Trip to Coicoyán country, June 2007

Last week I joined the crew from To Every Tribe in Oaxaca, in the Coicoyán region of the mountains. It was an interesting trip getting there. The first day was spent traveling to and through the mountains to Oaxaca City, The second day I drove in the mountains to the town of Juxtlahuaca,. Upon arrival I went to the house of missionaries Martín and Karen Arroyo, and enjoyed playing a bit of music with their girls, who are learning guitar, and then went with Martín to the local jail for a bit of ministry before joining the To Every Tribe team. It was fun to tell them, “I would have been here sooner, but I had to wait for Martín to get me out of jail.”

The next day we drove over the mountains to the village of Jicaral, where we’ve done medical and dental clinics before. This time there was no hesitation on the part of the local folks to get in on the dental services we were bringing; they were waiting before the clinic could even get set up. We were grateful for the local translation help, because in this region we need double translation: from the local Mixteco dialect to Spanish, and from Spanish to English. We had enough Spanish speakers that we translators could spell each other off, and on the second day I had a good spiritual conversation with a man named Victor. I’ve never seen such spiritual receptivity there.

The third day the team split up, and Kirby Myer, Kevin and Jennifer Davis and family, and I went to the village of San Martín Pérez, where Raúl and Emily Castro are working. The next day Kirby, Raúl, Emily and I went on to the next village, San Juan del Rio, where Emily did a medical clinic, Kirby put in a long day fixing teeth, and I served as chauffer, translator, and dental assistant. We finished about 10 o’clock by candlelight, and then had a 40 minute drive up the mountain.

The last day we ran the clinic in San Martín Pérez, and while dental assisting and translating I had a great conversation with the mother of a 6-year-old; she said that her life had begun changing about 8 months back, and now she wanted to read and know more about the Bible. That evening we and some Bible school students from Ensenada were invited to a local home where Raúl is beginning to have Bible studies. The music once again was a universal language. The evening at the home ended with some really tough beef which had been soaked in a blazing hot chili gravy, as the Bible school students were telling riddles whose answers hung on puns in Spanish. I understood all but one, so there may be hope. (Why is Oseas [Hosea] the most “freso” book in the Bible? If you know, help!)

The Isuzu Trooper had its mountain trial, and was a real blessing to the team and to me. While we were doing the first ministry trip ever in San Juan del Rio, the rest of the team was opening up a new village, La Trinidad, several hours beyond Jicaral. The district medical official in San Martín Pérez gave us a formal letter of invitation to come back with whatever medical and dental help we might bring.

Above all, I’m thankful to God for the new openness and willingness to talk about spiritual things in those mountains. It is no doubt the work of God. He has laid it on the hearts of some few to live among the Coicoyán, others of us get to visit and minister, but I know that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of His people praying that God will open the hearts of these people to the grace of salvation that He has for us through Jesus Christ. All this medical effort is just a means of “making friends through mammon” (Luke 16:9), using the temporary skills and blessings that God has given us with eternal ends in view. We pray that, in That Day, many of the Coicoyán will be there with us in the eternal dwellings. Thanks for your prayers.

La Barra, May 2007

Dear Children of Grace,

I thought I would write to you about a trip we took in Mexico a couple of weeks ago, partly because some of you ask if I’ve eaten any more chicken toes lately. Well it happened again. Let me tell you about some other things first.

We went to the village called La Barra de la Cruz. If you go from the southern tip of Texas straight south, all the way through Mexico, until you get your feet wet in the Pacific Ocean, you’ll be almost there.

We got there the day before they were going to have a fiesta, a big Mexican party for the whole village, and they were busy getting ready. So we went to another village called Chacalapa. (Don’t these Mexican places have great names?) We set up a dental clinic on the front porch of the village city hall. There were a dentist, a teacher of dentists, and five student dentists, so we could help almost anyone who had teeth.

There were also five other translators, so I mostly got to play guitar and sing Christian songs, and also talk to people. The people were very friendly, and some of them even took songbooks and sang along with me, even a man who had a very nice voice. I got to talk to them about Jesus Christ, and gave out some gospels of John.

That night we slept in our tents in a grove of papaya trees. The next day, the day of the fiesta, we had decided to not have the dental clinic. After all, would you rather go to a party or have your teeth cleaned? We went swimming in the ocean in the morning, and in the afternoon went to the party. There were lots of things to eat, a band playing music, people dancing in colorful costumes from that area, and a contest on horseback where the riders tried to spear little gold rings that hung from a rope across the street. Each gold ring had a girl’s name attached to it, and if her ring got taken by a rider, she got a prize. The littlest rider was probably about 10 years old, and his horse didn’t want to obey him. Everyone cheered when he finally got a ring.

The next day we set up in the new clinic building in La Barra. Once again, I got to sing and talk to lots of people. I gave one gospel of John to a boy named David (they pronounce it Dă-vīd′), and I told him I’d tell him more about it later. Some of us also read Bible story books with pictures to kids.

