This morning we headed out to Oak Ridge Bight – it is towards the front section of Pandy Town. It is the area where mostly Spanish speakers live. We are going there to help feed 150-200 children at Pastor Mesa’s church. When we arrived Pastor Mesa’s wife Betty put Bev right to work. They are having rice and chicken with plantain’s and Kool-Aid to drink. It wasn’t long before the madness began. The children started coming and coming and coming. We were making plates and serving them as fast as we could. It was such a great experience. They are a well-oiled machine. After serving I don’t know how many children, we ran out of chicken and plantains. They shared with us that when the food runs out they would usually just have to shut the door with hungry kids waiting outside, but we had a car so Bev went with Eduardo to a little store and bought 2 loaves of bread, 2 packages of hot dogs, some kind of sauce, a pound of sugar, Kool-Aid and two little blocks of ice. When they returned, the ladies whipped that up and fed the rest of the children. After cleaning up, we sat down and had a wonderful conversation with the volunteers. There was Pastor Betty and her friend Carmen and Carmen’s two children – Andrea 26 and Marcos 20. Marcos’ friend Bryon and Betty’s daughter Dixie and her husband Wilmer. Then there was the two of us. They just took us in like we belonged there. After we finished, Dixie and Wilmer took Bev out and showed her the land that they are buying to build a house. It is across the road from the church and Wilmer’s business where he makes and sales windows and glass doors. It was an awesome story how God provided the land. The church is hoping to buy some land next to them to make a children’s play area and a youth area – basketball, soccer, etc. court. John was upstairs talking to Andrea, Carmen, Marcos and Bryon. When he came down, he said that we were going to a television station where Andrea preaches and they have Christian music that they play. John thought it might be a good place to make another connection. We drove Andrea and her co-worker, Blkin, up to the station. It wasn’t very far from where we were. We had to wait 30 minutes before her boss got there. He has another job as a mechanic and smelt so strong of gas and oil it made your head hurt. The girl’s did a great job. This station is seen all around the Oak Ridge area. It was great to see what they did and how they are trying to spread the gospel. Andrea said, “It’s not much but we do it for the Glory of the Lord.” We then drove back to Pastor Mesa’s home. Betty and Dixie had cooked us a wonderful meal. It was very humbling to see only two place settings at their small table. We asked them if they were going to eat and they said yes, but that they just wanted to serve us first. Again, it puts a lump in your throat as you sit down in a home with so little and they served us “lobster” and rice with fried plantains. They asked us what we wanted to drink. When we told them that Sprite would be fine, I saw Wilmer head out the door. He was back in just a few minutes with a cold bottle of Sprite. He had gone down the street and bought the Sprite just for us to drink. Sometimes it is easier to give someone else love than to have love lavished upon you. The food was so delicious. We said our goodbyes and on the way out we saw Eduardo. We told him if he wanted us to take back anything to Indy to give his family near Brownsburg, IN to just let us know. We started our drive back home while still trying to process all that we had experienced this day.
