I failed to mention this in the previous posts. Each day we start off with devotion to set the tone for the day. I lead the devotions and I do not have a laid out pattern for what will be read in the morning. I have just been letting the Spirit guide and guide it has. Each morning has had through “random” picking of devotion material, relevance to what we have been doing each day! God is amazing when you do not refuse the help. God is amazing, when you are open to seeing God in action! Let’s face it……GOD IS AMAZING!!!!
Day three is a little stressful for Travis and I. He has been sick since the beginning of the trip and now he is getting worse. His head cold that has now moved into his lungs, we are out of town and know no doctors around and need to seek out an urgent care. Upon going to Urgent care, we are having problems with the insurance and this is getting to be a nightmare for coverage not only for the doctor visit but for the medicine as well. Time to go pickup the group that I left at another mission site while we were at the doctor’s office.
I cannot speak to the experience at Crossroads today. I do encourage anyone reading this, to ask any of the students that are on the mission trip, for their perspectives of the Crossroads mission experience.
Our next stop is Dabar Grill, an Indian & Pakistani delight of food. Our lunch is again superb. The multiple selections and the amounts are perfect. Some great dishes containing rice, curry and cheese. There is a homemade dessert, similar to an ice cream, serve on a stick in small paper cup. Now that we are full, it is time to head off to the Houston Food Bank.
Each of us are assigned a variety of tasks to prepare food to be given out to those in need. Some of the food goes to schools, others right to the families. Time to wash up so we can begin our processing of food. Several are assigned to chopping broccoli and garlic. A couple is assigned to making corn bread.
They take a couple of the young men….not me and David, to unload the trucks full of food. David and I get something very special. We get to cut open tubes after tubes after tubes after tubes of thawed ground beef. Yum Yum this is fun. Next we are working on a few hundred pounds of pork rib roasts. Time to cut the bags open, rinse them off, drain and put on the rub for sweat and sower pork. These will be cooked the next day for a future lunch. So much fun…YES it is. David and I have fun doing this work, it is what you make of it. In the end we find out that we find out that we have helped prepare over 2,200 pounds of food amounting to 1,833 meals with a total savings through volunteer work of $1,339! I have to say, we all are amazed and feel great today!
It is now 4 PM and we are not done yet! Time to go explore Caninos’s Market place. We are arriving at Canion’s and the smells are great. There is spice in the air, fresh fruit and a bakery across the street. Boy am I hungry now. Walking through the market, we encounter small individual sellers contained within the overall large complex, kind of like a flea market but oh so much better. There are so many foods that we have never seen but everyone is friendly and helps us out to tell us what the foods are and how we can prepare these fruit and vegetables. We are hungry and need a snack, oh what to do.
Our host, CSM (Center for Student Ministries) offers to take us to the Mexican bakery and purchase one sweet item for each of us! So do we say no? Not a chance. Walking around here is so difficult because of all the choices. There must be 50 plus different fresh baked items. Actually I think it is more but I am not sure, the smells must be getting to my brain….I want some food! Like in good fashion when away from home, we are having our dessert first then dinner.
Time to head back to our housing, make some dinner and debrief about our day. Wow oh wow, what a day this has been. We are really looking forward to some sleep and the start another day……Check back for some more!