Missing Passport Saga Solved

If you've ever traveled internationally then you know the complications, paperwork, stress, uncertainty, questions, and necessity of having a valid passport. There is also the potential depending on where your destination may be, how long you will be there, and the nature of your trip, that a visa stamp in your passport may be necessary.

As our mission team prepared in August and September for our trip to Paraguay/Brazil in October, we took the necessary steps to make sure the entire team had a valid passport into our hands so we could send them off together for the visa stamp that Paraguay requires for entry into the country......

On Thursday, October 2nd, eight days before our first team was to depart on the 10th, we noticed that our passports had not yet been returned from the agency doing our visa stamps. Naturally we checked with the mailroom only to notice that the Fed-Ex package had arrived that Monday and had been signed for, even though we hadn't yet seen it!!! Frantically we started looking around all parts of the mailroom where a Fed-Ex package might have been set off to the side or fallen behind a shelf. With no luck in finding the missing passports in our mailroom we started asking different parts of this HUGE Hyde Park Baptist world if someone might have the package in their area by mistake. We asked the School if it was in their mailroom or the athletic offices, we searched in the education staff offices, the different international ministries, the music ministry, the business office, the Children's Development Center; we even had a couple of secretaries stop everything and grab a team to walk through each room possible in the building looking for the missing passports. We sent out emails to all staff alerting them of the missing package, and put up signs with red writng that said ATTENTION and explained the need to be on the lookout.

Long story longer, I had to tell our team on Saturday, October 4 that we were missing all the passports and had 3 choices, 1) not go on the trip, 2) find the passports, or 3) all drive to the Houston Consulatethis week and report lost passports, have new ones issued, and FedEx them overnight for the new visa stamps. Our team of young professionals were all overwhelmingly positive and were able to find the time to take off from work on Tuesday or Friday and drive to Houston....Road Trip! We were able to get all the paperwork done (again), spend some time together with our team, and get all of the newly issued passports FedExed off for new visa stamps. As you can read in the previous blog, we had the passports returned with our visas and had a great trip. My guess at this point was not that someone had clandestinely slipped into the church offices and pulled an Oceans 11 move on our group's passports and was selling them on the black market, but instead that they would probably show up 6 months down the road somehow. Sometimes things happen faster than you anticipate...

In the DFW airport one of our team members was checking his voicemail and received a message from someone at the church that had called while we were in South America. The team member said "My heart sank as I listened to his message. The message said that he had a FedEx package in his office with my name on it." Of course the team member didn't bring it up to anyone as we sat in the DFW airport eating breakfast. Last night however while he was at church, he was able to get his hands on the package, and sure enough inside sat a stack of passports with a rubberband around them, all with visa stamps inside!

The name of the guilty party in this story has not been mentioned so as to protect him from the hands of the mission team members and the great embarassment that they might feel. I would like to say however that it is nice to have the passports back in our hands so people can "have their stamps" from other trips they had taken, and that the next time something like this happens the music ministry associates will be getting personal calls from me.

Brasiguayo Missions

Below is an email i sent to some family and friends that were instrumental in supporting our missions to Paraguay/Brazil. It is basically a short play by play of some of things that occured while we were there. The trip was truly an incredible experience and nothing less than a testimony of God's greatness!

1) The travel time from Austin, Dallas, Buenos Aires, Asuncion, to Pedro Juan Caballero was was almost 30 hours. Not only was this a huge piece of our time from there to back but was also about 75% of our expenses. We ate Brazilian steak/chicken almost everyday for next to nothing while we were there! Everyone on the team stayed in relatively good health the entire trip.

2) After arriving on Saturday night we spent the next day at the Japanese sports complex. We went out there to just meet some of the people and see what was going on....the next thing we knew 3 of our guys (including myself) had been asked to umpire for a Little League baseball game! Luckily Jeff played college baseball so we threw him behind the plate as home plate umpire while Danny and I took 3rd and 1st base. You've never experienced baseball until you've umpired a little league Japanese baseball game in Paraguay with Brazilian/Paraguayan/Japanese kids on the field all yelling, "ehhh pitcha!!!" to taunt the pitcher.........this was an introduction to the fact that things outside of the U.S. function a little different.

