Street Retreat – Home Safe

by | Mar 29, 2009 | buildingaboat, missions, Uncategorized |

HOME SAFE Well I am home and laying on my sleep number bed safe and sound. Thanks for your prayers over the past couple of days. What a journey man I have never walked so much in my life. One of the things I really enjoyed was the walking because when you walk with 7 guys for two days you really get to connect. It is funny though we would be walking and talking and we would get to a light and all kind of clump together then the light change and we would start walking but you would be walking next to a different guy and a either a new conversation would start or one from a block or two ago would continue. I really enjoyed getting to know the guys on the trip with me and the people on the street. This morning was COLD it must have been close to freezing when we woke up at 7 or so. That is sleeping in to the homeless they are usually up and rolling before light. We stayed in a park way on the eastside and started walking back it was great we walked along the lake. A guy really should not be by a lake at 7am and not have a fishing pole that is just not right. We walked through Marcus’s hood and by his mom’s house then over to a run down hotel with some of the toughest looking dudes of front. Next thing I know we are just walking over to have a conversation. We gave them some of the socks the guys had...

Street Retreat – Day Two

by | Mar 28, 2009 | buildingaboat, missions, Uncategorized |

DAY TWO I am in a park way out in east Austin. There are 7 of us out here from lake hills. We are camping with a homeless guy named Marcus in his spot.  Guys have there spots some camp alone and some camp with a buddy. Only dumb guys out for 48 hours camp in groups of 7 like us.   We were woken up at 5 am to go and serve in the church we slept behind.  We did that until 1 it was hard work but just fantastic. I met tons of people and want to tell you about a couple of them.  I am pretty beat we have been walking a bunch.  The first guy I want to introduce you to is Jeff we is homeless and walks with crutches. He does not speak well but the man can rock a piano. He played for us this am from heart he does not read music but played some amazing music.    I met a woman this am named carol she ran the kitchen at the church. This woman was about 5 feet tall and around 70. She would kick your tail. She reminded me of my aunt tata who was tough as nails but had a huge heart. I really enjoyed joking around with her this am   Things are really kept simple out on the street wear your clothes.  Get new ones. Find food. Repeat   I will tell many more stories tomorrow but tonight i am just beat I have got a really bad headache and so i am going to turn in. ...

Street Retreat – Day One

by | Mar 27, 2009 | buildingaboat, missions, Uncategorized |

    DAY ONE   Well we are currently safe and sound behind university Methodist on Guadalupe. Laying on the ground next to Darrell and Curtis. We walked up here with Kim and her boyfriend Sean.  Guys are well fed as the guy at the church brought coffee, mac n cheese, cookies. Pizza run failed though.   I am on a retreat called the street retreat. It is put on by mobile loaves and fishes.  It is 48 hours on the street with the nothing. No money. No wallet. It is time spent with God and my fellow man.    Well tonight started out a little slow i just could not settle down. I was very anxious to start having some experiences and i finally have settled down a bit.    We got dropped off at a park at 10th and Colorado. There were about 100 people fed by mobile loaves tonight.  I am with about 6 of our guys.  The other 18 are somewhere downtown.  I really have struggled with bringing this blackberry but i am really glad i did to write you.  We got to the church about 8 and started getting ready to lay down. I had a great talk with Sean earlier. He is very well versed in the bible and has quoted a number of scriptures. He talked about the Trinity and compared that to the family. God is the father.  The mom is the Holy Spirit and kids are the body of Christ.  He discussed  how the Spirit is the comforter of man.  Thought  that was an interesting perspective.   We prayed together...

Pan De Vida Mission Trip – Home

by | Mar 14, 2009 | buildingaboat, missions, Uncategorized |

Well truth be told it is Sunday so really day four but I ended up driving us home so i did not get a chance to write last night.  More on that in a minute.  I honestly believe that was meant to happen and i needed to be at vhurch this AM for my trip to crystalize. It did. It was not the message but a single song i think written by our worship team. But first a bus ride and a toilet.     We got up early again before the sun and made some breakfast for the kids. Again cereal. It was the one thing they wanted cereal and milk a huge treat for them. Then it was time to take the trash to the dump so of course i started cleanning out Darrell’s truck bed so wecould put it in the back but little did I know we had a SCHOOL BUS. The perfect trash deleivery vehicle I mean you know pop open the emergeny door and it is just like a truck except for the obviouse part about loading kids in it later.  Oh well when in Mexico I try and do as they do so we loaded it up. The my favorite part of the day Rolando handed me the keys and said aomething in spanishb which i am sure was not dont wreck it. This thing was at least 20 years old. They called it Lazarus because it had already been raised from the dead. So we load up about 8 of the boys and head bumping along the roads.  Boys hanging out...

Pan De Vida Mission Trip – Day 3

by | Mar 14, 2009 | buildingaboat, missions, Uncategorized |

What a great day. You know what I mean; the kind of day were every ounce of great is squeezed out drip by drip and it seems to last forever. That was today. The are great parts of a great day and not so great great parts.     Web got up early before the sun and started up some cereal for the kids. We were outside just hanging around waiting to ring the breakfast bell and the sun was coming up. It was gorgeous there we about 5 or 6 of us just talking and here come the kids. Man one hug after another just like they were ours it was a beautiful moment. After we ate we were loading the kids in one of our vans so Mike M could run them to school. For the record a 15 passenger van does hold at least 23 kids. Now that was funny.     We got the kids off to school and started our day of work. We split into four teams and were needing to bleach, prime and paint the walls of four bathrooms.  Sounds simple right wrong. It took us the entire day and my dogs barked about noon and ran off about four. Now it is 10 and we are sitting in the kitchen watching walle.  We had a great time joking around a giving each other a hard time. There is a great group down here and i have enjoyed our time serving together. We had hamburgers and hot dogs for lunch plus some gorditas from in town man they were good. Z took...