Mexico Day 4 and Beyond!

I am currently writing this approxiamately one month after it actually happened so some of the details may have changed because of my lack of remembering them. We started out the fourth day of the Mexico trip by waking up, and boy let me tell you that was probably the hardest part about this whole day. One we actually all got out of bed things were OK but we were down two team members because Jonathan threw out his back so he wasn't really able to help much and Doug was coughing up flem that had blood in it. It was pretty gross. So that left us with Adam, myself, Crystal and Anna. Still a hardy team but not as strong as we could be.

Our task for the day: dig a trench about2 feet wide by 3 feet deep and about 15 feet long. A simply task normally but of course there were complications. We were helping the health clinic next door to the Caravan ministries by digging this trench so that they could extend there brick wall. As we were setting up and getting ready to dig, Matt one of the people from Caravan went to push the gate open and didn't realize that it wasn't very sturdy and it fell over and hit a van in the side causing a small dent and a scratch. The van was from another group that was doing missionary work in Mexico and they just shrugged their shoulders and said "oh well." The thing that made this job more difficult than it first looked like was that just under the surface of the dirt we discovered that there was about 1 and a half feet of concrete. So we had to get the primative tools that we could to chip away at this concrete. It would have taken a few minutes if we had a jack hammer but a little longer with picks and whatever we could find. We broke two tools trying to get the concrete broken. The first couple hours took forever and the progress was slow but we finally found a way to make it work. It took us approxiamately 4 hours to do the job.

For lunch we ordered Pizza from one of the Mexican pizza places. It was actually better than like Dominoes and places like that. After we had our final meal with these people around about 2 in the afternoon we left for the US. They told us how to get to the border and we escorted ourselves back to the US border, again it was raining and that sucked. When we got to the border we had to wait. When we finally got up to the gate they pulled my truck over to inspect it. They made us uncover everything in the back which was covered by a tarp to keep the rain out and thenthey also made me pull my seat forward. I was a little nervous because it is weird to have someone inspect you like that. He also made me open one of the bags. During this time I saw so border officers running toward the gate with their hands on their guns but I didn't see what ended up happening with that I was just glad to get out of there alive.

After being back in the US our task was to drive to the LA area and stay at the Atherton Baptist homes which was kindly provided for us by Anna's grandpa John Heck. It took us forever to make the three hour trip between San Diego and LA, I felt like I was in a time warp. When we finally arrived John and his wife showed up to greet us and they took all of us out to eat at the Wendy's that was across the street. It was awesome of her grandpa to do all that for us because he also payed for the rooms we ended up staying in. After that we went back and got to go in the hot tub and pool area. Her grandpa had keys to that and let us in. The first shower I had in five days was just before I jumped into the hot tub, interesting isn't it?

The next day we headed for home but not before spending the whole day at Universal Studios, so we paid our 53 dollars and had a fun day together. After getting out of there just barely clinging to what was left of our wallets, we headed home which was crazy because we drove from LA to Bakersfield to go say hello to Crystal's aunt and Uncle. We also ate at a southern Cal tradition, In-and-Out Burger, one of my personal favorites. After the detour we finally started heading home at 10 at night and drove all the way home from there. It was crazy but me made it. There was some tension because of people being tired and some tension because there were new people leading but all in all it ended up being a great trip for all who were involved.

THE TOPH!

Mexico Day 3!

