February 16, 2005

The morning breaks softly for He is here calling with His gentle voice. A new day has begun and we will taste the bitter along with the sweet.

At 5 am Bob woke us to start our day. Breakfast would be served at 6 am and put away at 6:30 promptly. He who sleeps in goes hungry is the motto and he warned there were no exceptions. Andy and Linda Daum, along with Artie Lord, Betty Taylor and Mary Miller, served us a wonderful hearty breakfast. The dinning area is outside and as this is a desert area, we will not have to worry about rain or humidity spoiling our tables. Directly after breakfast at 6:30 is worship time and announcements and then leave for the work site at 7:15 by bus. A truck came to carry all the crates which were stacked outside on the walk. They had not all been loaded by our men yet when a man bumps hard into Eric Young and it only took a second for Eric to realize he had just been robbed. A taxi then pulled up and the mugger dove through its opened window head first.
Eric had grabbed hold of the man's ankle and held on before he was thrown to the ground by the speed of the taxi. The entire thing had been a carefully laid plan. Eric was now missing his cell phone that he just had an international chip put into so our folks at home would have an emergency contact number. About an hour later Manuel placed a call to Eric's cell and the thief answered and said he would sell it back to for $75.00 which the thief thought was a great deal as stolen cell phones are a hot item here and can go as high as $500. But Eric decided it wasn't worth it and the deal was off. So Eric is out one international cell phone, but has his life with
just a few extra scrapes and bruises from the ordeal. Oh the excitement of
mission work. You must learn to take the sprinkles of bad on top of all the good and continue on.
Our next big excitement for the day took place in Casa Grande. Mayor Carlos Fernandez Castillo brought all his officials together to the clinic that was being prepared to open this afternoon. He wanted to invite us to his office
to be officially welcomed. This is the man whose faith has been
strengthened by observing our love for the people. He thanked us for all of the work we were going to do and in his speech he acknowledged that God was in charge of what we were doing and our being there. It was brought to Bob's attention that one of our dentist this trip, is also a mayor in his town so Bob thought it was fitting to have Dr. Chester Clark give the response to the Mayor. And I must say, he did an excellent job of it, giving the glory to Jesus through all this work. After this the local TV station wanted to interview Bob about what was going to take place in Casa Grande this next 2 weeks. After asking the simple questions such as is the clinic free and what services are we providing, the next questions became very pointed, such as are we planning on preaching to the people that come to the medical clinic? Bob's response was that we want to show the love of Jesus through our service and work. We would not preach but would answer any question that were asked during the clinics. Another question that was asked was who is your God and what is He about? The interview went very well and will bring glory to God. The workers went back to the clinic to prepare for the crowd that was already forming. They opened at 1pm and when I got back there at 2pm Bob Whitney had already registered 33 people. A huge crowd of people waited outside the clinic for their turn. Some of them very unhappy as they had been in line first and had been pushed out of line and to the back by the stronger ones. It was clear that we had to have more guards to help crowd control. A few of the church people were headed down to help as we left to go to the construction site. We also arranged for a church member who has experience working as a guard to come and patrol our premise day and night. He was willing to work for just his meals as payment and will sleep outside as to be always on guard. We will pay him more than just his meals, but he did not know that when he offered.
I know there were many angels present at the construction site as I don't know how that many people working so hard in such heat could be so happy and joyful without them singing in their hearts. It really was a sight to behold. George Haesche and Jim Lord worked side by side laying block at the back of the church and wore a look of happiness on their face that only the Lord can bring. The church is coming together quickly. This is only the first actual day and already you can tell of a promise of what is to come.
Brian Caster had already started putting down block before we even got here.
Susan Bugbee was once again showing off her talent as a builder and proving that dynamite comes in small packages. Tresa Young who was in charge of supplying the mortar decided she would try her hand at a variety of things today, so she put down block and also cut one with the help of Hoss Scherzer who is an expert cutter Pastor Wagner was a little late getting lunch to our various work places today and after hearing the reason, the sandwiches seemed a lot sweeter. He left with plenty of time to spare. He and the taxi driver he hired had just stopped to pick up blocks of ice to keep the food cold. They went to turn down one street and it was blocked by a row of taxi so they swerved and tried to go around to another road and found that too was blocked by taxies.
Several blocked streets later they spotted an opening and decided to go for it. At once they were surrounded by hoards of angry taxi drivers yelling at them and proceeding to let the air out of the passenger side tire. He stepped out and tried to calm the situation and about that time they went and let the air out of the driver's side. Well the driver of this taxi was a young man full of testosterone and wasn't taking it as calmly as our Pastor. A fight almost started but Pastor was able to tell one of the men that he had lunch all packed to bring to about 60 hungry workers. It seems they got right in the midst of a very angry bunch of taxi drivers on strike and they did not like the idea of Pastor's taxi not being on strike. Well, after watching Gary tell about the lunch problem to one of them, a spokesman for the group came up to Gary and begun telling him all the woes of why they were on strike and of all the bad things happening to them and so forth. It went of for a while and finally when the man stopped to take a breath Pastor Gary then took the opportunity to say ...no hablo espaniol! The crowd roared with laughter, dissipating all the angry feelings and not only did the situation become under control, those that had stopped them now turned and helped them remove the flattened tires and get them filled with air.
Pastor Gary and his driver were then on their way, with not a punch being swung and also leaving the previous angry crowd with smiles on their faces.

The amount of block put down as of today are about 700 The medical clinic saw 167 Dental clinic total is not in yet.
The amount of people fitted with glasses is 400

Our joy in the work of the Lord will bring us into relationships and situations that will cause a ripple effect that we are anxious to feel. How fortunate we are to be allowed to do this work.
Pray for us , we are depending on that support and the outcome depends on it . Please also pray for the family of Dr. Evans Daniels. We just found out that on Sabbath he passed on to sleep in Jesus until that great resurrection day when he will hear the words arise my love and he will ever more be with Jesus and all that looked forward to His appearing.

With a heart full of smiles,
Jennifer Young
Mission reporter