Matamoros & Brownsville

This morning Carol and I were picked up at the hotel by Vince and Sandra and enjoyed a pleasant morning in the ministry. It gave us opportunity for conversation and to experience how the English ministry is performed in this Spanish city. It is mainly a matter of inquiring for those who speak English. At one door a woman told us she did not but a few minutes later her husband came out onto the street looking for us to tell us he *does* speak English and to ask what our visit was about. As is so often the case here, we had a fine conversation with a reverent and neighborly man.

We also saw some agreeable neighborhoods which gave us an idea of what living here is like. We stopped at one house where movers were at work. The owner said the house was for rent, we asked to see it, and were happily given a tour. It was a very well kept property that reminded me a little of Circle Road in Chateauguay where we once lived, except the park in the center here was much better landscaped.

We arrived back in time to accompany Dan and Heather on a trip back across the river to Brownsville, Texas for some additional necessities that are priced much better there. At the border crossing we happened to choose a lane where a fender bender occurred just ahead of us causing a delay as the two drivers got out of their cars to exercise the more acrid facets of their vocabulary. The fellow who bumped into the car ahead next discovered his own car would no longer start. Border agents eventually swaggered to the scene and pushed the vehicle out of the way. Why things like this tend to happen in the line we choose remains an inscrutable and enduring mystery.

We all managed to find most of what we were after. In my personal case it was simply to purchase a supply of the kind of peanut butter I enjoy at breakfast. If one can find this precious commodity at all in Mexico it comes in small jars, expensively priced, and of one brand only which is not my preferred one. But as of this afternoon all is sunshine and roses in the peanut butter department!