Later that evening at the Brazilian church the pastor asked me to share with their congregation why we were there and what we were doing. It was an awesome opportunity to share that we had come for one reason, to share the faith we have in Christ for the forgiveness of sin and the hope we have for eternal life in His heavenly kingdom, and how we should all be active in sharing this message with everyone we meet.....

3) As we started the "pool play" on Monday morning for the 3 on 3 basketball tournament, we had the opportunity to play basketball and get to know "Brasiguayo" kids, mostly ages 10 - 18. They call themselves Brasiguayos because they live on the border of Brazil and Paraguay and they don't really identify or consider themselves Brazilian or Paraguayan, so they call themselves Brasiguayo. It thoroughly complicates things as you try to determine whether you should speak Spanish or Portuguese with them......

AfterMonday's activities on the basektball courts, we had shared the gospel through Bible Storie books and testimonies and led 20 kids to pray to receive Christ as saviour. Later that evening two of our girls went to an orphanage where they were able to lead 5 kids to faith in Christ!

4) Tues - Wed we had the opportunity to spend time with about 150 kids as the word got out about the tournament. We were going on to schools and telling them about the tournament, and made a great acquantaince with a coach at a school named Hugo. Hugo is a Christian guy that coaches about 60-80 kids on a dirt court with 2 "pop up goals" (something like you'd see in a cul de sac). It was amazing to experience the "openness" of the people in this area, and how grateful they were to have us there helping to host a tournament like this. He explained that our presence there as Christians and as basketball players helps him tremendously in his goal to lead kids to keep kids off the streets and to share his faith in Christ.

5) Thursday was our tournament day. It was such a site to see all the kids come out in their best basketball clothes.

Those that played for the school team all had on the jerseys and shorts that Hugo had helped them to buy. It was a little sad to see that the best some of the other kids had was jean shorts and sandals to play basketball in......The fascinating part to me was that they didn't even seem to notice or care. Their contentment and joy with ABSOLUTETLY NOTHING was amazing and incredibally challenging. Beth and Jeff shared on tournament day and we saw 15 more kids pray to receive Christ.

6) We took the names of all the players and were able to give all the new believers a Portuguese New Testament. We left the names of those who followed Christ with the local church and with Hugo to follow up with.

7) Most of our days started around 6:30a.m. and finished around 10:00p.m. Needless to say by the end of each day we were completely exhausted and ready to crash. On Friday we turned an 8 hour bus ride into about a 12 hour bus ride to Iguacu Falls. On Saturday we had the chance to tour this is amazing park where natural waterfalls on teh Brazilian and Argentinian frontier creates a natural border between the countries (they are trying to vote it in as one of the natural wonders of the world). That afternoon we had quite a fright as our flight from Sao Paulo was delayed, which meant our connection to Buenos Aires would be delayed, which meant we might miss our flight to Dallas, which meant everyone would be VERY UNHAPPY because they would miss work. By God's grace all of our connections were also delayed and we made it to Dallas with only an hour and half delay. We were able to catch the next flight to Austin and crash the rest of Sunday!

8) Mon, Tues, and Wed. have been pretty fast and furious as we've tried to catch up and reacclimate to Austin. The experience of God's presence and using us in this trip was truly a blessing. It has challenged and emoldened me once again to remember the importance of sharing the message of God's love with any and all we meet in order that they might turn from sin and selfishness and turn to God for love and eternal life.

Attached is a link to a Picassa web album with more pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/beth.haddox/ParaguayOct2008

Europe's Last Stand

I just read the following article entitled, "Europe's Last Stand" by Geert Wilders, chairman of “Party for Freedom” in the Netherlands:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=12D0C037-ABB0-44A6-8E5B-22922484FD4D

It is by far the most interesting thing I've read in awhile and is a real wake up call to democratic countries across the world to guard themselves against the schemes of Islam. I do not recommend watching the video...it is very disturbing.