Today is the day we actually went out and built the house for the family. The house is 12 feet by 16 feet and we had a crew of about 10-12 people working on getting it done. It rained approxiamately 6inches today , all in the morning!!! That is half of the total rainfall that Tijuana gets in a year in just one morning. We started the morning at the dormitory, had a time of devotions and then worship and a teaching. We left the dorms at about 9:30 am and arrived at the jobsite at approxiamately 11:00am.
We got out of the van and went right to work unloading the truck which we loaded the day before. We are quite fortunate because we get the entire crew from Caravan ministries working with us usually a group gets one person who leads them all but we got the WHOLE team!! After unloading the truck we started out by cutting the boards for the walls. After all the boards were cut we started putting them together. We had all four walls of the house amazingly done at 1:00pm, in just two hours we made four walls!!
We took a break for lunch. The family we were building for prepared us a meal as a blessing to us for helping them in this way. We gladly accepted, the food was actually really good. They made us what was called by the Caravan people chicken grab bag pasta salad. What that means is basically they took a chicken grab bag which has all the different parts in a bag and cooked it and put it as the meat for this pasta salad. You didn't know if you were eating chicken feet, butt, beak, whatever. It didn't matter though because I was hungry and didn't care it was a free meal and I never turn those down if I can possibly help it.
After lunch it was back to work getting the four walls together and placing the roof on it. Our group seemed to have troubles getting the house square so that we could put the roof on, but finally we got it good enough that we could finish it. After we were all done building we had a chance to pray with the family and bless them and their new home. It was quite an awesome experience because their next door neighbor happened to be a pastor who translated for us so the family heard every word we prayed in their own language it was cool.
After we got back to the dorms we talked one of the guys at Caravan named Dan to take us to the taco stand again for more food. Again it was awesome. Everyone was tired so basically that was the end of a hard but fun day.

Mexico Day 2

We woke up at 7:45 because we had to get out of the church by about 8 because they were holding their sunday Service. I really wanted to go just out of obligation to the church for staying the night there. I mean the pastor even gave me a key and the security code, Wow I was floored by that. We had to go so we could meet the people we were going to work with in Mexico at 1:00 pm in San diego, which is over 100 miles away. I experienced the traveling time warp, Jeremy and Dan remember this one from our Monterrey trip. It took us like 5 hours to go 100 miles crazy. We stopped at Costco, gas, and then Burger King to meet our liasons.

We had to speed all the way there just to make it on time. We arrived just at about the same time as the people from Mexico. We met Matt, who looked liked the guy they called Sunshine on Remember the Titans, and Shelly. When we finally got to the place we were going in Mexico it was about 3. We took our stuff upstairs and about fifteen minutes later they had a welcome orientation , where we met the staff, learned the rules etc.. When they finished that they put us to work loading the truck for the next day.

After the truck was loaded we offered to take the people of the house out for tacos.They took us to a place called Gordo's. It was really awesome I paid for a guy named Curtis who I really enjoyed because he had a similiar personality to mine. They also tried to take us to a coffee shop so Doug could experience coffee the Mexican way but it was closed. For dessert we went to an ice cream place instead. Big waffle cone, two scoops of ice cream and syrup and whipped cream all for the large price of 1 dollar and 20 cents. Pretty darn good deal. We were stuffed after that. Went back to the dorms for a rousing game of pass the pigs and then the not so fun game of Water Poker. Water Poker was basically poker but the worst two hands had to drink water, if you had to pee you were out of the game unless you came back and drank 1 large glass of water. The large glass was about 24 ounces . It made for a long night for all but at least we were hydrated the next day.

Mexico Begins!!

The trip started at 3:00 p.m., I left the church at 1:00 and went to cash my checks, get chains for my truck in case we encountered snow. The only place we would have encountered snow probably would have been over Siskiyou Pass south of Ashland, OR but none was to be found, that was cool. Also before leaving I needed to make sure that my oil was change because by the time the trip would be finished we would put close to 2,800 miles on my truck and Adam's car. After getting the pre trip maintenance worked out I was supposed to go get Doug Omelete by 3 o clock. I arrived at his house at 2:50 to pick him up then we left for the Heck's to meet up witht the rest of our team. When we arrived Anna was not ready yet and also needed to go to Shoreline Community College to drop off an assignment of her's.

We finally rolled out of Seattle sometime around 5 o clock on a Friday. Are you kidding me the traffic was extremely obnoxious. It took us till after 7 to get past Tacoma which is only 30 miles from Seattle. 2 Freaking hours to go 30 miles, I could have rode my bike faster than that and would have had way less of a headache. Our first stop happened to be in Albany, Oregon for gas and food. We had Taco Bell, the lady in the drivethru wasn't able to take a piece of paper from me that I needed to be thrown away, she said she couldn't take it because Oregon had some law that wouldn't allow her to dispose of it for me, Wow Oregon really is a screwed up state.

