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.