The next morning I was in the clinic talking with some men who were waiting for their teeth to be taken care of, and then I went outside to sing and play guitar. Every one of the men who was waiting inside came outside; that’s never happened before. I sang a few songs, and then David, from the day before, came along. I got out a gospel of John, and showed him why John wrote what he did. If you’re curious, you can find out in John 20:30-31. Then I told him about how John starts, by talking of Jesus as the Word, and the Light, and the Life, and what that means. Then I told him about how John likes to tell a story about Jesus and then gives some teaching that goes along with what happened. All the men were listening closely, and some who had been passing on the street came over to hear. When I got through, I gave away all the gospels of John I had in my guitar case, and had to send a boy inside to the reception table to get more, because everybody wanted one. You can pray that God will use His word to bring them salvation.

That was the night of the chicken toes. Some of the people in that village do not like us, because we are Christians. Two people who do like us (and there are a lot who like us) are the only Christians in town, and their names are Roberto and his wife Eugenia. They invited some of us to eat with them that night. When we got there, after a little while inside, I took a short walk outside. They called me in for supper, and there at the table, in front of the only place left for me, was the only plate that had a chicken leg, all the way down to the toesies. There were some other plates I could have taken, but I took that one, partly because I have experience eating chicken toes, and because I didn’t want to leave it for anyone else who might not want to eat it. Later on, the other Americans told me that they had sat at other places because they didn’t want to eat the chicken toes. I followed my two rules for eating them. (Do you remember what they are?) [1. Give thanks. 2 Eat it.]

Please pray for the people in La Barra de la Cruz. There are a lot of people there who show the sad effects of sin, and we saw some of it at the fiesta, with even some kids getting drunk. At the same time, I have never seen so much interest there, especially among the men, in hearing about God’s word. We go there because we believe that Jesus has people there who will be saved and will follow him. And that’s what we pray for.

Jim

God’s grace sometimes comes to us in unusual ways. In the last 7 months I’ve gone through two cars. The Buick station wagon had three brake failures last year on trips to Oaxaca. It had been purchased in 1998 for the Lord’s work in Mexico, and was a good servant. It deserves an obituary.

The Chevrolet spent its last six months in Mexico, no doubt the hardest of its life. In its last week here in Querétaro it served as partial transport for a group of young people, but we had to park it and all pile into trucks for the last few miles of trips into the villages we were visiting; the roads were just too rough.

The next Thursday, as I was driving through Iowa to visit mom, the combination of Minnesota rust and Mexican bumps took their toll. The structural member which holds straight the rear wheel on the driver’s side broke; the wheel was free to caster in any old direction, not merely to follow along. For the next several moments, from 75 mph. to zero, the direction the car was pointed, the direction it was actually going, and the direction in which I was steering it became only very loosely related. It nearly left the freeway on the left side, crossed and went more than a car width off on the right, had the rear window smashed by something as it skidded back toward the road, and after a couple more wild careens came to rest partially off the right shoulder.

There are a lot of blessings to count. No one was hurt, and no other vehicles were involved. I had just passed two semis, and had come back to the right lane before passing a third. The car came to rest at the entrance ramp for Osceola, Iowa, and it was a short walk for help. I had canceled the Mexican vehicle permit (unlike the trip in February), so there were no obligations to the Mexican government. And, during the wild ride, the Lord had given perfect calm, clear and concentrated thinking, and assurance that all was in His hands, whatever the outcome.Four days later, after I’d completed the trip to mom’s by bus, Pastor Dennis called and said they had heard about the car, and some folks in the church would provide another one for service in Mexico. Three days later I was presented, by God’s grace, with a 1991 Isuzu Trooper, a car with high clearance and 4-wheel drive, quite suitable for out of the way places in Mexico. Dennis said he’d been told that because of the car’s history it probably  wouldn’t have much resale value, “but it would be okay for someone who wants to drive it until the wheels come off.”

The car went into immediate service. Within minutes I left for south Texas. The next day I joined with a group from Christ Covenant Church in Warsaw, Indiana, and we crossed into Mexico for a week of Bible clubs in two fishing villages, La Poza and La Media Luna. After that week, I returned to Querétaro on Friday for an activity in the San Felipe area here on Saturday.

This is another example of how the body of Christ serves together, and how no one member can do without the others. There was no way I could have secured a vehicle, let alone such a suitable one, in time for what we had planned here in Mexico. But Christ, who is the head of the body, had other members in place, with a will to serve Him by providing a car. I just get to be the one who reaches from GBC into Mexico, in the name of Jesus Christ. But we’re all in this together.

In 2^nd Corinthians 10, the apostle Paul wrote about the foolishness of those who tried to measure themselves  by one another (implied: that Paul did not measure up to them spiritually), then went on to show that the Corinthians could evaluate him by the more objective measure that God had planned for him: that Paul had actually come as far as Corinth first with the Gospel. And Paul’s objective was “to preach the gospel even to the regions beyond you, and not to boast in what has been accomplished in the sphere of another.” And that’s the goal of To Every Tribe: to take the gospel where it hasn’t gone before.