Our next stop was in Ashland, Oregon for another gas stop and for me a change of drivers. It was three in the morning and I had been driving basically for 12 hours straight. God was giving us favor with people though everywhere that we went. In Ashland I had a chance to talk with a couple of Mexican guys about our trip and what it was that we were going down there to do. I also talked with him a little bit about my truck it was actually pretty interesting because I wasn't looking to talk to the guy, he came over to me.

Our next gas stop happened to be in Sacramentowhere we stopped to pick up the sixth and final member of our crew, Jonathan Hurrell. We ended up having to wait for like two hours in the IHOP but it was OK to at least be off the road for a little bit. Shortly after 9:00 AM we got on the road again dun dun dun dun dun na, Willie Nelson eat your heart out. Our final gas stop before reaching LA was Kettleman City, CA. Po dunk town off of I-5 offering basically services and that is it. I ended up driving the last stretch to LA because I was leading us to the place we would be staying that evening.

We finally pulled into LA around 5 in the evening basically 24 hours after we started. We ate dinner at one of my favorite places in LA, Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles. Yes that's right Chicken and Waffles eaten together is heaven on earth, not really though but it is pretty good stuff. For Doug and Jonathan it is their first time in LA so ever experience was a new one to them, it was cool. The uncool thing about it was all the freaking rain. LA has had the fourth wettest year on record this year alone. We went back to the church, Covina Foursquare dropped off our stuff and then we were going to go see the Santa monica Promenade but we didn't because it was raining. We ended up driving down Santa Monica Boulevard and just checking out all the stuff that was around there. We stopped at aJamba Juice to get a drink and had another divine appointment with a homeless dude who was outside the store we went into. We each gave him a little bit of money and doug gave the guy the rest of his drink. He didn't like it so he put a new straw and lid on it and gave it to the guy fooling him. Actually I don't think the guy cared he really started going for it and drinking it right away.

This is a post dated entry because I have been without my internet access for aout two weeks now because I have moved to my new locate with my good friend Chris H. The deal he was doing with Matt fell through so he needed a roommate and I already really wanted to live here because it was right next door to my real good friend Jeremy and Meg so it really worked out for me. God blesssed me abundantly. I will write about the other days of Mexico soon but for now I must go to bed.

The Toph

Here A Job There Job, Everywhere A Job, Job

Today i went out on the town looking for work. I started out by having an interview with Venturi clean. That is a carpet cleaning company. It was actually one of the weirdest interviews I have ever experienced. Aryln was the name of the guy that interviewed me and he basically talked to me the whole time about church and being a christian and if I were hired for this job would I get in the faces of the people I worked with about being a Christian. He asked me all that because he also is a Christian. The job only pays 9-10 an hour to start though and it sounds like really long hours at least 50 a week.

After that meeting I went to drop off another resume at United Grocers paying 10-12 an hour. Then I came home for a bit had lunch and then was off to my next interview. This time I was off to Silver Cup Coffee where Charlie works. The guy there showed me around asked me if it would be something I would be interested in and I said yes. They are moving everything in there warehouse to a new location in Lynnwood, he said I could help them move the warehouse and then if he liked my work ethic then he would hire me full time.

Then on my way home I passed the Home Depot and decided to call them again. The guy I talked to wasn't available but the lady on the phone said that he was probably going to give me a second interview because he told me to call back so that is promising. I went from no job to possibly three now. The only bad thing is that I leave for the next 5 to 6 days to go to LA and Mexico. If I wasn't going there I could start helping at Silver Cup on Monday. Oh well I will just go have fun instead.

I am really having a hard time with my roommate he just gets on my nerves. He does this thing with his teeth that I don't think he realizes but hearing it every 2 seconds or so is really wearing on my nerves. On a side note to that I may be moving in with Harbert if things don't pan out with Matt which at this point sounds like it might not work out with Matt. i would love to live with Chris and the apartment is really nice and it would only cost me about 35 dollars more than I pay now. Cool Beans!

