Tuesday, Part 1

We never knew where we were going. I got in the back of the van, along with Kristin I believe, for what we thought would be a 15-20 minute trip out of Juarez. We were going to the people in countryside!! 4 of our vans pushed off with a van in the lead.

The van stops at the first small town and sends the last van on its way. This leaves 3 groups. Fast forward, an hour later, we are the only van left, traveling on the only Mexican highway left (which is soon about to end), and we have no idea where we're going. We were following a new van, a Mexican preacher perhaps, and he is taking us to some obscure village.

Finally we arrive at the small town of Porvenir. The preacher said the population was 1,000 but it looked pretty barren to me. We get to the Church, where they are setting up a new orphanage, so the classrooms now have beds in them. Perfect for a warzone, but I don't think we saw any patients requiring a mattress.

The pharmacy was set up in the back room, a nice room compared to what other groups get, while triage is in the main "fellowship hall" type of room at the front. There were 3 rooms of beds in between for the 12 new orphans coming there this Summer. We set up all 3 rooms for the doctors to operate.

Joanna, the main contact from the Baptist Student Ministries, was with us today so she helped me play with the kids and do the pharmacy. Once I realized the pharmacy wasn't so bad, I tried to memorize the drugs and feel useful.

I was actually going to work triage that day and take patients' names, etc. but when we got there we found 2 white ladies from the states had already taken everyone's names and made a list for us. There names were Amy and Julie, from Chicago and NY respectively, and they were missionaries from the Texas border town of Fabens. They felt this was their "home Church" (in Porvenir) and wanted to help us in any way they could this week. They met 7 years ago at language school and now do mission work like this all the time.

So while we were traveling the hour and a half to get to Porvenir, Kristin asked me what direction I thought we were going. I told her Southeast, since we can't see the moss on the trees (no I didn't say that, but that would have been awesome), and it really felt like we were going into the heart of Mexico, maybe even close to Monterrey!

Of course, we were almost out of gas by then, but we were in the heart of Mexico. We asked the Mexican contact there (who had actually preached in Dallas) what we should do, and he said he would take us up to Fort Hancock. I immediately thought it would be at least a 45 minute drive up another dirt road, but he said it was only 5 miles away! I looked outside, and sure enough, you could see I-10 from there! So we had been going SE, but Texas had as well. Turns out every group could see I-10 that day.

So the Mexican Preacher, Joanna, and myself travel up to Ft. Hancock to get some gas. We had time that day, since it was 3 and our group was already done. We get to the border, I tell them I am doing Mission work, and they let us through!! We fill up, cross the Rio Grande again (which at this point is neither a Rio or grand), and get back to the Church. I go to park, put it in reverse, and BAM! I can just feel the rear bumper crumble. I get out of the car to find out that I have hit a jeep wrangler or something like that. Luckily, they had a spare tire on the back of their SUV, which took the entire blow! Whew. Our rear bumper has a pretty nice dent (wish I had gotten a picture). So yes, I've been in more wrecks in Mexico than in the US, and I would like to keep it that way!!

Okay, more Tuesday later.