True to the stereotype, we have found that most churches do not plan their sermons or speakers too far in advance. Last week, Greg got invited to speak at a chapel service about 6 hours before it was to begin. Today I got invited to speak at church to the women with 4 hours notice. We have both learned to take some time and develop outlines or at least to always have something in the works so we can be prepared for those last minute invitations. It feels good to be the last-minute go-to guy when someone cancels or they haven't organized their speakers very well. I have found that my last minute messages are usually the best ones because I have to depend on God for every word and I tend to speak from the heart more. It has taught us to be ready in season and out of season, always ready even if we don't feel like it. I just am thankful for the opportunity to share with people what God is doing in me and through me. What an opportunity!
Interesting Sites to Visit
Read any good books lately?
Brother Yun: The Heavenly Man: The Remarkable True Story of Chinese Christian Brother Yun
Francine Rivers: Redeeming Love
Retelling of the story of Gomer and Hosea, set in California during the gold rush. Very powerful.David A. Livermore: Serving with Eyes Wide Open: Doing Short-Term Missions with Cultural Intelligence
A must-read for all going on a short-term missions trip.Alvin Toffler: Revolutionary Wealth
The best guide to where the future is taking us.CK Prahalad: The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid
A brilliant economist, an overlooked market, new opportunities for millions.C.S. Lewis: Till We Have Faces
I am enthralled by this retelling of Cupid and Psyche. I think this may be my favorite CS Lewis book yet.
A missions team came in last week and painted a bunch of houses for widows and poor people, but then they blessed us! Here's a picture of our nice, clean, freshly painted blue house!
In August, I was asked if I would help out to form a choir in our church. I've participated in lots of choirs, but never led one! It has been a challenge, but one I have taken on with great joy. At first, I thought I would be helping, but it has turned out that I am in charge. I now have to teach singing, organize backup worship team members, and pick songs. It's fun but very time consuming.
Kids with guns...
From an article in today's Washington Post:
The number of minors swept up in Mexico's drug wars - as killers and victims - is soaring, with US and Mexican officials warning that a toxic culture of fast money, drug abuse and murder is creating a "lost generation." Although the exploitation of children by criminals is timeless, authorities say the cartels are responding to new realities here. They have stepped up recruiting to replace tens of thousands of members who have been killed or arrested during President Felipe Calderón's US-backed war against the traffickers. The crackdown has led the cartels to diversify their operations, moving from the transshipment of narcotics to extortion, immigrant smuggling and kidnapping. It also has sparked intense rivalries, with youngsters serving as expendable foot soldiers in battles over trafficking routes to the United States and local markets that serve a growing number of Mexican drug users.
Kids With Guns (Gorillaz)Kids with gunsKids with guns
Taking over
But it won't be long
They mesmerized, skeletons
Kids with guns
Kids with guns
Easy does it, easy does it, they got something to say "no" to
And they're turning us into monsters
Turning us into fire
Turning us into monsters
It's all desire
It's all desire
It's all desire
Drinking out
Pacifier
Sinking soul
Where you are
Doesn't make sense to
But it won't be long
Cause kids with guns
Kids with guns
Easy does it, easy does it, they got something to "no" to
And they're turning us into monsters
Turning us into fire
Turning us into monsters
It's all desire
It's all desire
It's all desire
Push it real push it push it
Push it real push it push it
Push it real push it push it
Push it real push it push it
Push it real push it push it
Public Enemy #1: The Police
One thing about Mexico that everyone can agree on is this: many if not most police officers are corrupt. Last week here in Monterrey these two officers were arrested as being part of the Gulf cartel. They were used as hit men and were arrested in uniform while at a house where several kidnapping victims were being kept. Once again, the army to the rescue. But the army, as I've said again and again, is a short-term solution. In the long-term the government has to restructure Mexico's 2,022 municipal police forces. I was delighted to hear the news on Friday that Mexico's secretary for public safety, Génaro García Luna, who probably has the most dangerous cabinet position on the planet, announced a proposal to disband the 2,022 local police forces and combine them with the state level law enforcement. Although I've yet to read the proposal, it definitely sounds like a step in the right direction. Here's the article in full:
Mexico's top security official on Friday proposed disbanding Mexico's 2,022 municipal police forces and combining them with state law enforcement agencies to better combat corruption and crime.
Local police have fewer resources to fight crime, and their lower salaries make them more susceptible to corruption, Mexican Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna said.
"Public safety should be a state policy," he added.
Consolidating police forces would improve communication among officials, he said, and bring greater security to areas where local police have traditionally lacked the means to fight crime. Nearly 90 percent of the country's municipal police forces have staffs of less than 100 people, he said.
