Reading and Learning

I just read a REALLY interesting book - The Unlikely Disciple, which tells about the experience of a non-Christian guy's semester at Liberty University, which is definitely on the ultra-conservative side of Evangelical Christianity.  It was interesting to see what were the things that most struck the author as odd in a conservative Christian community.  Some of the things didn't seen weird to me (like that classes start with prayer, for example).  But others were things that I don't understand either, even after having grown up in a Christian family, and gone to a not-as-conservative Christian college. 

For example, the author mentions that he felt that a lot of Christians (in his experience) don't care about the environment.  Falwell gave a sermon (seriously?!) on global warming in the course of that semester at Liberty, saying that it was a big myth.  Do I think that as Christians we should be concerned about the Earth's environment?  ABSOLUTELY!!  God made everything on the earth for our use, and we should take care of it, so in my opinion, we should use God's earth in a way that's respectful to Him - the Creator of it.  I DON'T think that taking care of the environment is our #1 priority by any means, but it's important!  And in my experience growing up in a Christian environment (mainly in the 80's and 90's) I heard people even laughing, saying that it is dumb to worry about the environment!  That's shameful to me. 

The author had his run-ins with people who were completely ignorant and rude, as well as with those who were really, well, normal.  Reading this book has made me think a lot about how I am viewed as a Christian (especially living in a place where there are VERY few Christians!)  Do people see me as loving and accepting, or as some rude religious fanatic?  I'm pretty sure the "rude religious fanatic" isn't how people see my husband and I, seeing as how we are frequently invited out with people who aren't Christians and even those who don't want anything to do with Christianity.  But they like US as people.  I don't want to be a "religious" person - I want to be someone who truly loves and follows Christ and shares that love with others!  In all I do I want to love others, at the same time not compromising my values or sinning.  Sometimes it's hard to balance that, but we're learning! 

Weddings

Two of our friends from church - Ivan and Selene - got married the other week.  We are SO happy for them!

Weddings in Mexico generally have a LOT more festive mood than those in the United States (at least the U.S. weddings I've been to!)  After the wedding ceremony there is a party with FOOD - a WHOLE meal, usually catered.  And cake too, of course!  There's generally either live music or a DJ.  And after everyone has eaten their fill, the real party begins! 

At some weddings they play what is called "La Vibora del Mar" (the sea snake).  The bride and groom each stand up on chairs (which area usually rented plastic collapsable chairs - real sturdy, hehe!) and hold hands with a big space between them.  In the picture below they used part of the bride's dress instead of holding hands.  Then, all the women (who want to participate) at the wedding hold hands in a chain and start running through the room, between all the tables and people sitting down, and eventually go underneath the bride and groom. 

Then it's the guys' turn.  They hold hands in a chain and do the same thing.  At some point during La Vibora del Mar, the groom will likely get knocked off his chair, and we may see the demise of a flower arrangement, centerpiece, or other decoration. 

I'm not making this up!  And it's not the kids who do this, it's the adults!  It's kind of hard to run through a room filled with tables, chairs, and people,  holding hands with other ladies in HIGH HEELS.  But it was fun!  But I'm NOT upset that we didn't do the Vibora at our wedding...  :)

Another aspect of a wedding party that is different from in the U.S. is that many times the bride and groom go from table to table collecting money for their honeymoon.  The bride has a little bag (traditionally she'd use her shoe, but most brides use sandals these days!) that people put coins in, and the groom gets bills pinned onto his suit.  I TOTALLY wish we would've remembered to do this at our wedding!!  :)

And then there's lots of music and fun until late at night.  And that's a traditional wedding in Mexico (in my experience)!

Our Stash

We just got more ministry resources!  When we invite our ministry contacts out to dinner we like to be able to give them something.  So how about a Bible!  Or a book that explains salvation by grace!  Yeah!  :)  We have a friend who gets super cheap ministry resources/Bible/etc, so we went and stocked up with her yesterday, as we were down to almost no Bibles to give away. 

JP has been sharing Christ with several of his work friends as they carpool home from the airport each day.  A couple of them have a Bible now - JP asked one guy if he'd read any of his new Bible (I believe JP recommended reading the book of John), and he said that he'd read a little bit, but his mom saw the Bible and took it with her to work to read!  So probably one of these Bibles will go to him!  :)

Done!