Laura now is your chance to catch up to me while I am gone, so get going huh. I watched Survivor and the Apprentice tonight and did the dishes got myself ready to be packed so it was quite a productive night.

Love ya my peeps thanks for responding to my blogs, I really enjoy doing them and trying to think of creative cool things that happened in my day.

Bye Bye Birdie Bye Bye

Well today started out interesting. I got a phone call in the early morning hours that went something like this.
C: "Hello"
Yvonne: "Hi Chris this is Yvonne from church."
C: "Oh Hi Yvonne how are you?"
Y: "Well I'm doing OK but I have a problem I was hoping you could help me with."
C: "Oh really, what is it?"
Y: "Well, you see there is this bird that is trapped in the Upper Room here at church I was wondering if you could come help me get it out because it would cost the church too much money for someone to come extract the bird from the building, like 100 dollars or something."
C: "Uh OK I will be right over since I live right across the street."

Anyway I get over there and I think it is just a small bird because Yvonne said something about it being small so I grabbed a plastic cup from my house thinking it was small. I get over there and it was basically a full sized bird. I thought well I think I better go get a box or something a bit bigger for this job. Yvonne left all the windows of the upper room open. I went to go empty a box which I found by all the free folder in our church and it took me like 3 minutes to clean all the stuff out of it. By the time I finally got the box I went back to the room to get the bird. By the time I had gotten back the bird was gone it must have flewn out of one of the windows. The interesting part was that the bird was up by the high windows in the Upper room and kept smacking into the glass. I guess just the mere sight of me scared the bejebus out of that bird because he was gone before I got back.

I was thinking to myself, hey this could be quite a good job, charge someone 100 dollars for me to look at a bird just once and then he leaves all by himself because he is afraid of what may happen to his wing if I got a hold of it. I should have immediately demanded that Yvonne give me 100 dollars but hey God just put it on my tab.

The rest of the day was mediocre. I looked for jobs for about 4 to 5 hours then prepared myself for teaching in the youth group. I didn't end up teaching but I am always ready because I never know for sure if I'm teaching or not. I was on worship team though and I played the congas and sang. the mike they gave me for singing was a lapel mic and I forgot to turn it on but oh well at least I sang like it was on.

After church some friends and I went to Denny's, it was pretty much routine. Laura this is #4. Chris Harbert it is great to have you home missed ya buddy. Jeremy I am just glad that you are my friend because I would really hate it if you were my enemy. Anyhoo later all my peeps.

The Toph

Bla Bla Bla Unemployment Meeting

Today I was required by the state of Washington and the federal government to attend a seminar relating to a state run agency called Worksource. This is an office that allows people who are unemployed the opportunity to use their services to get a new job. This morning I had to be at this meeting at 8:30 but I thought it was supposed to start at 8:45 for some reason so instead of being my normal 15 minutes early I was right on time which was extremely stressful to me for some reason. I guess I was treating it like a job interview, I didn't want to show up late and have the instructor say something like "Ha, that is why you don't have a job your late!" I don't know why I thought this but I did.

I am going to try and learn how to bam up my blog a notch like my friend jeremy does by adding links to people I talk about etc., etc. I can be the worlds most random person sometimes.

This meeting was one of the most boring things that I had to do ever. The lady Karen was kind of this weird eccentric lady who would randomly beginning shouting about certain things. I guess that was probably because other people were falling asleep. This whole experience was quite eyeopening to me though. I am the type of person who enjoys looking at people. There were so many different kind of people in that room. There was a blind guy who sat in the front row and came in about 30 minutes late. There was bald who was up near the front, He was all dressed up like that guy from the episode of Futurama where there is 1980's guy. I kept imagining him saying your either a Shark or a Sheep, you choose.