Garcia Luna spoke to reporters at the end of a meeting of public safety chiefs from Mexico's 31 states and the capital, where officials presented a report titled "A New Police Model."
The report describes local police as "an easy target for corruption," with more than 60 percent of them receiving monthly salaries of only 4,000 pesos (about $300). Most of them have completed less than 10 years of schooling and are either at basic education levels or illiterate, according to the report.
Incorporating them into state forces would help prevent organized crime from corrupting them, the report said.
Garcia Luna said federal legislators would have to approve any changes to the country's police structure.
President Felipe Calderon has acknowledged that corruption permeates Mexican police at all levels. He has relied on the army to fight ruthless drug cartels, deploying tens of thousands of soldiers across the country since taking office in late 2006. Gang violence has since surged, claiming more than 13,800 lives.
Crackdowns on local police have also become an increasingly common part of the drug war.
In September, the Pacific coast resort city of Cancun fired 30 police officers in an effort to clean up the image of a force long plagued by corruption. In June, nearly 80 police officers suspected of working with drug smugglers were arrested in 18 towns across the northern state of Nuevo Leon after soldiers found lists of police names in the possession of traffickers.
Mexico's 159,734 municipal police make up nearly 40 percent of Mexico's police forces.
UN World Drug Report 2009
Recently the UN released it's annual World Drug Report 2009 - the interactive presentation is well worth seeing. Also, the Boston Globe's Big Picture ran a photo essay commemorating the report's release (warning: some of the images are graphic). I'll blog on the report's findings soon.
Song Contest
Part of my First Year class' homework assignment last week was to write a song using a Psalm. I divided the class into two groups - the girls vs the guys (nothing gets students motivated more than the battle between the sexes in a classroom venue) and then I threw in a twist - they also had to come up with a choreography. So today we had the contest...
Explaining the rules:
The guys went first with their song:
Our panel of judges: (fellow staff members Xóchitl, Jeny & Lolis L-R):
And now it's the ladies' turn:
And after calculating the results, the judges determined that the ladies won. It turns out that it was the lack of choreography that killed the guys' chances of winning, but their song, it turns out, was actually quite good. Maybe they'll record it and it'll be the next big worship song in Latin America ...
Murder's Thirsty Slake
For the second time this month
gunman gunman gunman gunman gunman
Have burst into a rehab center
And murdered and murdered and murdered and murdered and murdered
And murdered and murdered and murdered and murdered and murdered
And murdered and murdered and murdered and murdered and murdered
And murdered and murdered and murdered and murdered and murdered
And murdered and murdered and murdered and murdered and murdered
And murdered and murdered and murdered
Go ahead and count them:
Eighteen + ten more in murder's thirsty slake.
Peeps, II: J-Mo
Continuing on with the theme of "getting to know our peeps," we thought we'd stay in the artistic vein and present to you another very interesting character known to us as "J-Mo." His real name is Jeziel Molina García and he's a musician who loves to compose great music. While J-Mo prefers heavy metal to pop, his musical abilities are actually quite versatile. He composed the musical score for the popular Easter play "La Espina" (The Thorn) as well as his own project called "Azmaveth" (a Hebrew word which means stronger than death) which is an album focusing on spiritual warfare. In putting together the Azmaveth project, Jeziel has involved my family - Jan sang while the boys and I did voice-over narrations. J-Mo is a good friend to our family and it's a delight to know him. We'll keep everyone posted when the album comes out!
Foto at right: Xochitl getting ready to record a song to be put on the "Azmaveth" album while J-Mo coaches her on the finer points of what he's looking for.
One of our peeps
We thought we'd do some profiles of some of the people we are personally discipling. We'll start with Candy, a talented and vivacious girl who is part of our Thursday night Missions Discipleship Group. Candy grew up in our church, El Centro de Fe "El Carmen," and is the oldest of three sisters. Something that really defines Candy is her creativity - she loves drama, photography and writing.
One of the things that makes our life interesting is the mix of personalities and giftings of the people who surround us. We encourage our peeps to be themselves and to avoid the "cookie cutter" Christian mentality. We are all striving to be imitators of God, as the apostle Paul exhorted us, and it's a beautiful thing to see how each person embodies this in different ways. We are truly fortunate to have Candy in our life and we're encouraged daily by both her godly example and her quirky originality.
Team building
Introducing Gena & Andrew Thomas. For long-time blog followers, you may remember her, she lived with us in Nicaragua from January - April 2004. This past March she came to visit us in Mexico with her new husband and they felt God calling them to Mexico. They arrived last week. They will both be teaching at our church's new middle school, Gena as the English teacher, and Andrew as the PE teacher. He will also be doing some guiding at Potrero Chico, a world-class rock climbing site 15 mins from El Carmen.
