¡Viva la Vida!

Our Talented Videographers

We're proud that our two eldest sons, along with their cell group, won first prize in a church-wide contest of youth last Saturday night.  Their video is called "How NOT to Evangelize" and, though it's in Spanish, you shouldn't have any problems understanding the message they're trying to get across (they're working on getting English subtitles on it!).  Enjoy!

RIP Santa Muerte Idols in Nuevo Laredo!

Nuevo Laredo is an industrial city just across the Rio Grande from Laredo, TX and is where we normally pass through on our way to Laredo.  Not a place for the faint of heart, Nuevo Laredo is a big operations zone of the cartels and for five years has been a war zone of battles between cartels and the government as well as cartel vs cartel violence and the government against itself (feds vs city police) shootouts - well anyway, it's a place of very complicated violence.  One striking thing in Nuevo Laredo on the way to the border crossing is a section of highway where one passes a series of small chapels dedicated to the Santa Muerte (Saint Death) - the grim reaper - the adopted god protector in the narco cartel subculture.  These chapels have been steadily increasing - from only a few back in 2006 to now more than 30.  They're incredibly creepy because of the many grim reaper images and the way people place sacrifices of food, fruit, bottles of beer and tequila, cigarettes, etc at their altars.  There's even a wooden stand where candles, insence, and Santa Muerte trinkets like necklaces & pendants are sold.  So yesterday something very interesting happened: the Mexican army moved in and destroyed all the Santa Muerte roadside chapels! I was actually surprised when I saw the story on Yahoo news but it's true. We'd just stopped there last Friday on our way back to Monterrey to show a visiting team what it was.

Since this blogpost two weeks ago, the Mexican government has arrested two top-tier cartel lords as well as "secured" the blood-soaked city of Juarez (a relative term I know but for now they've reduced the murders by 70% there).  Judgement has arrived for the narco cartels.  Their leaders are getting arrested and their idols are being broken.  "Woe to the city of blood," says the Lord Almighty, "I too will make the pyre great..." (Ezekiel 24:9)  

UPDATE:

On Friday we passed the area in Nuevo Laredo where all the chapels dedicated to the Santa Muerte were located and indeed they're all completely gone - with not even a single brick or trace of what was there before.  Since posting this last week, some interesting comments have been added.  Check 'em out!   

Another news story:  "Mexico's Death Cult Protests Shrine Destruction" (Associated Press)

What a week - from having students in jail to bomb threats at WalMart...

With the semester ending last week, I thought this week was going to be relatively quiet.  Big mistake.  On Monday I decided to take a group of my Bible School guys for an all-day outing in Monterrey.  We went to a mall, saw a movie, and then took the Metro down to the city center to hang out.  Well I left them for a couple of hours (ok, I confess - I went to Starbucks!) and while I was sitting there enjoying my chai one of my guys called me with a panicked voice - he explained that a police patrol had passed and arrested four of my guys.  For what?, you may ask.  Well two of them decided to relieve themselves in public.  Apparently the Monterrey police take peeing in public as a very grave offense.  Not only did they arrest the two guys actually peeing - they grabbed the two who were standing nearby waiting on them.  Fortunately these four were the stragglers and the other ten or so guys were much further down the street.  Otherwise the whole lot of them probably would've ended up in the slammer.  So I rush to the jail in that part of the city and learn that the fee to get them out is 500 pesos each (about $40 US) or 24 hours locked in jail and, upon talking to the school's director, I had to inform my four guys that they'd better get comfortable - no bailout!  Apparently the director figured that 24 hours behind bars would be a good lesson for them!  So they did their time and I got them out the next night.  On Wednesday morning they went in front of all the students during morning chapel and "testified" of their experience - to the giggles and catcalls of their peers.  Yeah, they deserved it!

