day with a little shopping, a great dinner and a church service at a local church that one of the ladies that has been working with us at Tolaki had invited us to. I'm going to save that story for another time because I am really tired and want to go to sleep. I'll write more Thursday.










Crazyass goats.

Is it Tuesday?

Man, my days are all mixed up. Today started with a 6:30am hike with John up a hill, in the dark. There was just enough light to make you feel you wouldn't step in a well, but an ankle twister wasn't out of the question. I'm happy to report that there were no accidents, but I thought we might have to fight off a dog/wolf at one point. We saw him running down a path between us and the interstate, so the lights from there were just enough to see him, but not enough to tell if he might come after us. At the last second before I screamed like a girl, we saw its owner, so he was changed from the dog/wolf category to just the dog category. It was kind of pretty up there, but the area reminds me a lot of El Paso, brown and dusty. The mountains are pretty cool, but after that, kind of plain. It's great to be able to visit places like this, but it makes me appreciate the beauty of Iowa, yes Iowa. The work day consisted of Chris and I climbing back on the roof of the church to finish the shingle job. Here is a picture of Chris tying our safety line to the steeple. Chris says this is us putting our lives in God's hands. The picture doesn't do the slope justice, it is really steep. You can't set your tools down, because they will be on someones head below, so you have to keep them in your belt, tied to the rope or go back and forth to the flatter roof of another section of the church. Mitzi, Chris's wife, took a picture of us both holding our ropes, so when I get that I'll post that as well. You can see the dark spots on the roof and that was what we were replacing. The wind was blowing again today, but nothing like yesterday. There was a section on the back side of the roof that was pretty big that we had to replace, but all worked out well and we were able to move onto the parsonage and the garage. The slope there was much flatter on those, so our ankles were saved. I told you about our improvised ladder, so here it is. I think it was a roof rack from a van, but I could be wrong. We got back, had supper and then our devotions. The devotions are one of my most favorite things we do. You really get to know people, here about their faith and draw you closer to both them and God. We have had 5 different people tell their stories, 4 of them had me in tears and one was just plain powerful. These are good people that I can learn a lot from. The 2 that spoke today talked about the deaths of people that were close to them and how it affected them. It brought back a lot of memories of mom and dad and the last days we spent with them. Not going to write about that now, but someday I might. John, Mitzi and I went out for a little shopping after that and had some good conversations about our experiences. Mitzi and I are working together at Tolaki, but John is at Church Rock, so it's good to hear how it's going over there. That's my day, but I saw something yesterday that I forgot to mention. You see a lot of people hitchhiking around here, sticking their thumb out, as you would expect, but Chris and I saw a guy yesterday that was using a tactic I have never seen before. Instead of sticking out his thumb, he was sticking out money. Maybe this is common, but I have never seen it. We didn't pick him up and another mile down the road there was another guy with just his thumb. I wanted to tell him he better stick out some cash or get on the other side of the guy with the cash, because if I pass on the cash guy, thumb guy is screwed. Tomorrow is our half day, but I'm not sure what we are going to do. I'll let you know tomorrow. Goodnight.

Monday

Today was our first work day and I'm happy to say that my thumbs survived, even though I did use my hammer. I worked on the roof of the church replacing shingles that had been blown off. I wasn't on the roof for 5 minutes, when it started to rain. The wind up there was just shy of a hurricane. I've never worked with shingles before, so my friend Chris was teaching me. Then one of the guys from the area, Frank, came up and helped us and he was much faster than me. We got into a pattern of Frank removing what was left of the shingle, Chris putting on the new one and me following behind sealing them down. Once we moved to this system, it went pretty quick. There wasn't a ladder when we first got there, so Chris and I improvised. I forgot to take a picture of it, so I will Tuesday and put it up. There were a couple of kids that were there with their mom, so I got out the bracelets and cross necklaces that I brought and handed them out. When I tried to give the little girl her necklace, she didn't want to have anything to do with me. After awhile, she warmed up to me and I was able to give her the necklace. I guess when a big, bald, white guy you've never seen before offers to wrap a rope around your neck, you might pull back a bit. Once I got back to my room, I realized that I had worn a hole in the ass of my pants when I was sliding around. Every time you swung your hammer, you slid backwards down the roof, friction and shingles take a toll on fabric. I hope these jeans make it through the week, because I can't afford to buy several new pairs of pants because of the now jean chapps I have created. This evening we went to hear the choir for Rehobeth school, where we are staying. They are coming to Des Moines in April to sing at Hope, so we stopped in to get a sneak peak. This group is the select group, but the entire choir of 60 kids will make the trip. They sounded awesome, so I'm really glad we went to listen. Sorry there are no other pictures, I'll do better tomorrow.

Sunday

Today, I was up bright and early. I'm always afraid I'm going to oversleep, so I'm usually up way before I need to, today being no exception. A few things that I reflected on this morning:

1. I miss Marcy and the boys.

2. I miss my routine, you know, your comfort level. I have to adjust every time I go on these trips to having the planning and schedule out of my control. Marcy can tell you that I'm big on planning and I want to know when and where I need to be some where. On these trips, a lot of it is just going with the flow. Well, I'm not a good go with the flow kind of guy. I'm getting better, but it's still a struggle.

