Two big praise reports!

Technically every day is full of praise reports, if we really stop and think about it.  You know, things like having food to eat, clothes to put on, etc.  But today we had two things that were major "Praise the Lord!" moments.

First was that we had a good strong breeze all day.  It was definitely a super warm day, but not blistering hot--which made it much easier for everybody to work and just exist in general.

The second and bigger one is that we currently have electricity!  Around 9:30 am today, the power went out.  We thought it was just a local problem at first, but it turned out to be affecting the entire region, from our area all the way down to Mexicali a few hours away!  At that point it was starting to heat up a lot, and we had no fans and of course no functioning refrigerators.  Everybody suddenly went into major water-conservation mode, because the electric pump that draws the well couldn't run, and all the water we had left was about 2000-something gallons in the big water tank.  It was such a big power outage that they were initially projecting for it to take as much as two or three days to fix, and suddenly we were faced with the prospect of no showers, spoiled food that would all have to be thrown away, no fans in the heat, no lights at night, etc.  It didn't sound good, but I know these kinds of things happen at the Ranch sometimes, so I just prayed that the food would keep until the power came back on and mentally prepared myself to use baby wipes in place of a shower.

Up until that point, the day had run like normal.  I got up early and met Juanita in the kitchen at 7:30, as requested, to help prep the breakfast.  We served scrambled eggs cooked with a salsa-like blend of fresh vegetables, pinto beans, corn tortillas, and cantaloupe---standard Ranch breakfast fare.  While the kids did their kitchen chores, I went back down to my apartment to read my Bible, and in the middle of that, the light and fan suddenly went off.  I figured Erik (who is an electrical engineer) had shut off the power momentarily while he worked on something at Howard & Janet's a few doors down.  But after I went back to the kitchen to help Juanita start getting the lunch ready, I found out that the power outage wasn't just the Ranch or even the whole area in the Ensenada perimeter--it was widespread.  We had enough light to work by since it was daylight--we just went on with our prep work, making salsa bandera ("flag salsa," because it's red, white, & green like the Mexican flag--it's what we call "pico de gallo," but actual pico de gallo is made with diced fruit, as Juanita told me) and cutting up toppings for the fish tacos we were going to make.  Erik had brought down a whole cooler of frozen tuna from a recent fishing trip he took, so Juanita was planning to do battered tacos from scratch.

During the morning kitchen work, I got to have some nice talks with Oscar, who has worked with the Ranch's ministry and lived there during the summers since the late 1970s, with Mark, the "dorm dad" who can always be seen popping into the chow hall for a cup of coffee, and with the other Mark, Eddie Everett's nephew.
Also tried to practice my Spanish . . .

Peggy and Rene had to laugh, despite the ridiculous store checkout situation!

Peggy and Rene were going to the store to get tortillas and a few other things Juanita needed for the lunch, and I wanted to go see if I could buy myself some fresh fruit, so I went into town with them.  Long story short, it was the 1-year anniversary of this supermarket, so it was extra crowded, and then the power outage completely shut down every checkstand operation.  Peggy, Rene, and I had enough of a time trying to explain to an employee, with our limited Spanish, that we wanted cornstarch (turns out the word is maicena).  Then we ended up waiting in line for almost 45 minutes while the entire task force of employees tried unsuccessfully to get the checkout system working again and routed and re-routed the grocery lines.  It was absolute insanity.  We were late getting back with the groceries--Juanita and Janet were already battering and frying the tuna--and the ice cream we'd bought had all but turned to soup.  We put everything in the not-functioning refrigerators and shut the doors as fast as possible.

Lunch was delicious!  Everybody ate in a rather dim chow hall, but the fish tacos were absolutely awesome--Juanita spread the entire condiment table with the works--and we even had salted-cucumber salad and jamaica to go with it!  (Lunch in Mexico is the biggest meal of the day.)  For a special dessert, we served everybody some super soft-serve neapolitan and pistachio ice cream . . . a perfect treat for a hot day.

Rene and I decided to bake banana bread for tomorrow morning's breakfast.  While we were in the kitchen making it, sometime around 3 pm, the lights suddenly clicked back on!  I wondered if the guys had put the Ranch on generator power, but it was genuine electricity!  Apparently some transformer blew out somewhere--how it could cause such a widespread outage I have NO clue--but I was just glad they fixed it so quickly!  Less than 5 hours, so all the food is still good.  PRAISE THE LORD for that one!

The afternoon was spent by me trying to find things to do.  Rene and I finished the banana bread, took some drinks to the thirsty guys who were working, hung out at Doug & Peggy's for a bit, and did a few other random things.  (Janet warned me that I was going to have blocks of down time.)

Rene and I saw this tarantula going for an evening stroll on our way back from the bunkhouse! (Sorry to scare anyone.)

I helped Rene and Peggy make sandwiches for dinner.  After that, Rene and I walked to the guest bunkhouse on the far side of the property to get the snacks for our Bible study time later, and we also swept out the bathrooms at the bunkhouse.  Then we came back to the kitchen (I spent a lot of hours in there today) and made a HUGE batch of peanut butter-oat bars for the kids' school snacks this week.  We did what the note on the recipe said, which was to 5x the recipe, but it was absolutely enormous!  We used three large-size jars of peanut butter, ten cups of flour, ten cups of oats, and ten cups of milk.  It was insane.  In the end it made the amount it said it would, but it took us an hour and I smell like peanut butter all the way up to my elbows.  We ended the night with our customary group Bible devotion, led by Dean.  Tonight Howard and Janet hosted it, rather than us doing it in the Brown Room sitting area inside the chow hall, because their house has ceiling fans.  Everybody prayed for me to have a good internship and a worthwhile time while I'm down here, which was super nice of them.  The regular Rancho-trip group from CCPC, and now Howard & Janet, really do feel almost like a second family to me.  We all know each other well, and we're like a support crew for each other.

More info to come about the Ranch soon.  Another late night and my Internet is slow, so it'll have to be just a couple photos per day,  I think.