So on Thursday Jan and I drove up to Laredo, TX with Pastor David and his wife Monica.  We decided to go up early, shop, and spend the night before having to pick up the Refuge, NC team who were due to arrive on Friday morning.  We had a nice dinner at Tony Roma's and then headed over, like millions of Americans do each day, to WalMart.  We'd been in WalMart for nearly an hour (it was about 9 pm) when several announcements went out (both in Spanish & English) to quickly vacate the store.  Panicked WalMart associates were running around shuffling frightened customers to the exits.  One associate, a woman in her 50s, herself barely restraining her own panic, came up to me and asked me to leave.  When I asked her if I could first buy the several items I had she repeated the order but with a more pitched voice - "Sir, you've got to get out of here!"  It was then I noticed dozens of police officers filing into the store.  I immediately thought that maybe there was going to be a gang shootout in the store but the cops didn't have their sidearms drawn and neither did they have their hands on their sidearms.  Hmmmm...  Then I noticed firemen entering.  Several ladies were sobbing as they exited with an officer trying to reassure them.  My concern was for the pastor, Monica and Jan, but then I saw them walking out as I headed past the registers.  Outside I asked an officer what was going on and he said that it was a bomb threat.  We learned the next day by the local newspaper report that a Laredo court was about to sentence a drug trafficker and that rumors were flying that his cartel had threatened to bomb several local businesses in retaliation, WalMart being among them.  Whether true or not, it put the people in that particular WalMart in a heart-fluttering panic.  So after we had left the WalMart and were about to get into David's Suburban he turned to us and said wryly, "And I thought Mexico was dangerous!"  Yes...point taken!  Let's hope this week is exciting in a much better way.

Expanding influence

Our church, Centro de Fe El Carmen, was for years a small body of believers meeting in a small chapel at the Bible School.  When our pastor, David Avila, became pastor in 2001 one of the first things he proposed was to move the church out of the cramped quarters.  He said he knew that as long as the church stayed where it was its mentality would never change.  So he and the elders scraped together some funds and purchased a lot six blocks away and adjacent to a nice park.  The church soon began meeting there under tarps.  Soon ground was broken on a building - and not a small one - and in two years of hard work the structure went up.  In the ensuing five years since, we've finished it bit by bit - most recently putting in a ceiling and tile floor.  But now we have new challenges - the church, which hovered around 50 members for more than fifty years, has now grown to more than ten times that figure.  Now on a Sunday morning it is filling up to near capacity of 700 people!  We are in danger of becoming El Carmen's "mega-church"! 

Growth, of course, brings unique leadership challenges and I've seen these challenges adequately addressed.  The healthiest thing our church can do at this juncture is to continue to expand our reach outward within this community of 8,000 inhabitants.  One of the most deeply impacting ministries of the church is our Christian elementary school, called Instituto México Nuevo, which has the reputation as the best school in town, and this fall we're opening up a middle school which will use our church facilities.  In addition to supporting, staffing and equipping these two schools, our church is well positioned to begin planting new churches in our area.  Last fall we planted a mission church in one of the poorest communities just outside the city limits.  It's in an area called "The Mission" (yes, a mission church in the Mission gets a bit confusing!) and this new planting is growing and getting established.  It's exciting to be a part of all this, and even though my personal involvement is more in the Bible School, our church is a good model for the Bible School students to see and learn from during their time here.

2020 Olympic Games - MONTERREY ?

The city of Monterrey, Mexico has a bid in to be the host city for the 2020 Summer Olympics. This video says it all - complete with a classic Sinatra song!  Monterrey, however, has some pretty stiff competition with the following cities:  Cape Town & Durban, South Africa; Busan, South Korea; Delhi, India; Doha, Qatar; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Istanbul, Turkey; Prague, Czech Rep.; Rome, Italy; Lima, Peru; Toronto, Canada; and in the U.S. - Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Birmingham, AL.  The International Olympic Committee will narrow down these cities to five or so and then is expected, in mid-2013, to announce the winner.  Go Monterrey!!!

Is it safe?

