God is good

The past couple of days have been busy but fruitful ones. I am slowly learning what it means to enjoy God and to learn to relax and enjoy his life. I feel like it’s been a slow and long process, but God continues to work and shape me to trust him more. The past few days have just been great examples to me of his love and plan for my life. Wednesday after Spanish classes we had our team training session where we worked on our program for visiting a retirement home next Saturday. It was cool to see how the plan my partner and I came up with just really worked great for the message and testimony that our group members where going to share. We were learning and preparing a few songs and were just hovered around the piano as one of our team members (the only guy, Pat) was playing the piano and we were all singing. It felt like a family Christmas sing-a-long or something, but it was just really awesome to sing and praise God together and to just worship and enjoy God. I am reading a book that talks about joy being a consequence of our Christian walk and I really believe that. It has been exciting to see how God is working in my life and in the life of others here in México and just giving more joy into my life. After the practice my partner, Stephanie, and I were going to visit two girls on our team, to see their house, eat with their family and go to their Wed. night service, but first she had to meet with one of the girls for what we call coaching. I decided to kill some time by reading in the park. We had been talking a lot as the leadership of Spearhead about our reactions to those who ask us for money and the beggars on the street and just really been challenging each other to see them as sons and daughters of God, as people and not as just things to push away. I was reading A Long Obedience in the Same Direction when a guy of about maybe 16 years old came up to me and asked if he could make me a bracelet or something or if I just had some change he could have to get something to eat. I barely looked up, not acknowledging him and he continued asking. I kept saying no thanks, vaguely looked at him and shooed him away so that I could continue reading. As soon as he began to walk away my heart sank, I had failed to be Jesus in his life, I hadn’t seen him as God’s creation, but merely as a nuisance in my life. I got up about 20 seconds are he had left me and tried to catch up with him in the park. As I got closer to him, he was asking someone else the same he had asked me when a cop told him he couldn’t do it and told him to leave. That is when I took a deep breath and decided I was no longer going to be a coward and asked him if I could buy him a hamburger. He said sure with a big smile and we walked over the hamburger stand. I felt unsure of what to say, I wanted so badly to be Jesus to him, but wasn’t sure how. We made a bit of small talk, I asked him where he was from and found out he wasn’t from the city, but had some family troubles and came to the city to live, that he had only finished middle school and couldn’t get a job, that he was trying to make so money and hoped to get back to school. I found out his name was Jorge and that he didn’t want to steal from people and was just trying to make honest money making bracelets for people. He, after a while asked me where I’m from (I judge my improving accent on the amount of time it takes for someone to ask that question and the certainty I hear in their voice when then ask me if I’m from around here). I told him where I was from and what I was doing in México. I shared with him that motivated by Jesus’ love for me I was trying to learn to love others. He told me of all the oppression and all the things the government didn’t let him do. He told me of his problems back home. We got his hamburger and a juice and went to sit down to talk more. He shared with me a bit about his life and I shared mine with him. He asked me why I cared about strangers who might take advantage of me, why I loved people I never knew and I told him it was because of Jesus who had loved me first. I told him that if God could love me being a sinner than I should be able to pass that love along. I told him of the revolutionary that Jesus was, of the revolutionary love he showed and how I believed that His love could change the world because it had changed my heart. He thought that was cool , but said he just feels so anxious about life and doesn’t know what I would look like to trust God. I told him I wasn’t sure either, but that I was on my way there, that I was on the path and learning to trust and follow God. I told him of my plans to move to the slums of Brasil and he thought I was a little crazy or some saint. I told him I might be a little crazy, but certainly was no saint. I shared with him about the God who created me and loved me and who chased after humanity despite its sin. I told him of a God who became man and suffered an ignoble death and how the least I could do was serve him and love him. The least I could do was to pass his love on to others, what a privilege it was to do that. I told him how it was the fact that God kept loving me and didn’t give up on me despite my sin and problems and how eventually that love changed my heart. He told then told me of an Aunt that really showed him love and cared about him, but how he never showed her any love, but how he wanted that to change. I told him it could, I told him there was only one thing in this world worthy of living for and one source of hope for the world. He talked about a new and better government and how that could make a difference, but we talked about how imperfect people will always make imperfect governments. I told him Jesus was the only way, the only hope in this dark world. I then asked him if I could pray for him and I prayed that God would enter into his life, that Jesus would heal his broken relationships, that he would receive peace. I prayed that God might move his heart, that God might provide for his needs and change his heart. As he finished his hamburger and I finished my prayer we parted ways, I told him that God loved him and so did I, I told him that Jesus loved him and died for him and offered him a new and abundant life. I told him I would be praying for him, that he might come to know the same loving power that I knew, that he might be able to live for the hope I had, that he might be able to have the peace that passes all understanding. He thanked me for the hamburger, the prayers and the conversation and said that he hoped he’d see me around. I told him that the thanks belongs to God and that he should keep seeking God. He said he hoped to see me around again in that park and I said I hoped so too. His name was Jorge and I would ask for prayers for him and for his life. Pray that God might still use me to be a blessing in his life. I don’t know if I should have asked him to pray some sort of salvation prayer, but I don’t think that is how Jesus did it, I think people saw his love and were attracted to him and I only hope through all my sin and problems that people can just catch a glimpse of Jesus through it all in me. I hope that Jorge saw a picture of Jesus in me. Thanks so much for all your prayers and support. Pray that I would continue to learn what it looks like to follow Jesus, pray for Jorge and pray for Brasil to work out if that is God’s will.