3. This country of ours is absolutely beautiful! The Denver area, with the mountains and big sky, is awesome. Southern Colorado and northern New Mexico is breathtaking (yes, I used breathtaking in a sentence, but I'm not gay, the word just fits). The mountains, the buttes (I think I'm using that correctly) and even the plains just scream out for me to take a shitty picture of them, so here are a few more from a car at 85mph. I promise you its beautiful, even though you certainly can't tell from these. A few of us went for a walk around the school campus and its much larger than I had figured. They just built a new gym and a wind talker center. Not sure what is in there, but hope to find out before I leave. We went to Denny's for breakfast and headed to Church Rock, one of the churches we will be working at, for church. It's a little church that holds about 40 people and I would say it was close to full. They don't currently have a pastor, so they had a guest speaker who was really good. When a pastor tells you what the sermon is about, and its about you, you know you are going to hear things you don't want to hear, but at the end, you really got something out of it. This was one of those cases. I can't go into a lot of detail, but I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, even if you haven't been to church in awhile. We had lunch and toured a little of Gallup, NM. We spent some time at the school resting and watched a little football before supper. I love the down time on these trips so you can get to know the people from Hope that you might have never met before. We spent several hours getting to know each other and then had a great cookout. Devotions were at 8:00, which included the plan for tomorrow, which church we were working at and what some of the jobs were. I'm not sure which job I will be doing, but I'll be at Tolaki for Monday. I hope I will have more excitement for you over the next couple of days, since my first few posts are kind of dull. Not much has happened. Except for the incident at the ISU bar in Denver, its been pretty calm. I still wake up with the sweats when I think of her:(

Saturday

The Iowa-Iowa State game was Saturday, and my travel mate is a Iowa grad, so we headed down town to a bar with his sister and a friend of hers to watch the game at a bar called The Sports Column. We walked into what we thought was the Iowa bar, only to be bombarded with boo's and several hand gestures. It was the Iowa State bar, which just happened to be next door. There was even a lady who offered to do something that even Marcy won't allow me to do to her. I'm pretty sure she was serious, so we decided to exit before she went ahead and did it anyway. She then proceeded to chase me out the door and slap a ISU sticker on my back. A little tip if you ever plan on doing this, place the sticker on the persons back so they don't know you did it. If you slap it on the persons back, they're going to figure it out. I pulled it off so I didn't get the same greeting at the Iowa bar as I got at the ISU bar.

Here we are before the girls started drinking and John was still able to hold his camera steady, his sister Amy is on your left and her friend Amy, no shit, is on your right. Anybody want to guess the first thing Marcy will see in this photo? I didn't drink since I was going to drive the first leg, so it was just like St. Patricks day, watching the drunks and try to keep the beer off your shoes. The game was good, but it was a little depressing in the bar of the loosing team. When we walked past the ISU bar after the game, they weren't any nicer. We got on the road around 3:30 and the traffic from Denver to Pueblo sucked. There was a lot of construction, so the speed went from 75 to 45 in several areas. Plus, I had some lady that just could not hold her speed, so I passed her 10 times only to have her pass me 9 times. She finally decided to go 60 in a 75 and I lost her. We switched drivers after John had slept off his beer and had recovered from the Iowa loss. The scenery was beautiful. Here are a few shots, but you will remember from my Jamaica posts, I can't take a picture to save my life. I've also included a picture of a church next to Amy #2's apartment. Isn't that the coolest roof ever? Looks like a skate park. Anyway, the rest of the trip was pretty uneventful except when a rabbit decided to commit suicide and jump from the median right into the front of the car that was going 85mph. I guess he could have survived, but the thud I heard didn't sound promising. We made it into Rehobeth school around 11:30, found or way to our room and crashed. The rooms are nice and since it's just John and I, we have plenty of room to spread out (the room is made for 4 students).

Friday

We started our trip Friday morning, set out at about 8:30 in the Prius. I figured out that I like this car. If you haven't seen one, its the gas/electric hybrid, they are pretty cool. We got gas mileage in the 40's, so we didn't spend much money for our 1300 mile trip. We stopped off for lunch at King Kong burger in Lincoln, NE. I'm sure form the name of the place, you can tell that these aren't White Castle sized burgers. I got the smallest burger they had and I wasn't hungry for 8 hours, which is a first for me. We gorged ourselves and then headed on to Denver. We stayed at the sister and law of John, the guy I'm traveling with. They live in Longmont which is 15 minutes or so, north of Denver. They have a beautiful house that they have been working on the landscaping for several years. I wish I could do something like they have, but who are we kidding, I'd kill everything, or the neighbors cats would turn it into an expensive catbox. D.R., the husband of the pair, is big into wine and I made the mistake of saying that I had never had a wine that I liked. He pulled out a bottle and started the sales pitch. I'm usually pretty game to try most anything, so I agreed to give it a shot. Now the sales pitch was, it was "fruity" with and hint of wood, whatever that means. To me, it tasted like wine. We'll he was determined to set me straight on my indifference, so he broke out another bottle, then another. I can't say that my opinion of wine has changed, but after two beers and then the three galsses of wine, I can honestly say I don't remember all of that last glass. Then we had a drink called a godfather, which was pretty good, but very strong. I topped it off with my first Cuban cigar, which was really good, but I'm so out of practice, that I had a hard time keeping it lit. We stayed up until about 12:30, which was 1:30 at home, so I crashed for the night. Here are a few pictures of the mountains from their patio.