We are so glad to have them here! Our boys love them to death, and we are looking forward to having our first cell group meeting tonight with them... speaking English, eating waffles, and studying the book of Acts. It will be awesome! You can follow them on their blog: Not Quite Ripe. Also, check out their new digs here.
The Importance of Friends
The foreign mission field can be a very lonely place at times. You are away from family, friends, & the familiar. Our first two years in Mexico I was so busy with getting adjusted that I didn't feel the loneliness too much. This past year, though, when I got sick with hepatitis and was pretty much bed-ridden for months I felt so lonely. I began to pray in earnest for one good friend. Someone to take off the masks with and laugh with, someone to NOT talk about ministry all the time with.
David & Monica, our Mexican pastors and next-door neighbors, were God's answer to my prayers. They have been part of our lives since day 1 here in Mexico. I've traveled to India & the US with them, but only this year has the relationship gone beyond ministry. I'm thankful that God hears our prayers and provides for our every need.
Why We Are In Mexico...
Sometimes people ask us why we are in Mexico and not someplace perceived more strategic in the missions field. Actually the real question they're asking is: Why aren't we serving in the "10/40 Window"? The 10/40 Window is a missions concept created by missiologist Luis Bush in 1990 of the eastern hemisphere located between 10 and 40 degrees north of the equator, a general area that in 1990 was purported to have the highest level of socioeconomic challenges and least access to the Christian message and Christian resources on the planet.
The simpliest reason we can give for why we ourselves aren't in the 10/40 Window is that God has not called us to be there. In fact, I would argue that most American missionaries, due to socio-political factors, would have pretty limited success there anyway based on the fact that they are from the United States. That being said, the part of the world where the 10/40 Window lies may be more open to other races and cultures - other postcolonial cultures rather than receive further "colonizer" influence (The US & Europe). Our job, simply put, is to train up Mexican and other international missionaries. These non-white, non-American missionaries can get into places where we can't. God has given them favor with other cultures that we don't have. This is a tough thing to accept for many Americans who still believe the rest of the world loves us!
And Latin America is beginning to produce and disciple quality missionaries to other cultures. In the foto below are a Mexican couple and their infant daughter who are serving in a Muslim country in the Middle East. They are the reason we're in Mexico!
Surreality...Stealing the Sand of Cancun's Beach
We've often said that Mexico is one of the most surreal countries on the planet. Maybe it's because tequila was invented here....or maybe this...who knows. But perhaps this takes the cake. According to today's AP News: "Surprised tourists found their little piece of Cancun beach paradise
ringed by crime-scene tape and gun-toting sailors on Thursday.
Environmental enforcement officers backed by Mexican navy personnel closed off hundreds of feet (dozens of meters) of powder-white coastline in front of a hotel accused of illegally accumulating sand on its beach.
Mexico spent $19 million to replace Cancun beaches washed away by Hurricane Wilma in 2005. But much of the sand pumped from the sea floor has since washed away, leading some property owners to build breakwaters in a bid to retain sand. The practice often merely shifts sand loss to beaches below the breakwaters.
"Today we made the decision to close this stretch of ill-gotten, illegally accumulated sand," said Patricio Patron, Mexico's attorney general for environmental protection. "This hotel was telling its tourists: 'Come here, I have sand ... the other hotels don't, because I stole it.'"
Lasting Fruits...
We recently went to the Centros de Fe convention in South Central Mexico, so we took advantage of being down there to do some traveling and to see some of our former students.
One of the toughest things about being teachers at Calvary Ministry Institute is that we have to say goodbye to generation after generation of students, but it's always great to see them and hear how they're doing and what they're doing.
This is Jacobo, a youth pastor in Queretaro. He is originally from a village of indigenous people, speaking Mixteco along with Spanish. Now he's in a big city, working with urban youth. He loves it and is doing great!
At the convention we got to spend time with former students, now pastors in Mexico City and in Puebla. Times like these help us to see the impact we are making not only in the time they are here in El Carmen, but in their lives and in the lives of their congregations.
I'm grateful to be able to see the fruits of our labors, and I love seeing them thrive and succeed in their callings!
Our activities over the past few weeks...
Thanks to the swine flu, the academic year was extended into July so we've been quite busy over the last few weeks getting everything wrapped up. This is what we've been up to lately:
Greg's Apologetics class had an exposition of different religions during the final week of school. Here second year students Marisol & Lolis are explaining Buddhism.
My princesses group had their coronation this past Sunday.
Ten Bible School students from the 2006-09 Generation graduated!
Two of our second year students, Roman & Cynthia, got married last Sunday night.
Recent Comments