Mexico City Mission Trip Day 1

Saturday, August 08, 2009
Yesterday was a pretty long day, but not terrible as crossing the border days go. We spent the day traveling as we are headed to Mexico City to work in a VBS for Capital City Baptist Church and work at a home for unwed mothers in the evening. Eleven of us met with family and friends for breakfast at Southside around 6:00am. We left the church at 6:45, stopped in Livingston, TX to pick up some things to bring with us for Lynn and Sandra Sasser. Things were incredibly smooth at the border crossing. Everyone had all the necessary paperwork, except for me. I had forgotten to bring Davis’ birth certificate. Supposedly when a minor is entering Mexico with only one parent, a notarized letter of permission is required. That minor’s birth certificate is necessary to prove that the letter is from the child’s parent. Normally the name on the letter is compared to the names on the birth certificate. I had placed the certificate under my passport, wallet and keys to make sure I picked it up. I got up early to make sure everything would be ready at the church and did not turn on bedroom lights trying not to wake Missy. She normally wakes up anyway, but this is just my feeble attempt to make myself feel better because I get up so early and feel bad about waking her. Anyway, I picked up my keys, wallet, and passport and headed to the church. Somewhere around Shepherd, TX (70 miles from Lufkin) I remembered the birth certificate. I called Missy and she found it—exactly where I had placed it so I wouldn’t forget it.

At the border, I just handed the immigration official all eleven passports and visa applica-tions. I buzzed through them, took my money and we were off. We were all praying for smooth passage and God, as always, was gracious and granted that to us. The actual process for registering all eleven of us and the car took less than 45 minutes. But since we have to stand in the same line twice, once for the car and once for the visas, we were there just under three hours. That is still not bad. We have been at the border overnight before, so we thank God for the good day.

Our stopping point for the night was Monterrey. This is our normal stopping point. The problem usually comes in trying to find our hotel. This year we are staying at a hotel we have never stayed at before, the Comfort Inn. It is inexpensive, but nice. I also can get points for staying there!! Being concerned about the finding the hotel, I spent some time studying Google Earth Thursday night, and crazy as that may sound. It really helped. I had the directions to the hotel from the internet and the visualization from Google Earth and we drove right to it. We had to make a U-turn, but even that was mentioned in the directions. We arrived at the hotel before 10:00pm and thank God for such a smooth day.

Today we have about 550 miles of travel, but no border crossings! We will leave around 8:00am and should arrive at Lynn and Sandra’s around 6:00pm.

Pray for us!