Ixtapaluca on Wednesday Afternoon

To all:

I´m at the internet cafe that´s two blocks down the street from the church building in the neighborhood of Ixtapaulca. I´ve got more time to blog, so this might be a little longer than normal.

Today was another good day. We had 128 students today from children all the way through 12th grade. We had teaching time, crafts and a serious water balloon fight for the older kids. Darroll and I went searching for rope, as we mistakenly left the ropes for our rope tricks back at church.

Marta (both my host and the leader of the VBS) expressed her gratefulness to us all for coming down. She is a really neat woman. I can´t believe all the organization that is necessary for this to come off.

Each day I´ve gotten to know another person from Mexico. Usually it starts with an introduction and the Mexicana speaking too fast for me. I´ll ask them to slow down and after I´ve attempted to answer their questions or we´ve finished introductions, I´ll start asking about their families (children, husband, etc..). Then I talk with them until I´m needed elsewhere or they need to go.

OBSERVATIONS

I´m going to backtrack and give you a few observations from the last few days, now that we´re past the halfway point of the trip. The Mexicanas are extremely nice to us here. Darrol has told us that they´ll literally give you the shirt off their backs if you ask, or if they perceive that you need it. I´ve already been asked to come to two other homes for a meal or for coffee or tea.

As an example, I´m staying with a family that has a 20 year old daughter still living with them. They have only 2 bedrooms in their home, and they have put my in the daughter´s room. I haven´t yet figured out exactly what occurs when I go to bed, but either the daughter sleeps on the floor in the parent´s bedroom (and then goes to work before I get up) or she and the parents share the master bed or one of them sleeps downstairs. Whatever the case, they´re making a significant sacrifice of convenience to have me stay.

Every night that I´ve come in, if I don´t make it very clear that I´ve already eaten, Marta will begin preparing supper for me. As mentioned, the families are VERY social. The last two nights I´ve come back to a houseful of family. I´ve stayed up talking with my host family until nearly 12:30 a.m. every day I´ve been here.

Jesus Maria is a little ¨community¨of about 24, 000 houses. Most are two story with a living room, kitchen and bathroom on the first floor, all of which are very small. There is also a laundry room that is actually outside or appears to be so. On the upper floor their are two bedrooms and a bath. I´ve never been good at judging square feet, but I´d guess the ¨normal¨ house to be about 600 to 800 square feet, and I might be on the high side.

We feel very safe here. Most of the places we´re staying are in a gated area and I´ve not seen anything that made me worried since I´ve been here. The streets are alive with people till after midnight. Mexicanas are not quiet people, and the ¨social¨nature of the culture spills into the streets as well.

Overall, I have to say that this trip has been a MUCH easier adjustment than Cambodia. The houses are clean, as are the streets.

The students are getting along great with their Mexican counterparts. They played soccer yesterday and oftentimes hang out together at night. What they lack in communication skills, they make up for in other ways. Some of the girls attended a Zumba class and had a great time.

MINISTRY STRATEGY

As I´ve learned from other mission trips, you need to use different bait to catch different fish. Here in Mexico, the methods of evangelism differ from those in the states. Here, as I have mentioned before, everything is relational.

Marta´s hope and plan for VBS is this: At the end of the week, she will have the names and addresses of all the students who have attended VBS. On Saturday, all of the parents will be invited to attend the final activities of VBS. After we leave, each of the teachers will have a group of families to call on for follow up. They will visit the houses as get to know the families (if they don´t already) and will work to invite them to church. Then, in December, they will see how many of the families or children that attended VBS are attending the church. They will then work to analyze the success of this year´s VBS and then respond accordingly.

CULTURAL CHALLENGES

One of the issues we´ve discussed is family life, and the benefit that occurs when the father of the house becomes a Christian. In Mexico is it very common for the father to have a ¨casa chica¨, which is what we´d call a mistress. In some cases, he may even have a second family that his wife may or may not know about. While this seems impossible to us, the wife often knows very little about the husband´s business, and often has no idea how much money her husband makes.

Domestic abuse is also common, both for the wife and the children. I´ve spoken with both my host family and with the missionaries about this. One of the beautiful changes that takes place when a man becomes a Christian in Mexico is that these sinful types of behaviors begin to disappear. As the men are discipled, they are taught Christ´s teaching of how a man is to love his wife as Christ loves the church and what this involves in his home life. Although I didn´t understand all of the story, my host family told me of a person they knew who beat their wife and children regularly. The man became a Christian and the man´s behavior changed and the house became the refuge that God intended it to be.

One complication for missionaries is what to do when a man becomes a Christian after he has already fathered two different families. If the man totally cuts off financial support of the second family, they will descend into poverty, and the children will essentially be without a father figure in their lives. It takes great discernment as to what to do in these situations.

Another issue is that of honesty. Corruption is rampant in Mexico, both in the police and in other areas of life. The effect this has on the average citizen´s life is significant. The challenge for the church is not only to promote honesty and to resist corruption, but also to know when church leaders are ¨being had¨. Often times they will be told something, but only because the person wants to save face, and didn´t mean what they said. Not that this doesn´t happen in our own country, but the issue is much worse on a societal scale here.