The last revival service would be held this morning, so our Cooking Team showed up early to start preparations for our part of the lunch after the service. It was such a fun week working with and getting to know each person on the team.
As were chopping vegetables, Pastor Jeff came in and asked if we would be serving grape Kool-Aid at lunch. We’d made many gallons of it throughout the last week, and yes, it was on the menu for lunch. He had found out that for various reasons Memorial Baptist had not had communion for many months, so he wanted to hold communion at the end of the service. So…we filled communion cups with grape Kool-Aid.
The last revival service was overflowing with people, the music was great and Jeff hit a home run with the sermon. He was able to use the unexpected death of our friend Michele as an illustration of how we never know when we might live our last day on earth. He encouraged them to not delay the decision to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Although when no one walked down the aisle at the end of the service, it was a powerful service.
For our final lunch, we enjoyed delicious Fry Bread meal made by both our team and some of the ladies from Memorial Baptist. We fellowshipped, exchanged email addresses and then loaded up for Albuquerque. We left Chinle with a much lighter load after serving over 600 meals. We left books, study materials, t-shirts and even noticed that several high school students ended up with Hardin-Simmons caps and back packs.
We arrived in Albuquerque after at least 20 restroom stops – one 8 miles from the hotel – ok here’s where it would have been really nice to have had a bus. We had a time of sharing about what we were taking home from the trip. Many commented how we received a bigger blessing than the people of Chinle. We talked about how proud we were of the students that were part of our group. They witnessed to people in the Burger King, the streets, the baseball field and the parking lot. They made crafts, gave piggy-back rides and loved on everyone they met. We talked about how God had orchestrated everything we did, even though we didn’t recognize it at the time. We reflected that just because we didn’t see results that day, everything happens in God’s timing and we felt like some seeds were planted this week that will produce positive results in the future. Even so, it was worth every minute.
Day five was full of laughter, tears, joy, sorrow, chaos, calm, excitement and amazement at what God can do.