Day 8: Last Day (a.k.a. a pretty boring post with some information, but nothing specific) - March 14

I made a terrible mistake today. I woke up at 6:30 AM to go running with a bunch of people in better shape than me. It was fun to run again, but it definitely hurt. I was proud of the little running crew though; they did a good job of not letting me get lost.

Today we had a super chill start; we went to go buy souvenirs. I usually hate this part because it's easy for people to switch into a self-focused mindset. Suddenly, we aren't doing ministry and we're thinking about ourselves and home and it can get pretty rough. But, I didn't get even a hint of that from this team, which felt really good to my heart. I'm super proud of each one of them. 

We went to a park to hangout and chill. The park was in a town called Coronada, which is a charming little town with a beautiful gothic cathedral. In Spanish, whenever you add an -ado or -ido to a word, it turns it into an adjective. So, the town name means Corona-ed (crowned), which is kinda funny. While we were in the park, my little group made friends with a drunk lady who was very welcoming, and told us her story about how she had lost everything because of alcoholism. Towards the end of the conversation, she cried as we prayed for her and kept hugging us. I was really proud of our little group for cheerfully setting aside chill time and doing ministry. Though it was sad that as we left we saw the same lady drinking still.

For lunchtime we headed to Gretel's house. Gretel, if you remember, is the lady who gave her life to Jesus 3 years ago and came out of prostitution. Since then, she's gotten married and grown so much and now lives with her family in a house. They hosted our whole team and a bunch of friends in their house; we got to hear her story and encourage her and pray for her and we ate and talked and hung out and had fun and she seemed to feel so loved by the whole experience. It was absolutely fantastic!

We went to the church building next to prepare it and record a service to post online instead of a regular service, as a Corona virus precaution. Everyone did a great job of knowing when to serve and help and when to stay out of the church's way as the prepped things. The "service" went really well! Some of our team led a couple of Spanish worship songs and a visiting friend from the parent church in Honduras shared a message about being emotionally healthy. It was really powerful stuff, and some of the men we had met on the street came to be with us as we recorded. 

Afterwards, we drove to the house of one of the couples in the church that we hadn't met yet (so generous of them to host us in the middle of all the uncertainty going around!). They hosted us for dinner in their home, which was absolutely lovely and the perfect space for everyone to relax at the end of a crazy week. 

We said bye to a lot of people and then headed back to the hotel. Right now we're all packing and organizing information and doing last minute prep. We leave at 3 AM, so there's not a lot of point in going to bed, but I will still try to sleep for a couple of hours.

All the TAMU students will need to self-report their travel to the university online, but other than that, it looks like all will be well.