Speeding Tickets, J-Walking and Operation Passion

This past week, River City's regular Sunday services were canceled. The whole congregation went instead to serve the community in and around Wheatley Courts (government housing, and the like). Over 500 of us headed down, partnering with their local ministry Victory East. We wanted it to be important to build a solid relationship with them, as they are the ones that will continue to be there next week, and the week after. We had a morning service at 9:30am out in the courts, filled with Scripture, prayer and worship through song. Groups of 50 went on out through the streets to pick up trash, weed-whack and get to know the residents. Following that, there was a carnival for the children and lunch for everyone.

Operation Passion -- click on this link to see an entire album of amazing pictures.
And enjoy a short video clip with footage from our morning -- RealLife on Youtube

Alrighty, so on Monday (my day off), my host family decided to take me down to the Riverwalk! It was super sweet. We went on one of those little boat tours, ate some authentic Tex Mex, and paraded throughout the Mexican Marketplace. Live, south american-esque music, greasy food, cheap trinkets (I was tempted to buy a plastic donut -- uhh, what the heck!)... brought me back to memories at the fair, and reminded me that people will buy almost anything. Booo on that!

On the way there, we got pulled over for speeding on the highway. Seriously? There were people going even faster than us -- oh jeez. I guess we were the lucky ones. At least we weren't on our way to the church....

After getting the ticket, and trying to mosey our way through the city crowds, we figured eh, let's see how many illegal things we can do in one day. J-walking seemed like a good option for us. Ohh, that brings back memories, haha. But yeah, my host family has been such a great example to me :)

Remember the Alamo...