Just a quick note to say we are in New Mexico. I all ready have stories about the trip so far, like nearly being killed when we walked into the ISU bar in Denver instead of the Iowa bar. Some lady made some very disturbing offers to me. Friday night I drank too much, but had my first Cuban cigar, so that was good. I'll post later.

I wanted to complain about the customer service in this town. I rarely get what I think is good customer service, and I'm not a picky person. You family members know of some of Millers' ways to deal with bad customer service, or perceived bad service. I can remember him putting a coffee pot on his head because it was empty and he wanted a refill. At that same restaurant on a separate occasion he wanted ketchup, so he went looking for it in the kitchen when the waitress didn't return in time. I understand that being a waitress can be difficult, especially when you have a customer like Miller, but I'm seeing more and more people that just can't cut it. I went to lunch with some friends last week and we had a waitress that had troubles with the drink refills. She thought she remembered what two people had been drinking, so she took the cups and topped off the 1/2 glass of Coke with a 1/2 glass of raspberry tea. She then did the opposite to the other glass. It's not a huge issue, we brought it too her attention and she went to fix it. When she came back, the raspberry tea was correct, but the Coke was the same, a very obvious raspberry flavor to the "Coke."Then there was my experience with a lady at Barnes and Noble bookstore. I called to see if they had a book I wanted and here is the conversation I had with her.
Her: "Hello, Barnes and Noble."
Me: "I wanted to check to see if you had a book in stock."
Her: "OK."
Now, I was expecting a "OK, Go ahead" or "OK, what is the title you are looking for?"but after the "OK" there was only silence. She apparently got tired of the silence and followed up with:
Her: "OK."

I took the first OK as an acknowledgement that she could help me, which I now know was only half the power of her OK. OK to her meant, OK, I can help you, it would be my pleasure and what is the title of the book you are looking for, which would have been way to wordy. I've been in customer service and you should always make the customer believe you care, even when you most certainly do not. I gave her the title and she looked it up and told me they had it, so my conversation with her, all be it most enjoyable, was over. So I drove to said B&N for the book and who should be working at the counter, but miss customer service herself. How do I know it was her, well by her unmistakable warm welcome of course. She was just as friendly at the checkout as she had been on the phone. If you have the personality of a serial killer, don't take a job in which you deal with people, that's all I'm saying.

Navajo

As I prepare for my trip to New Mexico, I'm struck by a quote that I found.


Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.
~H. Zinn

I'd like to think of my actions on these trips as the small acts. I'm not changing the world with what I do, but I know as a group, we are changing the world of the people we serve. I had a conversation with someone not so long ago, who made it clear that he doesn't believe in what I do. He said, "What good does it do?" I'm not sure what "jobs" we will be doing in NM, but I know the houses we build in Mexico change peoples lives. If you don't know, one of my favorite shows is Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. The reason I like it is, all of these people come together for someone else. They aren't building the house for themselves, but for, most times, a complete stranger. I know the rush it gives me when I do it, so the show gives me a rush just watching it. The show has even snuck a little God into prime time TV. Even though it isn't advertised as a Christian show, if you listen closely, the designers and Ty mention God or their faith. When I go to Mexico, I feel the presence of God, in the work I do, the group I'm with and most importantly in the people we meet. I don't speak Spanish, so there are few people I can hold a conversation with, but it is amazing what you get out of a hug, handshake or "Gracious." When we have a translator and are able to speak with some of the people, it amazes me that they say God has brought us to them, which is exactly how I feel about my call to go. I never thought I would be a person to "hear" God, but that Sunday morning 5 years ago, it was clear to me what I was supposed to do. What does my time in these places mean? To the world as a whole, very little. I can't fix the problems in Mexico with my yearly visit, not even close, but like I said, I can help change the lives of a few. Next year, we will change the lives of a few more and so on. This trip to NM is the same. I can't solve or fix their problems, hell I can't even fix mine, but maybe I can take one thing off the plate. Maybe the roof doesn't leak anymore, or maybe that gaping hole in the wall isn't there anymore. Whatever it is, if I can help them, that is what I'm supposed to do.


Now, I'm sure you all know that during my last trip to Mexico, I had issues with a faulty hammer. It decided, on its own, to attack my thumb on two occasions, causing much pain and blood loss. I'm sorry the family we were building for had to come home to a bloody floor, since blood doesn't wipe off of a textured concrete floor very well. I have two goals on this trip, 1 is to not injure myself and 2 is to get to know the Navajo people and try to understand their culture. Keep an eye on this blog for updates from New Mexico, and if all goes well, pictures while I'm there. If it doesn't work, I'll update as soon as I get back.