Is it safe?  This is the question more and more missions groups and others are continually asking us.  Is it safe?  More specifically they ask  - is it safe to come to Mexico?  This is a complicated question.  Recently my parents decided to come and visit us in the month of May and I thought long and hard if I wanted them to actually come.  Do I want to explain all this to them?  How could I tell them about what I've seen in the last six years living in Latin America?  People stabbed to death - one murdered right on our doorstep - gang members breaking into our house at night while we slept - a thousand dangers, close calls, brushes against the angel of death's cold wings - and yet here we still are.  Not one hair on my head or my family's has been harmed.  I've walked through the valley of maras and looked them straight in the face; I watched as a cold blooded killer rescued my son from drowning, and even had dinner with him another time.  He saved my son but how many people has he gunned down?  How could anyone who hasn't been here understand how we've redefined safety?

"He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty." - Psalm 91:1

Armed men in SUVs drive around carrying out hits.  The army patrols sweep through town and sometimes there are ambushes and they have firefights.  Grenades were thrown into a peaceful crowd last September celebrating Independence Day.  Schoolchildren regularly encounter corpses, headless and hands bound, on their way to school.  This is normal.  This is our life now.  But is it safe?

"I will say to the Lord, 'He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.'  Surely he will save you from the fowler's snare and from the deadly pestilence."  - Psalm 91:2,3

Recently we bought some chicks.  They're vulnerable little things that go about peeping and pecking at the ground all day.  There are a thousand predators running around that could make a quick meal out of them.  Yet they roam around our front yard confidently knowing we're watching over them.  But are they safe?  If their mother were around she would protect them.  The Bible uses this as a fitting illustration:

"He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart."  - Psalm 91:4

This is a beautiful picture and carries a powerful truth:  we are not alone.  We are protected.  The Psalm continues to say that the Most High will command his angels to guard us.  Curiously, a few verses later, it says:  "I will be with him in trouble."  It doesn't say "I will keep my servant out of trouble."  Now I think I'm beginning to understand the difference.  Perhaps true "safety" resides in the midst of trouble.

So...is it safe?  I still don't know how to answer that question.  Like I said...it's complicated.  Last week in Laredo an agent of the U.S. Border Patrol asked me point blank why we haven't left Mexico for the safety of the U.S.  Would he understand my version of safety?  I didn't even really try and explain why.  Why do we live in the midst of so much violence?  Are we trapped here?  Perhaps, after all, it's not so much that we're trapped in Mexico with the likes of vicious killers, drug lords, and assassins.  No... 

Perhaps they're trapped here with us.

"You will tread upon the lion and the cobra;
you will trample the great lion and the serpent."
                                                 - Psalm 91:13

"  

"Therefore thus says the Lord God:
'Woe to the city of blood!  I too will make the pyre great.'"
        - Ezekiel 24:9

To my fellow citizens of the city of blood,
I salute you with a greeting of peace.
You, who live with me under the daily threat
Of murder, kidnapping, intimidation and fear:
What a cursed city our habitation has become -
Twisted and torn by every sin;
A place where vultures sit and wait
For the jackals to finish their day's work.
Death's bountiful harvest
Has refreshed our dusty cemeteries
And our streets are irrigated with blood.

«Así dice el Señor Omnipotente:  '¡Ay de la ciudad de sangres!  Pues también haré yo gran hoguera.'» 

             - Ezequiel 24:9

A mis conciudadanos de la ciudad de sangres,

Yo les saludo con un saludo de la paz.

Ustedes, que viven conmigo bajo la amenaza diaria
De asesinato, el secuestro, la intimidación y el temor:

Qué ciudad maldecida nuestra habitación ha llegado a ser -

Torcida y rota por cada pecado;

Un lugar donde buitres se sientan y esperan los chacales para terminar el trabajo de su día.

La cosecha generosa de la muerte ha refrescado nuestros cementerios polvorientos

Y nuestras calles son irrigadas con sangre.

Zack has broken a Guinness World Record

Yesterday Zack, along with 15,000 others, broke the Guinness World Record for the world's largest human-formed heart in Monterrey's Parque Fundidora.