spring break in alpine, texas
brad March.31.2003
on saturday, march 15th at 6:30 am ( it would have been 6 if someone - randy - had taken the time to pack the night before instead of getting up that morning to do so ) we left wichita headed for texas with a 12 hour drive ahead of us. the trip down was fairly uneventful except when randy drove, then we all either closed our eyes or caught up on prayers as we hoped to make it out of the city in one piece.
southwest texas has a very unique beauty. it's a desert region with sandy rocky soil, cactus and mountains. desolate and sparsely populated, it has that old west kind of feel. the people at hillside baptist church were incredibly nice and hospitable to us, as well as their, and our, unexpected guest for the week, john.
john is a voluntarily homeless guy who started in oregon, back in november, and has walked and hitchhiked his way to southwest texas. a very neat guy, and very intelligent as well with a degree in bio-chemistry, he hung out with us for the week helping us out with our projects around the church.
our home was a trailer at paisano baptist encampment. unfortunately the nights got unusally cold and since the trailer was pretty much for summer use, it wasn't exactly winterized. it dropped down to the 50's in the trailer so eventually we got some heaters and made the best of it. at the church we worked on repairing old pews, doing some redecorating in the women's bathroom and painting the lines for the church's new basketball court.
we also got to see the sights of alpine. one night we went to see the mysterious marfa lights (google:marfa lights) and then one day we traveled further south to big bend national park where we did some rock climbing, anna tried walking through cactus and grant officially became an illegal immigrant.
the trip was great. we got to help a church out with some things that their members didn't have time to do. we got to know each other alot better and we made a new friend in john. here are some pictures from the weekend. yes, there are alot of pictures of mountains, but that's because they were cooler to take pictures of than everyone hammering or taping or painting.
