Wednesday:
Time is flying! I can’t believe it’s Wednesday already. All
the tarps got put down and the huge shade structures raised like barn-raising
in the old days. When it came time to raise them all the men from their various
work projects would be called over to hoist the massive awnings.
The first awning was grabbed by a gust of wind and attacked
the van. We rescued the van and found the awning support posts had crumpled
beyond repair. Oh well, the guys just moved on to the next one. Us gals put up
10 more tents, finished the curtains and bought the initial groceries for the
incoming youth group of 130 people. One of the ladies, Deb got sick and we
gingerly transported her back to the base camp.
I finally saw a road runner. Everyone kept telling me they’d
seen one. It became the camp joke to report to me that they’d seen yet another
road runner. I told them they were all lying through their teeth. They even
said two ran right through our camp! I finally saw one about 100 feet away.
They are little tiny things, maybe a foot tall and scrawny. It looked like a horizontal
stick on legs.
We grabbed the other Heidi and raced (actually 30 minutes in
stop and go traffic) out to the country to see Jose and Daisy’s house. The last
time we were there they’d just gotten up the drywall and we wrote blessings on
it. Now it’s a little palace, as Daisy sweetly put it. The girls showed us the
red ant hill…yuck. Daisy, of course, made us eat apple pie. Then we raced back
to base camp because Ed, the super-hero construction-dude, had barbecued dinner
for us. As I type this I feel the weight of way to much food in my tummy.
Joe bailed on the women (there was the arrival of three
college men) and came back to the comfort of the hotel. He’s exhausted. We go
back in the morning and put the final touches on the Camp and then we’re off to
the United States. Hopefully border crossing will be boring and uneventful. We fly
home late-late Thursday night.
Thursday:
This is an “Our work is never done” kind of job. We hustled
over to the base camp first thing and got back to work. Time was running out. The
other Heidi was down with flu-like symptoms. Fortunately Deb had already
recovered.
I got stuck with the task of assigning the fifteen tents to
the adults coming down. Just because they’re Christians doesn’t mean they can’t
get a little fussy over which tent they get stuck with. I don’t know most of
them, so it became my job to put little tags on tents.
The curtains didn’t stay up like we’d hoped because the
floor painting job continued on through the night, and the windows had to be
left open. The masking tape didn’t hold up too well in the breeze. Oh well it
isn’t the first time we’ve done a job and come back to discover it didn’t work
under different conditions.
The last of the shade structures went up, the garbage box
was built, the ice chests cleaned and ready to go, and the local pastors
started showing up to say goodbye to us. The youth group will be arriving Saturday.
After hugs and kisses, and an impromptu group prayer, seven of us clambered
into the minivan and headed for the border. An hour and a half later we crossed
over. First American stop? In-And-Out Burger of course.
We ended our trip with a lazy couple of hours wandering
around the Marina Village in San Diego. All in all it was a successful trip. We
accomplished more than we anticipated considering 3 of our 7 got sick. But, as I
said the work was by no means done.
Now I’m sitting in the back yard relishing the cool delta
breeze. No dust, no mosquitoes, and no road runners, just my very happy little
kitty.
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