Day 3: Feeling flat tired

Happy Benito Juárez Day everyone! Today is a national holiday here in México, so there's no school. We took today to do some sightseeing and play some fútbol with the church here and any friends the wanted to invite.

I'm a very vision-oriented person. Because of this, there's always a part of my mind that aks:

"Why are we doing all this sight-seeing, souvenir-shopping and general time-wasting? If we aren't going to be out changing lives, why are we even here?" Then I pause and look around at what is happening. Here's what I see: fellowship, discipleship, team-building, vision-casting. In our "just-for-fun" hangouts, I've had (i'm not even going into the conversations i've overheard) discussions with the believers here about atheism, homosexuality, creationism, persecution, dating, marriage, scripture, family... I teared up today as someone I had just met began to talk to me about one of the Hard Things that is defining their life. If that isn't life change, folks, I don't know what is. Our team is far from "super-Christians." We are insecure, prideful, broken, scared, selfish, immature, depressed, shy and all-around screwed up. We have conflict, we wrestle with boundaries, many of us feel like we shouldn't even be here. But God has called us here. The Thing that we've done right is this: we listened to God's call (isn't that all he's ever really asked of us? to hear and obey?). But, by being here, we are being given a level of respect from our brothers and sisters here (even those more mature than us) that is unspeakable humbling. They watch us, they ask us questions, and they listen to our answers. And God speaks through us when we listen and obey.

So. That was an unplanned diatribe. Right, today:

We woke up and ate breakfast (yum) and loaded into our van to meet up with the church at *wait for it...* the HEB parking lot (yea, it's here too). Then we all drove to Las Grutas de Garcia, which are beautiful caverns near Monterrey. I've been to caves before, but not since I've been..all spurchul ("spiritual"). It was amazing to see the intricacy and patterns that exist. It felt so ethereal - like we were in a different world. It was glorious. When we sang a worship song in the naturally-lit underground chapel with our voices echoing through the chamber, it made my heart smile. (also, props to Ana for singing for us and to the Mustard Underground for taking a picture together...underground).

Upon returning to our van after our spelunking adventure, we encountered something of a...complication. We had (mostly) fixed the ground-scraping problem by removing our tow-hitch. However, now our tire was flat. Muy, muy flat. Mario flagged down a truck and they refilled the tire, which lasted long enough for us to drive to a gas station, where we refilled the tire, which lasted long enough for us to drive to a gas station, where we refilled the tire. Justin had the idea to use gum to patch the tire (Keanu Reeves would be proud), which lasted long enough to get us into the city and get the tire fixed.

We had dinner at a mall (the food courts have glorious tacos and stuff, y'all), then went to play some fútbol with the church. It was glorious! I watched and played with kids, which was exactly what my heart needed. After the games, we came back to the hotel and cleaned up, then played cards, ate pizza and talked about Jesus. And I got all humbled and stuff because of shoes, but in a good way!

I am super tired and we're getting out on campus tomorrow, so....que descansen :)