Me and Paul, my program director at a Mexico Diablos baseball game

Ayer te vi...Fue más claro que la Luna

Yesterday I saw you...more clearly than the moon, I saw you in a street child without a place to sleep, I saw you in his extended hands begging for bread to live, I saw you in his beseeching eyes, and in his hesitant smile, yesterday I saw you.... This is my translation of one of my favorite songs by Jesús Adrian Romero who I would say is by far the best Christian singer in the spanish language and just an amazing lyricist and singer. He is from the north of Mexico and sold out 4 concerts in the Auditorio Nacional here in Mexico City with a capacity of 20,000 or so. Originally he only scheduled one concert and eventually kept expanding by one until he had 4. I went on Friday with some friends to the concert and it was a pretty amazing experience and just really challenging, both from his songs and his talking between the songs. There is something amazing about the power of poetry and music to move the heart.
Things continue to go well here, I still don't have fast enough internet to successfully post any pictures, but am picking up a random signal in my room right now. Things are going well with the team. We continue visiting churches and checking up on the summer team. Its been fun to get to know new pastors and families and have various opportunities to share at churches. This past Sunday I gave a message for a youth group at the church where we have our spanish classes and team meetings. It is a presbyterian church, which here is i would say an ultra conservative church (which makes the church I go to in Maryland look like a liberal charismatic one). I gave a message on going beyond religiosity and beliefs and moving to a relationship and actions. I tied the message into my testimony and I pray that it might help some of the youth there to be challenged and continuing growing in their faith. My partner and I finished rewriting a clown show that we will be presenting at a few churches and VBS's and we continue teaching and discipling the summer team. Its hard to believe the summer is almost over, even as I write this its hard not to put in a few spanish words here and there and it is just hard for me to think about not speaking it.
I continue to be in conversation with a missionary in Brasil and it is looking more and more likely that that will work out, but I will give more updates as I get them. Much love and thanks for all the prayers.

The summer seems to be flying by, I can't believe I've already been here in Mexico City for a month. The team seems to be adjusting well to the country, with the normal ups and downs. Unfortunately one of the only two guys decided to go home because of some stuff going on back there and so we are sadly down to just one guy. I would ask for prayer for both of those guys, for the one who returned home and the one who is now alone here. On Friday we all went to the zoo on our day off which was fun and a good time for bonding. It was cool because a couple of my friends came along with us who are bilingual (pictured below). It was a good time. We (the leaders) have been busy planning trainings, clown and puppet shows, mimes and other skits that we will be teaching our spearheaders to do and also to teach to their youth groups. Yesterday I spent the whole day in La Presa, visiting a couple of spearheaders who are working there and visiting my old church again. It was really cool because my friend Erik who left for the US was back and visiting and I got to talk to him for a while. It was neat to catch up with a bunch of different people there who weren't at church the last time I visited. I'm excited for their July 13th service when they will be officially opening their new church building. I gotta run, but thanks for the prayers, much love and God bless.


some good friends, the one in the middle I met in Mexico City ,but worked with in Puebla too
At a good friend's wedding

Greetings

Hey all, sorry it been such a long time since I’ve written, but I’ve been very busy and don’t have reliable internet access where I live. Things have been going well as the team seems to be acclimating well to the new language and culture. I kinda feel like when I was a kindergarten helper in 5^th grade and helped the kindergartners to their classrooms. It’s just to see the progress I have made with both my understanding of both language and culture. I would ask for prayers just for opportunities to meet random people in random places and just have good conversations, divine appointments some people call them. I am still feeling kinda sad to not be with my friends in Puebla, but I am starting to make new connections here. Its cool to get to know new churches and work with new ministries. Today we (the other leaders) performed 5 different skits that we will teach our teams to either do themselves or to teach their teams to do. We didn’t manage to video tape them, but I’m hoping to do them again so we can video tape them. I would ask for continued prayers about future direction and also for each of the 13 members of our summer team as they adjust and begin to settle into their ministries; that my partner and I as well as the other leaders could be effective and just be a blessing for both our American Spearheaders and for the Mexican church. Much love and God bless!

Summer Team arrival

Sorry I haven't written in a while, just a quick update before I go to bed. We have continued to visit families, churches and pastors and prepare skits, clown shows, mimes, puppet shows and then like to prepare ourselves for the summer team arrival tomorrow. I will be going to pick them all up at the airport and so will spend most of tomorrow driving back and forth to the airport, please pray for safety in travel and that I don't get lost or anything fun like that. I have really been enjoying some time to catch up on my reading and writing with a bit of down time in the past few days as we wait for the team to come. I feel continually challenged by Jesus' strong commandments and am learning how to follow and live up to them. Please continue to keep my future plans (next year) in your prayers as I continue to ponder a move to Brasil. Thanks for all your love and support.