Pastors Training Meeting

We had an interesting day yesterday---

We crossed over to the US in the morning to do some shopping before we go to Canada and late in the afternoon, I asked shar if she wanted to come with me out to the E. Tijuana Colonias to the pastor's training meeting- she said yes and off we went on our adventure.

The meeting was to start at 6. Knowing some about Mexican time, we were not in a rush to arrive on time and wait. We checked out a bookstore, got some gas and food to go and off we went to the other side of Tijuana on the new highway that cuts across the range of hills south of TJ.

As soon as you get on the road, you see a dead horse on the side- It was obviously hit by a car or truck some time ago as now it is basically a horse "rug" on the shoulder. Further on there is a more newly hit horse in the median of the road and two dead cows further along.

This looks like a road to be careful on!

We made it through there in good time only to miss our turn off because of construction. So we drove for another few Km and turned around and tried to go around the construction- bottoming out 3 times! We then came to a concrete barrier that hindered our progress much immensley!

So we turned around and tried to avoid any more bottoming out-- (tried) and found a road that went in the general direction we were wanting to go. But every time we tried to get back onto the road we wanted, we found another concrete barrier! So off we went through a walled neighbourhood like the rat looing for the cheese, only our cheese was an exit from the maze! We made it out of the nice paved maze onto some roads that had not seen a grater since Speedy Gonzalez was being chased by cats in this area!

We bottomed out a few more times, slowly, and ran into some more dead ends. by this time we are 45 minutes late for our meeting, which is kind of pushing the polite lateness thing here...

So we found a hill that looked familiar and pointed the van in that direction until we found a road to it! We'd been lost for almost an hour when we came to the church! Pastor Juan said to me- "Yes, we thought you'd be late because you'd get lost because of the construction- so we just had a church service while we waited!- I was going to call you and tell you about it..."

We all had rice pudding after the service and waited for another hour for some others to come. Some left, others came and we finally had our meeting at a little after 8pm...

We had 12 out to the meeting. 5 were pastors, a few others were pastor's wives and a couple of other church leaders out as well. I gave my testimony and talked about the course and took questions from the folks after.

I had handed out applications 2 weeks ago. Only 1 fellow had filled it out. These are not your typical Canadian Bible School applicants... The applications ask if you have a criminal record. One fellow answered: "not in Mexico". I also got "si" answers to "do you have mental or psychological problems?"

The rest were filling out the applications as we waited. We decided there that we'd all come back together Monday at 6pm to finish the applications and have a talk for those guys who did not make it there this time.

The ones who are there are very excited- It will be a very interesting time!

Gotta go- Until Next time,

Mike