Wild Thursday

What a wild ride did we have!

We started early Thursday morning boarding a 20-seat CESSNA for the capital. We arrived 15 minutes ahead of schedule because we had a good tail wind, but our ride was 30 minutes late. We were starting to get concerned because they just moved to a new house three weeks ago and we did not have their new address to get a taxi. We were stuck if he did not showed up. I forget why he was late, so much has happened since. Our friend picked us up in our car. That was the good news, but the bad news were that it had not passed the DMV technical check, which is a lot more than just smog control. The inspector found...guess what? An oil leak!!! So the mechanic who had the car for three weeks did not fix it. The whole thing is sooo complicated. I am beginning to think that there isn't a good mechanic in this country. (Bob, we need you!)

Our friend offered to help us with the car in the first place because he had a reliable mechanic. He made an appointment and went all the way to our condo on the other side of the country to get it, just to find out that his mechanic had left for the US on a family emergency! That was mechanic #1. Mechanic #2 was recommended by a friend. The man guarantees his job, so the plan was to keep our schedule for the day and go back to the mechanic that evening. We unloaded our suitcases, had lunch and drove up to the mountains outside the city to attend a graduation.

There is a school in a beautiful pine forest called "Renacer," or Born Again. They take young girls off the streets and help them overcome addictions, abuse, and other problems. Girls stay there voluntarily a minimum of 18 months. When they graduate, those 18 and over go to a half-way house in the city where they can finish their education or job training and find a job. Minors are not released to family members unless the situation is acceptable to the school counselors. If they don´t have a safe home to return to, they stay in the school until they are 18. They have a graduation every six months. This time there were only four girls graduating. The school holds 40 girls, and they are at capacity at the moment. Even the graduating girls don´t leave abruptly. They go with their families and return after three days, talk to the counselors who evaluate their situation, go away for a week, come back again, until the counselors feel that they are ready to make a complete break. The whole event was very emotional. One girl gave her testimony. It was amazing. She came from a good middle class family, but got involved in drugs at ten years of age. She went down a horrible spiral of addiction until her parents brought her to the school.This school is sponsored by the government's education department, one national bank, and Christ for the City. Representatives for these organizations spoke at the graduation. It was refreshing to hear secular officials give God the glory for the changes in those girls' lives. We drove back to the city in the rain and rush hour traffic. Our friend has a 92 Nissan Stanza. Riding with him is an E-ticket ride!

Some girls performing at graduation

We then went back to Christ for the City headquarters and met with some of our friends there. We had an informal meeting at a local coffee shop (I had tres-leches dessert and capuccino!) and got caught up with their ministries. They worked with at-risk children, addicts, homeless, prostitutes. It is a very stressful ministry.

Back to our friend's house, we picked up our car, and then (here comes the wild part) we had to follow him to the mechanic in the wild traffic of the capital. You have cars and motorcycles passing you from left and right where there is only one car lane, besides the fact that we had no idea where we were going. We are not familiar with the city at all and had never driven there before. Words cannot describe the experience of trying to follow somebody in this kind of traffic. One more detail, it was already dark! I went along just to help John to keep up. He drove 30 years in Tijuana, but this is much worse. We made it safely, although sometimes there were literally inches separating us from cars. The mechanic was stumped about the problem, but agreed to keep the car until he can find and fix the problem. More to come...