New Mexico Adventures

So last week I was away for a few days to see some friends down in New Mexico (I know, you might be thinking "why New Mexico? isn't it more like New Mexican't??" and you would be right, but I'll explain....)

So a buddy of mine, Tim got asked to go play for a youth worship conference by another friend, Ray. Ray is a good guy who we've known for a few years. Ray and his wife left Oak Park Vineyard a few years ago and moved to N.M. Ray is now the volunteer youth leader for his church in Taos, N.M. Two years ago Ray brought some of his young people up here to attend our summer youth conference, Engram (see previous posts).

So Tim got asked to go lead worship, but how did I fall into the plan?

Good question. I knew you readers were smart :-)

I was kind of whining a few months back about how I really wanted to get away. Tim had talked about going to Mexico in the past, and I thought that sounded cool. But as usual, money was tight and it looked like Mexico wasn't going to happen. Then Tim mentioned that he and Ray had talked, and they thought it would be cool for me to tag along. Hee hee, I got the better end of that deal I think. For Tim, it was more work with planning and prepping a talk for the conference. I got to go have my vacation :-)

Well, as plans unfolded Tim got asked to speak for 45 minutes the opening night. I was impressed to say the least when Tim came and asked me to help him prep his talk on "What does Worship mean?" and even more humbled when Tim asked me to help wrap up the talk and pray at the end. Here's a bit more detail after we landed on Wed. June 4th:

Wed. eve we went to Taos to check out the youth group and talk a bit about what the next few days would look like. It was great to see familiar faces as well as new ones. It seemed they were all really excited to have Tim and I there as guests.

Wed. eve we went back to Ray and Brandy's place and got settled. Their dogs (Sydney and Jasper) were really wild to have guests. Their house is about a 20 minute drive out from Taos, and really close to the mountains. Wed. it was like in the 80's when we got there, and Thursday morning when we woke up there was 2 inches of snow on the ground! I tried to get pictures with my camera, but the batteries died on me :-( so I was slightly sad that I had all these great ideas for pictures, but no way to take them.

Thursday we had Brandy's car. We drove to Ray's work and posed as two delivery guys with a box for Ray that we needed him to sign for. It was funny when Ray came out to see us. The whole place laughed when Ray said he knew us and started taking us around to meet his co-workers. Ray gave us a map and some really good ideas of places we could go to see (the day was still fairly cloudy and cool, so we weren't really motivated to do much sight seeing). We did drive into Taos and had a bit of a walk around. The place is kinda boring with loads of art galleries that look a lot alike. We saw a few galleries and I was like "didn't we see this same art in that last place??"

Thursday night was the start of the worship conference. Tim and I opened with a bit of worship, followed by teaching by Tim and wrapped up by me with a time of prayer and then more worship led by us (I played hand percussion, which went OK, but I really wanted a drum set!). After the session we went out for ice cream with the youth, and had a great time just chilling. We then watched a movie at Ray and Brandy's before bed.

Friday Tim and I hiked around the Gorge that's just outside of Taos, and then we went to meet up with Ray. The Pastor was talking to Ray at the church when we got there to meet Ray, and James (the sr. pastor) offered us jobs if we wanted to move to taos. Without laughing too hard at the idea, we told james we would "pray" about it, lol. I think he knew we probably wouldn't but he made sure we knew the offer was always open. We left the church and went to Brandy's work to drop off her car. I went in first and pretended I was there for a meeting with her for insurance quotes. The lady who greeted me bought it until Tim and Ray walked in. I had a whole prank worked out, but I didn't get to play it. Probably a good thing.

Friday night was more worship with a message on worship by Ray. It went well and after the session we got to pray for a few people, including the Sr. pastor's wife who had a back injury due to a car accident a few weeks ago. She didn't seem to get healed, but she was open to prayer which was cool.

After the session we went back to Ray and Brandy's with a few of the young people. Ray and I had to go back to the church to get something for one of the youth. While we were there a homeless guy came up and started talking to me and Ray. We got to help him a bit with items to make his night a bit more comfy and we even got to pray for him. We really wanted to see him at church on Sunday, but I guess he lived out in the far reaches of town, so maybe he didn't get a ride back.

We hung out for a bit with a few of the youth and some stand up comedy that one of the guys had on his computer, and finally kicked them out at like 1am.

Saturday some of the youth went over to a local park (in Taos) with instruments and we hung out, sang a few songs and played a few games. One of the guys brought his family dog (it actually was a HUGE animal, and when I first saw it I said "who brought the polar bear!??")

After that we had a pretty free day so we went and took a bit of a nap at the house. We were invited over to the Sr. pastor's house for dinner with their family, which went well. Sunday was church which Tim and I led with one of the youth. After church there was a "family meal" kind of like a church pot-luck, and then we had to head out to our flight. We said our goodbyes, and I could tell that some of the youth and adults we pretty bummed out to see us go. I knew we had a good weekend there and that God really used us to get them thinking ourside the box on what it means to worship God in everything.

Our flight home was a bit crazy due to weather in Chicago (almost 8 hours on a plane that normally takes about 3!!) but we got home and as I look back at the weekend, I'm really thankful that God used us to bless people and help build the church.

End of entry part 1