God preserved my life when He could easily have taken me out. He has provided a car that can go beyond where I could ever go before. Maybe He has plans.

I can hardly wait.

Feliz Navidad

 ¡Feliz Navidad! That translates “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Christmas”. Navidad is shortened from “natividad,” which refers to the nativity, or birth, of Jesus. (A little research just revealed that the Roman Catholic Church also celebrates the natividad of the Virgin Mary and of John the Baptist.) It’s been interesting to find that nativity scenes here include Mary, Joseph, the baby, the shepherds and a few animals, the kings, and there’s also a corner of them devoted to demons. Maybe the makers are trying not to get on anyone’s bad side.

Navidad can mean just Christmas Day, or it can mean the whole season, extending to the Día de los Reyes (Day of the Kings), which is January 6th. That’s the traditional day for presents.

Providentially, January 6th is the first Saturday in January, and we have our club in the San Felipe area on the first Saturday of each month. We’ve been planning to end the Bible club session on that day with the distribution of 700 boxes of presents, obtained through the Samaritan’s Purse organization. Last year the boxes were held up at the border until March.

However, last night, at 6:15 p.m., I got a phone call telling me that the boxes had arrived, and that we were scheduled to pick them up at 7:00 p.m. I said, “In 45 minutes?” and the gentleman replied, “That’s right.” I called Enrique and Efraín, who were waiting to help with it, they called others, and by God’s grace we had all 1200 picked up within a couple of hours. The other 500 are for Maranatha Church and for the area of the mission Jesús el Buen Pastor. When another trailer gets here, we’re on a list to get about 200 more, especially considering that last month we expected about 250 in total (adults and kids) and double that number came.

Standing out there last night, chatting with other guys who were there to pick up boxes, I was struck with how right this all feels, knowing the Lord made me to be doing just this. This morning, as I was about to cross the back yard, I waited before opening the door to watch some sparrows that were feeding on the back lawn, and reflected on our Heavenly Father’s care for us. This morning I”ve been working without glasses at the computer, and giving thanks that the Lord has given me reasonably good vision now, after over 55 years of helplessness without glasses. God has sovereignly chosen to be incredibly gracious to me in so many things, large and small. O for grace to praise Him more.

A few days ago I walked for miles and hours through the colonias of Hércules and La Cañada, which extend through a narrow valley. God has not yet given us an entrance there. Last night I was talking to a local guy about it, and he said that he’d investigated the area, that it was the most intensely and obstinately Catholic area in this very traditionally Catholic part of the country. He knew of no gospel witness there. He also mentioned, as I’ve heard from others, that it’s an area of a lot of witchcraft, spiritism, and immorality. Please pray that the Lord will give us an opening there. Jesus did say that He came to save the lost.

  Hi. It’s nice to hear from you. It’s wonderful to hear how the Lord is blessing the church, and us individually through the church.

I’ve been doing well, though for the last few days have been pretty well down with a bad cold. The fever’s down, but I’m still coughing up these ugly yellow globs, and feel a nap coming on every few hours.

We had a good Bible study last night in San Felipe, the new area we’re trying to start a work. Actually, it is in the colonia San Jose lo Alto, which is one of about 25 colonias in that area. It’s hard to describe the way this city is expanding; it’s virtually exploding up the sides of the surrounding mountains, and overflowing into valleys between. A few years ago, in order to say that the city had a million inhabitants, one had to qualify it by saying that included surrounding communities. Now people say it has two million without blinking. There’s a wide field open to bring the gospel

A few weeks ago I was at the house of some friends, the Guzmán’s, and they were telling me about how hard La Cañada and Hércules were against the gospel, and how a guy had been stoned and later deported for preaching there about 40 years ago. A couple weeks later, Any Guzmán told me that she’d run into that man in a park downtown. Last Wednesday I met him. He’s an American missionary who sort of pioneered efforts here in Querétaro. He did get deported, and served in missions for many years in Venezuela, but he returned here about seven years ago. (The deportation came after a picture of him smashing an idol of Mary ran in newspapers all over the country. He told me that it was another guy who got stoned.) I spent an afternoon with him in a village, doing some calling, and it was an interesting time.

I’m on tap to preach next Sunday in Spanish, at a little congregation that does not yet have a building, meeting under a roof right on the edge of town, next to the roaming cactus. So you might pray for me, that God’s word would be accurately taught.

As far as spiritual nourishment, it’s not like home, but I’ve had some wonderful times in the word, and before leaving had formed a habit of listening to internet sermons, so it’s far from starvation. One thing that especially helps me dig in is the prospect of teaching or preaching, and those times when I can do so in Spanish seem particularly joyous; almost seems like it’s just what the Lord had in mind. What a privilege to share His word.

Please bring me, and especially the preaching, up for prayer tonight. I keep thinking I need to update that Xanga site, and one impediment is, that all the things I’m doing seem so normal and natural that there’s nothing special to post. On the other hand, maybe I’ll just post this reply.

God bless you, and keep up those prayers.

Jim