For Ken & Kris (a visual memory)

Last week when we were in Querétaro finishing up our annual visa renewals, we explored a mountaintop that used to be barren.  It now is a fancy community complete with a Superama!  (a trendy supermarket with some American imported products)

On our way back down the mountain I spied the following scene below us.  Beth's brother and sister should recognize this area very well.  For the rest of you who have no idea what this is about, the little community in the valley is called Hercules.  Beth's family lived there for several years before leaving Mexico for Chicago.  I recall visiting them in their Hercules home in 1990.

Between the train whistles throughout the night, the 30 second factory whistle (at 3:30 a.m.  3:58 a.m., and 4 a.m.), the church/monastery bell at 5:30 a.m. next door, dogs barking and the roosters crowing on all sides (all night), I don't remember sleeping very well!  They said you get used to it...I guess after you're dead from sleep deprivation!


Just thought you'd like to see it again, Ken and Kris!

Christ, Our Passover Lamb

Joined by our teammates Tim & Michelle O'Brien and their four children, Jason, Kristin, and Justin, Jenny, Ivan, Chloe, and Isaac, and Beth Hanna we celebrated Resurrection Sunday with a semblance of a Messianic Passover Seder meal.  We've never participated in one before and have never observed one either.  

We followed a script, and we used whatever ingredients we could locate that would closely approximate the items from both an OT description as well as a traditional Jewish perspective.  I doubt we came too close to either one, but the symbolism was interesting.  The Scriptures read and alluded to were what really made the experience special.  Seeing Christ as our Passover Lamb and the One to whom the ancient Passover meal looked forward to and also the One who we remember and on whom we reflect as the fulfillment of Passover, not just for the Jewish nation but for all of us who call upon His name.

Beth did find a large leg of lamb in the market which was neat.  We followed the little symbolic ceremony with a larger meal.  Some really liked like the lamb but others deferred to chicken.  The foods were not what were important, but the worship from the heart and the honoring of our lovely Savior.

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!

Shhh!  Don't tell anyone what we did with the lamb bone!

Visual Ironies of Semana Santa

Before I get to the point of the title of this post, I should mention the great news that our annual visa renewal process concluded today.  We now have our new visas (good for another year) which are required for our presence and ministry here.  It's always a challenge to find that April is one of our busiest months of the year with SAT testing and MK camp and we're supposed to have our visa documents on our person at all times, especially when driving, and then find that we have lots of local driving to do without any papers in-hand.  So, we're always relieved to get through these 3 or 4 weeks (sometimes more) without having them.  Another plus is that the immigration system here now allow us to finish the process in Querétaro instead of Mexico City.  This saved us a lot of time (it takes 2 days for immigration appointments in Mexico City).  This only took us a few hours today.  It probably saved us at least $200 in bus fares, a hotel stay, and our meals.  Praise God for getting us through this once more!

It was that trip we took to Querétaro this morning that presented us with the images of irony in this land of paradoxes.  As we pulled onto the 6 lane highway toward Querétaro this morning, we noticed that with the coming of this "Holy Week" ("Semana Santa" in Spanish) the traffic was thick with workers trying to finish up their duties so they could join the steady stream of vacationers flowing out of the Mexico City population basin.  While I was busy trying to avoid running into the back of trucks that were traveling at 50 mph, I was keeping a watchful eye on the rear-view mirror for the cars flying out of Mexico City at 90 to 100 mph.  That's pretty much the norm for this route, but the heavier traffic made it a little more challenging.  

As if that wasn't enough to keep my attention, we noticed that the shoulder of the roadway was filling up with bicyclists, some of them lugging a small shrine (a box with a doll of the Virgin Mary inside).  There are pilgrimages throughout the year, and of course, during the Semana Santa these are common.  At one point, a contingency of cyclists took up the shoulder and the 3rd lane.  This added to the traffic perils since it was tough to see this from a distance with the trucks obstructing the view ahead and then finding the traffic quickly merging left to avoid the cyclists.

These Holy Week images on the highway contrasted with the observation on our way home in the afternoon that the prostitutes that work right on the side of the highway were more numerous today than at other times.  We weren't intentionally counting or even noticing them but I would guess there were three times the normal number of them.  We wondered, why were there so many more today?  My guess would be that with the increased traffic of Semana Santa this presents a "business opportunity" for these women.

Obviously, you understand the paradoxes presented by these worldly images of "Holy Week."  To us they are reminders of the continuing spiritual needs of this great nation.  Mexico is very much a place populated by hedonistic materialists, religiously lost zealots, and spiritually entrapped and enslaved people.  

May God continue working through missionaries and national believers, including us, in reaching out to the millions here who need the real Jesus, the "friend of sinners" and the Savior of all who call upon His name.

MK CAMP 2011

14 MKs (plus a few younger siblings)
1 Broken Nose (from one of the younger siblings!)
15 Missionary Adults
29 Hearts Challenged, Comforted, & Encouraged!

Thanks for praying!

