¡Viva la Vida!

Happy Children's Day!

Today in Mexico they celebrate Children's Day... I went to a little program at Jackson's school where they talked about all the countries who celebrate this day - 24 of them! Earlier, when I woke Jackson up and told him Happy Day, I reminded him that they don't celebrate this day in the US, which made him curious. It also makes me curious! Why not??

"Don't you see that children are God's best gift? The fruit of the womb His generous legacy? Like a warrior's fistful of arrows are the children of a vigorous youth. Oh, how blessed are you parents, with your quivers full of children! Your enemies don't stand a chance against you; you'll sweep them right off your doorstep." Psalm 127:3-5 The Message

And the winner is...

JACKSON! Yesterday was the town's celebration of Children's Day. There were 1,800 children there, and Jackson won a nice new bicycle! They gave away about 20 bikes, and here he is with his friend Alison, and her brand new bike as well.

By the way, I have posted a bunch of new pics in the Mexico 2007 photo album in the left margin.

Old Friends

We had an email last week that was full of email addresses of people from our old church in Boone... we're talking late 80's and early 90's. We started communicating with a few of them which led to more email addresses, which led to blog sitesand myspace sites, which led to getting back in touch with friends we haven't seen in years and years. These are the people that we all watched go through college, fall in and out of love (a few times for some of them!), grow in God, get married (some of them!) and go on to have families and careers and what-not. We've put their blogs on our "Interesing Sites to Visit" so go and check them out.

A Blast to the Past

Trinity Church of Omaha, Nebraska is taking a very large team of teenagers to Masatepe, Nicaragua in June. I (jan) am so excited because today they told me that they will bring me down to help Angela Benitez with all the logistics of the trip! I know that I will be a big help to her since I know the country, the culture, the language, the pastors, the places, etc. (we lived there for three years). It is going to be great ministering with my friends there... not just the Nicaraguans but my friends from Nebraska as well.

Please keep this trip in your prayers. It has the potential to impact the lives of 100 American teenagers as well as the people of Nicaragua they will be with. Thank God for a church that really prepares their groups before a trip and sends them well-informed into the nations.

Ministerios de Amor (Ministries of Love)

When we were in Cuernavaca we stayed and worked with a group of Children's Homes called "Ministerios de Amor."  This ministry rescues street children from Mexico City and relocates them into stable, loving group homes.  It was started in 1987 by Cecilia Blanchet Pezet (at left) who is a wonderful and powerful woman of faith and vision. 

        Zack making new friends ===>

<=== These kids were taken in off the streets

A State of Conflict in Mexico

Mexico has for some time been in a state of conflict with powerful drug cartels.    This year the conflict has intensified with scores of police officers killed and hundreds more abandoning their job due to the high rate of danger.  Things have gotten so bad in our state (Nuevo Leon) that last month the governor asked the federal government to send in federal troops to help contain the cartels.  This happened also in Tijuana where federal troops disarmed the police force because so many police officers have been bought off by the cartels.

On Monday 112 police officers here in the Monterrey area were detained by the military as suspected operatives of the cartels - including four officers in our town of El Carmen.   We've seen a marked increase in the Mexican army's presence here over the last month.  There are checkpoints on major highways and columns of army vehicles patrolling the highways.

A couple of hours ago an army helicopter was circling low over El Carmen - perhaps looking for narco traffickers or perhaps just on a patrol.  You'd think we'd feel a little freaked out by the stepped up military presence but actually it's reassuring.  It's good to know that the new Felipe Calderon government is making good on its promises of cracking down on the narcos.

Eyes Wide Open

Recently a friend of ours sent us a book called "Serving With Eyes Wide Open:  Doing Short-Term Missions With Cultural Intelligence" by David Livermore which was written for North Americans going on short-term missions trips. It was a very interesting read for us and it challenges a lot of common thoughts about short-term trips. I know I will be writing more about it in the weeks to come...

I read the book in the first days of our mission trip with the Mexican Bible school students. I wanted to see if the Mexicans would adapt some of the same attitudes and thoughts that we North Americans take on when we go on a trip. To tell you the truth, I didn't see many similarities. I can say that as well from my trip to India with Mexican pastors and leaders. They think so differently!

One example is that the Mexicans are not task driven on a trip. So many times we have seen teams come here and to Nicaragua and they rise early and work all day and then fall into beds at night because they came to do a job and they are going to get it done! That's a strength and a weakness of our culture, I'm not saying it is good or bad, just different... here in Mexico they sometimes took hours to sit at the table and talk with the hosts about their lives and then took time to pray with them. It was much more relational than any trip I have taken with North Americans, but less "productive " in a physical sense.

Another thing that was very different than a trip with North Americans is that there was no "plan" per se. We didn't have an agenda and we were taken here and there on a whim. It was a little difficult to have a trip like that, not knowing what we were doing from day to day, but it all turned out okay. There was only one Mexican on our team that asked me almost every day, "What is the plan?" and I had to tell him every day "I don't know!" We got a good laugh out of that.

Back from our Missions Trip

We returned last night from our two-week missions trip.  As the previous post stated, we first went to Cuernavaca and then last week we were in Hueytlalpan, a small pueblo deep in the Sierra Mountains.  In the pic on the left, Zack is directing a children's outreach we did. 

We're glad to be back but not sure we've rested enough to jump back into things!

Semana Santa Travels

We´ve been travelling around Mexico for a week with the students from the Bible School and have another week ahead of us before we return to El Carmen.  Last week we were in Cuernavaca and stayed at a Children's Home which takes in street kids from Mexico City.  On Saturday we went to the city of Puebla and today we're getting ready to head out to an indigenous village deep in the Sierra Madre mountains.  We'll have more stories and pictures up as soon as we get back to El Carmen.