Activity for August 6, 2008

The highlight for Wednesday was a skit put on by Ernest, Alvin, Melissa, Kirk, Vivian, Laura, Rayna and Tracey. A young girl (Melissa) is asking her grandfather (Alvin) about an incident in the latter's early life, involving a wax museum. In a flashback (with sound effects provided by Rayna and Tracey), the grandfather (played in the flashback by Ernest) is arguing with his own father (Dan Leung). The Ernest character conspires with friends to vandalize a wax museum, and the owner of the museum(Kirk) becomes upset and demands either $1 million, jail time or all the pottery of the Dan character. Because he doesn't want his son (Ernest/Alvin) to go to jail, the father (Dan) gives up his pottery collection.

The point of this skit is the sacrifice Jesus made, giving up everything for those who believe in him.

The skit has sequels, to be performed on Thursday and Friday.

In the evening, the San Miguel family came to Ivan's House to have dinner with us.

Activity for Monday, August 4

We arrived at North Bridge Elementary School and set up. This school is close to both the church and to the housing development "El Campito," the place where many children live that we know from before. The facility is wonderful, with much open space, and the children enjoyed learning the different skills.

In the afternoon, we went to Hillcrest Cemetery, where Ivan San Miguel (for whom Ivan's House is named) is buried. August 4 is his birthday, and he would have been 11 years old that day, had he not died in a tragic accident in 2003. Mr. Hui gave a short message, then the group sang "Amazing Grace."

There are thousands of mosquitoes here.

More later.

Safe arrival and first day of missions trip

Sorry for the delay. The week two group arrived in McAllen safely on Sunday, August 3. Amazingly, our luggage arrived as well. We had doubts about it, particularly Mr. Hui, because we had literally only minutes between connections in Houston. We appreciate that Elise An, mother of Kirk and Laura, met us and guided us to our connecting gate. She and Perry and the family already had been in Houston for a family reunion, and so Laura and Kirk simply joined us en route.