I think this pretty much sums it up...

MK CAMP BEGINS TODAY!

One of the top highlights of each year is a couple of days of camp with some of our MKs from the area.  Every one of them is a homeschooler and every one of them is very special in God's sight (and ours too!), and every one of them has needs just like everyone else.  May God use the next few days to encourage, challenge, and refresh each one of them.

There will be 14 MKs and 15 adults, including designated "grandparents!"  How awesome is that?!?  

Please pray for this time to be everything God wants it to be, and pray for all these kids:

Matthew

Mikayla

Kaitlyn

Priscilla

Josiah

Tabitha

Kathryn

Samuel

Tucker

Kendra

Tara

Ben

Cameron

Dayton

The Great Commission

Jesus told His disciples to go, make disciples, baptize them, and teach them to obey all that He's commanded them.   It has been our great honor to go wherever Jesus tells us to go, and to have a part in making disciples who are Jesus followers.

These past couple years we've been blessed to obey Jesus' great commandment in ministering to Jason and Kristin.  After seeing them become disciples of Jesus and teaching them the Bible, today it was especially sweet to have a hand in baptizing them with water.  Of course, they've already been baptized into the body of Christ by the Holy Spirit when they repented of their sin and placed their faith in Christ alone as their Savior.  Today, this water baptism was simply a visible, public identification with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and that they are not ashamed to be called disciples of Jesus and children of God.  We're thrilled to see them take this step of obedience and public confession.

Of course, another highlight today was baptizing our own Dayton.  He's young and still learning the basics, but he knows what it means to be a believer and that he has and is trusting in Christ alone as his Savior.  What a thrill to baptize him!

He was thrilled too!  He woke up this morning and came out dressed in his best clothes saying,  "I'm ready for church!"

Beth said, "But we're going to a swimming place!"

Dayton replied, "Well, I AM getting baptized!"

He went back in his room and eventually came out wearing his bathing suit! Funny kid.

Dead, Buried, and Risen Again

What an awesome privilege and experience to witness and participate in water baptisms today!  At the special invitation of the New Birth Bible Church in Querétaro, our small Sunday fellowship joined them in a special baptism service at a local water park.  Beth took at least one photo of each one who was baptized.

There were several unique aspects that made today's baptisms very special.

One special thing was that out of our CAM ministry team's four families, three of our families each had one child baptized.  

Second, in each of these cases, the dad was blessed to baptize his own son!  In the case of Bryan Smith's son, he was baptized by BOTH of his grandfathers and his dad (Bryan)!  How cool is that?!?

Third, I was blessed to baptize both Jason, Kristin, and our own Dayton!  I can't describe how awesome that was.  Even though our little "congregation" is an English-speaking group, I was asked to be do my part in Spanish.  That was a little challenging but I prepared my lines ahead of time and basically had them memorized.  I'm glad I did.  I think I would have totally blanked out while standing in the pool with  over 50 people standing around watching and listening!

In the photos below you'll see our teammates baptizing their sons and the individuals from the New Birth Bible Church who were baptized.  Since there are many photos here, I'll post separately the photos from the baptisms I helped perform.

 

"March Dry & Dusty Brings..."

"...April Drier and Dustier...oh yeah...and a Few Flowers Too."

No spring rains here in San Juan del Rio.  It is hot, dry and dusty.  That's normal for March, April, May, and sometimes June, July, August, and October.  In November, December, January, and February, it's cooler and dry.  It sometimes is rainy in September and can be from May to October but not always.  Glad I cleared that up.

The pics below are of a few flowers that have arrived in Beth's little garden.

Aside from these there is a lime (limon) tree and a lot of green, leafy plants and grasses that have particular names.  I just don't know any of the names.  It's better that way.  They would all die as soon as I knew their names, I'm sure.  Not that I would kill them intentionally.  It's just that my horticultural skills rank behind my culinary skills, and my culinary skills are only limited by my ability to stop pouring the cereal out of the box.  Enough said.

A Prayer Chain (of a different class...and species)

"A Prayer Chain"...get it?!?  Today, my buddy Brock just happened to notice a strange pod on this chain hanging outside of our kitchen.  I looked up and discovered what came from inside that pod.  A whole congregation of praying mantises had been born from that pod and had made their way up the chain!

I was thinking of calling them "praying McMantises."  (*ugh*)

Here is a little bit of information about their breeding which I discovered here.

BREEDING

      Breeding season is in the summer in temperate areas. After mating, the female will lay groups of 12-400 eggs in the autumn, in a "frothy" liquid called an "ootheca", that turns into a hard protective shell. This is how these insects survive during the wintertime. Small mantids emerge in the spring. Often, their first meal is a sibling. Young mantids or nymphs, also eat leafhoppers, aphids and small flies. Young mantids will shed many times before it is full grown. It takes an entire summer or growing season for mantids to mature to adulthood. One generation develops each season. Many species of mantids resemble ants when they are small, but as they go through a series of molts, they begin to look more like adult mantids.