Oh the Times

Altotonga, Mexico -- What a time here. The week right before we left for Mexico City, it was busy. I did a lot of talking to youth-- had quite a few opps to minister to kids... I also went around and told people about plans for the future (me leaving)... so, it was a busy time.

On Thursday night we left for Mexico City to go to a conference. At the very last second, we had an addition to our group-- one who I had orginally thought of asking, but who hadn't really decided to go... So, anyway, another youth offered to pay most his way, and he ended up going, and I'm glad he did.The youth were crazy excited. While we waited in a cold terminal at Perote in the bus station, I asked what they were expecting to receive from this weekend... what they expected to see God do in their lives. They had high hopes for this weekend. Then we played spoons and were a bit crazy.

We got to Mexico City about 4:40am on Friday morning. As we were getting ready to go to the bathroom there, I was looking in my bag for coins to be able to get into the bathroom. I realized that my little black bag that had all the money and everything in it was missing. I panicked. I emptied my bookbag there on the concrete floor while the youth were standing around me in a circle. I ran back to the bus and checked on there and it was all clear.

Anyway, I was trying to figure out what happened and Chris and I (who had come to Altotonga the day before for some business and was going to be speaking at the conference that we were going to) went to try to get ahold of the bus station in Perote, because I wasn't sure at what point it went missing.I realized that when I had gotten on the bus, I had stuck my bus ticket in the black pouch, which was in my bookbag. I slept with my bookbag in my lap, hugging it kind of-- but I realized that in some of the ways I was sleeping that you could have gotten into it. Anyhow, so sometime while I was sleeping, someone got into my bookbag and stole the most important thing in it--- a lot of money, my driver's license, visa, credit card... So, that was how the conference began. I was able to call and cancel those cards and get new ones. And Chris lent me sufficient money to get the kids back home and for me to eat that weekend.

The kids had an amazing time this weekend... the speakers were dynamic-- everything was just-- really good. It's the best of the best there.We stayed with a family there from the church-- and they were really nice and fed us dinner at midnight and breakfast.... Oh, gosh, we hardly slept at all... this being the one in charge thing-- wow, it's craziness. So, between Thursday and Sunday I slept like 13 hours or so, and 6 hours of that was in one night. Today we made our way back home and I talked to the kids about what was the most impacting thing, what they wanted to change when they got back home, and starting today.We got home in time to go to church and then I've come back home to rest...Tomorrow I'm going to go to the gov't offices here to see about getting a new visa-- since mine was stolen... and carrying on with stuff here....Pics to come later!