Houston, Day 4 – Houston, Urban Plunge

Welcome to day 4 of the Houston mission trip.  I am so glad that you will be joining us today.  Today we start off with a devotion and breakfast.  After that we have some real exciting stuff planned.  Make sure you make two sack lunches today and put on some good walking shoes.

We will break our large group into two smaller groups, with David and I being the small group chaperons.  I say chaperons because the students will be doing the legwork while David and I keep track of them.  Each of us is given a day transit card that allows us to ride the electric train into downtown Houston.  We all leave together to begin our urban plunge.

As we arrive at our first stop, we break into the two groups and begin to explore Houston based upon some scavenger hunt information cards.  The first stop will be to explore the tunnels of several of the high-rise buildings.  These are all connected together and there are meeting rooms, bathrooms, restaurants, barbers, cleaners and many other stores/shops to see.  On the walls there are advertisements and even some history facts about the city.  I hear that there are Segway tours offered.  This might be compared to Chicago’s tunnels but on a smaller scale.  It is time to emerge from the tunnels for the rest of the plunge and scavenger hunt.

We stroll to a park where the first City Hall stood. There is a dog park, a smoothie vendor and a memorial park for victims of 911, who were from Houston.  We check out the pillars in the park for information about Houston.  As part of our scavenger hunt, we are required to speak with various age people and find out what they like the most and least about Houston as well as the biggest issues they saw for the city.

I stop a city worker to ask a few questions.  He seems a little annoyed and tells me that he is busy and cannot take the time to answer.  We move along and then say a prayer to the people of Houston.

As we stroll past the dog park, we meet a 50-year-old white male that we will call “Bill”.  Bill is in the park with two black poodles.  One of the dogs name is Dave.  We cannot wait to tell David that we saw his namesake on all fours, looking pretty in the dog park!  Bill has been in Houston for a year now.  Public transportation is a real issue in the city he says.  He is impressed with how much is done for those in need.   We receive permission to take his picture with the students and then move along to the tallest building in Houston.

We locate the tallest building at 600 Travis and ascend to the 60^th floor for the observation plaza.  There are so many things to see from a whole new perspective.  While here, I see a young Asian man trying to take a “selfie” picture with the city as the background.  I offer to take the picture of him.  While we talk, he tells me that his friend is at work, so he thought he would look around.  He is in Houston from San Francisco.  More conversation reveals that he is a first year seminary student at a Baptist seminary.  He has been in the United States for 5 months after coming from Brazil, where he lived.  He is originally from Korea and plans on going back to Brazil as a missionary.  While in seminary, of all things, he has started up a campus ministry for Korean students.  Hummm, can you imagine all that?  God planned?  You bet it is God planned.  We talk some more and say our goodbyes.

While in the observation plaza, two women offer to give us information about Houston.  They are self-training to be tour guides.  Both speak with a British accent.  They are a wealth of information.  While the students are listing to all this information, I encounter a group of Spanish speaking woman attempting to take pictures of them with the city in the background.  You never guess what I am about to do.  They speak some English, and I speak no Spanish, but they turn the camera over to me, I have to now try to get a flash turned on, otherwise you will never see them with the background.  While looking at the camera, I noticed that it is all in Spanish!  The long short of it is, we get it to work and the pictures are taken!!  It is now time to move on to the rest of the hunt.

We hop a train into the museum district to go have lunch in the park.  I hope you remembered your lunch……and the second lunch too.  Let’s all split up and find someone to share a lunch with.  I see a homeless person on the bench eating, so I move along.  Then I see another homeless person.  He appears to not have any food.  I introduce myself and he says that his name is Jerry.  I tell Jerry I have an extra lunch and ask if he preferred Ham & Cheese or Peanut Butter and Jelly.    Much of the time we sit in silence, eating our lunches, just being present to one another.  There are moments of conversation, such as the several thanks that I knew how to make a great sandwich.  The warmth of the sun, the sounds of children playing in the park and the animals running around, make a great background to just sitting on a park bench, enjoying company, eating lunch and occasionally some conversation.  There is still more today, so we need to push on.

Still yet to come today is the Holocaust museum, a cathedral visit, train ride back, dinner at the Asian Market, debriefing and free time.  There is so much to tell and so little space to do so.

I encourage you to ask us about the people we encountered, our time at the Holocaust museum and Asian Market.  Please come back for more news on the Houston Mission Trip.