I FINALLY have all my documents to be able to leave the country and to go to the U.S.  I'm all set on my documents now for TEN years!  Yay!!!  (With the exception of my driver's license... which I probably need to get a Queretaro one but won't yet because it's another expense and we'll just wait to get it until we get back from the States.)

El Bajío

El Bajío (bah-HEE-oh) is the region of Mexico that we live in.  It includes the states of Queretaro, Guanajuato, and part of Michoacan.  This statistic was just shared with us in church on Sunday: this region - along with neighboring states of Aguascalientes and Zacatecas - is the region in LATIN AMERICA that is least evangelized.  And we live here.
 

Below is a map of Mexico with these states colored:

Queretaro is blue

Guanajuato is purple

Aguascalientes is red

Zacatecas is green

Michoacan is brown (the eastern-most part of Michoacan is considered part of the Bajio)

We've actually met a LOT of people who had never heard about salvation in Christ!  So many of the people we come in contact with (with the exception of those at our church!) believe that by being good, participating in the sacraments (baptism as a baby, eucharist, confession, confirmation, etc.), and praying to the saint of their church or city, they will be saved and go to heaven.  It has been sad to see so many people believe that, even though they don't have a relationship with Christ that they will go to heaven.  And we know that Jesus says: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."  John 14:6

God has been giving us some amazing opportunities to share the Message of Salvation with those around us (these testimonies will be in our upcoming newsletter).  Please pray that God will open the hearts of those we share with, that they will come to know Christ as their Savior.  And pray for us too, that we may have the boldness to speak the Truth to others!

View of Queretaro at night

Getting Ready

This week we started making preparations for our trip to the States.  It's still almost 6  months away, but we both absolutely loathe moving.  So we're getting stuff ready for our first garage sale in a couple weeks - selling stuff that we don't use much.  We'll have another one in November for about half of our furniture that we're selling.  It's weird to think of us not living in our house anymore.  It's not actually our house, but it's the only home we've had as a family!
We're looking forward to this adventure of exploring the United States, which will include visits in Oregon, Chicago area, and Atlanta area, and it looks like JP will get his first trip to Disneyland!!
Please pray for us as we continue to make preparations for 6 months away from Mexico - where we will keep the furniture that we're not selling, what to take with us, and where we'll stay for a few weeks after we turn our house over to the owners, where we'll stay in the each city in the States, and what our transportation situation will be like!  Wow, that's a long list!  But we're very excited to take off on this journey of sharing our ministry vision with others!!

Resumé

Our friend, Alma, and her husband have been coming over to the house recently to work on Alma's resumé.  She went to school with JP and is looking for a job.  JP and Max, Alma's husband, were making fun of the picture she put on her resumé (here you have to put a picture of you on it), and told her she should change the picture. 

Unbeknownst to Alma, Max and JP DID change her photo.  To this one:

And, instead of going home and opening up her resumé file before sending it to potential employers, she just attached the file as it was when she left our house.  Oops!!  After sending it to one potential employer, she opened the file to see Krusty the Clown in place of her picture!  At least she only sent it to one place... and we figured, hey, maybe they'll call her for an interview just out of curiosity!  hehe!

Mexican!

On Friday, I officially became a Mexican!  My "birth certificate" was given to me (emitted on March 22nd, not sure why they didn't contact me sooner!), and says I'm from Mexico City!  Which is funny, because people from Mexico City ALWAYS ask JP and I if we're from "provincia," which means from anywhere in Mexico that's NOT Mexico City.  hehe! 

I'm getting my passport soon, and went in yesterday to get my "voting credencial," which, besides being what I need to show when going to the polls, is the primary form of ID for Mexicans.  And, unfortunately, I'm "supposed" to get a Queretaro driver's license too, but we'll see...  I have several Mexican friends who have a valid license only from the USA, and haven't had any problems...

Anyhow, we're excited for my double-citizenship!  No more paying residency, nor 4-hour visits to Immigration! 