Then there were older people who didn't even look like they were able to work, a couple of dirty looking and smelling people who you would normally expect to be on unemployment. There was a nice looking young lady that was sitting up in the middle. I started thinking I guess normal people like me get laid off or fired from their jobs too. Bla Bla Bla the meeting some more. There was actually a lot of information for a 3 hour session, Karen didn't even get through all the material for the Orientation. Toward the end of this 3 HOUR CLASS my phone started vibrating in my pocket, I am saddened to say that this was the most exciting part of the whole meeting.

After that I came home and my crazy Costa Rican roommate was at home watching cartoons and sitting with Jason from church. They were both laughing really loud and it was kind of annoying after going through three hours of unemployment bla bla bla. Henry asked me to take him to get some jumper cables because his car was dead. I said that I would take him and asked him where he wanted to go so he said "Home Depot" I was thinking to myself " Home Depot, they don't have jumper cables, oh well let's go." We went to the Home depot and they didn't have them so we go to another place, When we left home Depot Henry says "I want to have eats with you." I was going "Huh?" He explained that he wanted to buy me lunch and I said "Oh you don't have to buy me lunch for doing this" He said "No, I just want to buy you lunch." I had a hard time with that because of the weirdness of Henry, his personality rubs me the wrong way but I was realizing that God sees him in a totally different light than I do and then I felt bad having lunch with him.

Henry wanted to have pizza so we went home and he ordered Dominoes which was pretty cool of him. After lunch I fell asleep because this past weekend was so crazy that I needed to catch up on my sleep. I fell asleep at 3 and didn't wake up until now. That's the day in review for anyone who is interested.

The Toph

The Battle Begins!!!

This blog goes out to my good friend Laura. You can read the title of this one because this is just the beginning, I shall not rest until I have the last word, Touche! Not I am just kidding, I just wanted to write about the really fun day of my round two of unemployment. I started out the day by starting my blog, then looked for some jobs, I applied for three jobs, Customer service with AAA of Washington, Customer service for another company, and then I also applied for a management position with Quizno's Subs. I am expecting Quizno's to come calling once they find out that I managed a Subway for four years. After doing this my good friend Jason Smackey called to wish me a happy Valentine's day which I thought was cool of him, I like to talk with the Smack man because we identify with each other. After this I went to help out Papa Charlie Smooth ( pimp name) real name has been withheld for the purpose of protecting the Townsend family, with moving from one home to another. They had quite a bit of stuff so it was a full day I was having a hard time staying awake after lunch. I ended my night by going to the Healing Rooms. This was a little bit scary for me but I don't think scary is the word I think it is more nervous because Jeremy asked me to be the team leader, and it's not that I can't be a team leader it is just that it stretched me a little bit which is great because it is helping me to grow more into the calling that God has for me. I can't really talk about what happened at the Healing Rooms for purposes of confidentiality but let me say that God was totally in control and was giving me words all over the place to speak into people's lives. Ended the day by getting to hang out with some friends which really is kind of what prompted me to post tonight, which brings me back to the beginning of this post, It's On Laura.

The Toph

The First Post

This is the first posting on the blog of The Toph. The date is February 14th, Valentines Day. The Toph at this time is currently single but is desperately hoping that God will someday soon bring him the special person in his life. The Toph currently is without a job. He was laid off for the second time on Friday Febraury 11th, 2005. He is currently searching everwhere on the web to find a new job, if you would like to give him some help, the Toph is always open to suggection. The Toph likes the color green very much, hence why the color of this blog has all of a sudden changed. OK, OK OK I can't do that anymore talking about myself as If I were in the third person it is really weird. I woke up this morning and man I was really beginning to feel my age. Everything on my body was in pain, I think I even creaked as I walked. I am just not able to do as much as I used to without experiencing some pain. The plan for the day find a job, help Charlie with moving, and then finish off the day with a rousing round of praying in the Seattle Healing Rooms. I really like praying for people to get healed it is so much fun. My buddy Jeremy runs the Healing Rooms, I love Jeremy and his wife Meg they have been pretty good friends to me, I am their son although I am 10 years old than both of them. Anyway, I must go back to the Job search, this is probably enough for THE FIRST POST.

THE TOPH