Mass, Food, Work

Sunday was a more relaxed day, as it should--being the sabbath and all. We began the day by taking the volunteer group to a mass that Dra. Nancy likes to go to. It is a little over an hour/hour & 15 minutes drive from Matamoros. We went to this mass because the priest, Father Emillo, is supposedly the real deal. He used to preach in Matamoros, drawing huge crowds, and even started a children's home for abandoned children. A real nice guy who became successful by preahing good homilies, and doing good in the community. This apparently sparked some jealousy and other bad feelings from the other priests. When they got their opportunity, they re-assigned him to a church in his small home town. The joke is kind of on them, because as we showed yesterday, people still drive to see him. The church was packed, and the message was good; I only wish I understood more of it. The basic jist-- Do things not out of fear but out of confidence, the confidence you find in Christ. I didn't catch to much of it beyond that.

After church (1:30ish) we went to a little resturant for some good Mexican eats. This was by far the best meal I've had in Mexico. We had homemade fajitas, guacamole, bean soup, a variety of salsas, and a cheese dish that went well inbetween a tortilla. Seriously, amazing stuff. Then we drove back in the rain to Matamoros, where the group wanted to work for about 4 hours.

I continued to build truces and teach some of the volunteers how to do so. Others worked on several houses. After dinner, we went on a walking tour of Derechos Humanos, one of my favorite aspects of what Larry does. We introduced them to some of the families, and showed them the canal. The horrifics of the canal had a grave impact on me last year, and its kind of pleasing /refreshing to see others react in the same way. This canal (20 feet from homes) is the Mexican answer to NAFTA and sweage. The canal consists of what comes out of toilets that flush, and what comes out of the Maquiladores, or factories created just along the border to avoid US regulations. These Maquiladores drain their waste into the canal, leaving toxic chemicals in the canal which could easily overflow into people's homes. One time they took a sample of the canal to see what was in it. Most bacteria levels could not be read because they were so far off the charts. They did find that there was a high level of Benzene, which is a known carcinogen. The EPA standard is that for every 5 parts benzene, you add 1 billion parts water to properly dilute it. The test showed that the canal had 300x the normal level of benzene. Such toxicity, so close to so many homes... <http://www.epa.gov/OGWDW/contaminants/dw_contamfs/benzene.html>

One of the pipes spewing toxic waste into the canal. Notice the green and red discolorations of the concrete...


On another sad note:
If you are the praying type, please pray for Hart Family who tragically died in a car accident yesterday, their friends and family, and for others involved in the accident. Geoff, his wife, daughter, and two boys they were adopting today, were leaving church yesterday in Plano when a driver ran a red light and hit their minivan. Their family of 5 were all killed, and the other driver was in the hospital yesterday. The Harts were good freinds of Larry and Nancy, Geoff even serving on the board of Juntos Servimos, where I met him.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/062308dnmetplanofatal.2b573c1a.html


Matt