Catita

Catita is a 72 year old woman who lives in a really little town about 40 minutes north of Queretaro.  She goes to church at Horizonte (Yes, she travels all that way EVERY sunday, and tuesday for women's prayer meeting, and saturday for her small group!).  Catita lives in a taco stand.  Yes, a little metal building that's about 7ft X 5 ft.  She sells candies and pop.  She asked us a while back if we could paint her stand.  We went out and looked at it, and sure enough it needed painting, among lots of other work!  It was last painted with water-based paint that we knew would turn all rusty when the rainy season starts...

So we asked people from church if they'd be willing to help out with some money to get Catita all set up.  We gathered up paint supplies and asked our friends Pepe and Juan to help us out.  Pepe has a paint spray gun that gets oil based paint on metal done in a jiffy.  Juan is a welder, so we brought him along to help fix the roof leaks. 

JP, Pepe, and Juan figuring out exactly what needs to be done...  JP is stopping up leaks in the roof...  Catita says she wakes up in the middle of the night to sweep water out of her house when it rains.  She sleeps on the concrete floor with blankets.

Sanding the water-based paint

We had some real quality OSHA-approved tools to work with :)

The ladder that we borrowed from a neighbor:

Catita said she wanted her stand painted RED.  Pepe chose the color and when we opened it up we just about died, it was a flourescent bright pinkish-red...  We didn't want to paint it that color...  But when Catita saw it she said it was EXACTLY the color she wanted! 

The door to the taco stand had a big gap in it.  It was really difficult to figure out how to fix it because Catita needs to be able to open the door from both the inside and the outside.  Juan figured it out, and we're pretty sure the door won't leak now! 

Catita is looking on ask Juan works.

Goofing off

The finished product:

But wait, there's MORE! 

Since Catita sells candies and pops to make a living, we decided to help out by buying her lots of stuff to sell!  Some of the youth group people donated candies and money to this whole operation.  I had a blast picking out candies at the market to give to Catita!

Checking out the new candy supply...

This project took a whole lot longer than we expected - we were there with Catita in the little town of "Pie (pee-EH) de Gallo" (means "rooster foot!") all day.  But it was really a lot of fun!

Catita's situation still isn't ideal...  She lives in a TACO STAND!  And her 8 children don't seem to want to help her out very much.  We are unsure of where Catita takes a bath and goes to the bathroom.  She's always well groomed, and has clean clothes and keeps her taco stand clean inside.  I unfortunately had to go to the bathroom while we were there, and, being a woman, I can't exactly just stand behind a tree to do my business!  She said that she usually goes up a big hill behind the stand to go to the bathroom, but she asked a neighbor if I could use theirs.  You have to understand something about small-town folk in Queretaro - they are generally not very willing to share things or be hospitable to people they don't know.  The neighbor very reluctantly let me use the bathroom...

Catita is somewhat of an outcast in her town.  The people call her a "witch" because she doesn't have and alter to Our Lady Guadalupe (the preferred saint of Mexicans) in or by her house.  It's very clear that Catita doesn't worship Guadalupe, she worships only God.  Please pray for Catita, that she will continue to be strong even in the persecutions in her town, and that God will continue to provide for her!

You and You

In Mexican Spanish, we have two different ways to say the singular "you."  "Usted" (oo-STED) is the formal way, and "tu" (pronounced like "2") is informal.  Usted is used for: people who you don't know who are older than you (or over 40ish), people in authority (polititians, teachers, bosses, etc.). 
Then there's the whole thing of other spanish-speaking countries that have different rules for the use of "tu," or even don't ever use it, or use "vos," and lots of other things that we don't do in Mexico...

Anyhow, JP and I have been going out with one of his college professors to hang out and to share about Christ.  He's only like 7 years older than we are, but being JP's former college professor, he's automatically "usted."  In fact, we wouldn't dream of calling him anything else.  (That would be like going up to a college prof and being like, "hey what's hangin' dude!?" 

So, in one conversation between the teacher and JP, JP had the confidence to share with him that without Christ, he would not go to heaven.  While true, that's kind of a risky thing to say in a friendship!  But, instead of getting upset or offended, the teacher said he'd think about what JP had said and start reading the Bible that we gave him.  Then he told JP to please call him "tu" because they're now friends, not a teacher and student!  This might not sound like that big of a deal to English-speakers but it totally is!  We gained a lot of confidence with the teacher that day!