2006 Year-End Newsletter

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM MEXICO!

It's hard to believe that a year has passed since I came to Mexico for the first time. At the end of 2005 I was anticipating a short-term missions trip to Cofradia, Mexico, and now I'm a full-time missionary there!

This has truly been one of the longest and one of the shortest years of my life. Yet, as I reflect on how my life has been turned completely upside down and inside out, I'm overwhelmed with joy kmnowing that this has also been one of the most blessed years of my life! Our God is certainly a God of surprises, but His goodness and love absolutely endure forever!!

FULL STEAM AHEAD!

2006 started with the decision to return to Cofradia for a three-month internship (March 4-June 2), during which the Lord made it clear that I was to return full-time. After a whirlwind summer of roadtrips, weddings, and lots of time with friends and family, August found me in Guadalajara where I attended 2 months of language school at Harvest Language Center. I lived with the Garza family who has become good friends in company with many others who continue to be a source of great encouragement.

In mid-October I returned to Cofradia and jumped right in. I began mentoring one of the youth girls I met during my internship, Sandy, who is 19 and desperately wants to know and please her Lord. I also continue with the Arrayanes girls' prayer group that began during my internship, and plans are in the making to include the girls from Cofradia and Santa Fe in the new year!

Our weekly youth group meetings, called "Vida Abundante!" (meaning "Abundant Life") continue to be effective and fruitful; we see new faces almost every week! I even had the opportunity to give the lesson twice in November while Steve and his family were in the States! We've also been extremely busy with various other youth events, including a youth retreat to La Cruz, Sinaloa, where we heard teaching on living under authority and guarding our lives for the plan and inheritance that the Lord has in store for us! I've also begun learning the ins and outs of being the Short-Term Missions Coordinator and picking up more administrative duties, now that our director and his family have returned from furlough!

LOOKING BEYOND THE HORIZON!

Our staff recently spent several days brainstorming, dreaming, and setting goals for the next five years. We're very excited about starting a weekly radio program in which our local pastor, Goyo, will preach because it will expand the reach of the gospel in this area, especially into the indigenous villages that still remain fairly isolated in the mountains.

We are also seeking ways to encourage the local church members in their dreams for their church, especially as we anticipate the completion of our new central church facility in 2008. We want to see them become much more active in taking their church into the future that God has for them. This will hopefully include more organized fellowship activities, yearly conferences, and even developing more outreach activities for them, perhaps even short-term missions opportunities as we seek to network with other organizations in the area!

The future is very bright for the ministry and churches in this area because the Lord is leading us in His plans for His people to achieve His goals for His kingdom! Praise the Lord that we are guaranteed success when we are following HIM!

"LOVE AND JOY COME TO YOU..."

My days are busy, but they are blessed. Of course there have been bumps in the road, but at the end of the day, despite frustrations, I have the peace and contentment that come wiht knowing that I'm exactly where God intends me to be, and that is EXCITING!!

Though I am far from home and all that is familiar, the true meaning of Christmas remains clower than ever in my heart. Jesus tells us in John 10:10 that He came so that we may have abundant life. Linus said it best in A Charlie Brown Christmas:

"Sure Charlie Brown; I can tell you the true meaning of Christmas...'unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.' "

I pray that truth will settle deeply in each of your hearts and that this Christmas you too will know the abundant life that our Savior promises. As our youth will illustrate in their Christmas sketch, Jesus is for everyone; His presence and the life He offers were teh Father's Christmas present to us. the shepherds brought their worship, the three kings their treasures. What will we bring this Christmas and throughout the next year?

HOW CAN YOU BE INVOLVED?

As we anticipate a new year, please continue to keep me, the other staff members, the ministry, the churches, and the Mexican people in your prayers.

If you are interested in being involved in any way, whether it is financial or prayer support or perhaps by visiting or bringing a team for a short-term trip, please feel free to contact me; tax-deductible donations can be made through Alternative Missions, but please email me and let me know your intent. I pray that your Christmas is full of joy and life as we celebrat the birth of our Savior!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

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Praise the Lord!!

• I completed language school!
• For His financial provision. I'm currently at 80%!
• For new youth who continue to attend regularly!
• For re-awakening Sandy's hunger for God's presence and Word!
• For renewed passion in the Cofradia church!
  

Please pray for...

• The 20% of my monthly budget that's lacking. That comes to about $300/month.
• Continued improvement with the language, especially in prayer.
• Deeper committment in the hearts of our youth.
• Support for the weekly radio program we are starting.
• Wisdom in planning and executing new activities with the local teen girls.
• Continued provision for our central church construction project.

Here's an idea of what our central church will look like when it is completed!

Sick and Soccer...

So, the week after Christmas was definitely a busy and interesting one...it started the day after Christmas: a family from Dave and Kathy's church in Canada came down for the week. While they were here, they put on a soccer camp. Their three daughters (16, 19, 21) have played soccer all their lives, and their dad has coached their teams at different times. So, they put together this great soccer camp for kids ages 10-12 in this area. They brought 4 different-colored t-shirts for the teams, they brought a ton of balls, and they planned different drills and games to play each of the three days. Of course they also incorporated a devotion each day. They planned a little mini tournament for the end of the camp, and they had trophies for the winning team and medals for everyone else. The kids had a blast!

The same day they arrived, we started our first ever youth soccer tournament. It lasted 5 days in which 5 teams played for about 4 hours each day, and at the end of the week there was a playoff game and a championship game. It too was a ton of fun! Check out the video from our tournament! The championship day was a Saturday, and after the tournament was over we had our Noche De Vida event. That means "Night of Life!", and it's something we do each month (our youth ministry is named "Life!") in order to try and bring in new youth, etc. It usually consists of something fun, worship, a message, and a time of prayer. There were a ton of kids there that night since half the teams were made up of kids who have never been part of the youth ministry. It was pretty neat.

The kink in the week was that I got sick that Wednesday with a stomach flu. That illness doesn't hit me often, but when it does it's REALLY bad. So, I was out of commission for about three days. Mili and Sandy ended up coming and taking care of me since I live by myself. I was pretty much recovered by the time they came, but it was very sweet of them, and I was glad to have the company after being by myself essencially for 2 days at that point. Being sick, of course, meant that I missed half of both soccer events. I didn't get to see the end of the soccer camp, but I did get to go to the final day of the youth tournament and to the youth event afterwards. It was a good time. And I'm certainly glad to be healthy again.

Well, enjoy the pics and video!

Kids Soccer Camp stretching warm-up excercises!

This was one of their drill/games. It's the numbers drill. Each kid on each team has a number. When the ref called a number, the kids with those numbers had to come out and try to get a goal in a certain amount of time.

Devotions

Youth Soccor Tournament "Video"

Festival of Lights

So..in between my tree and the actual Christmas holday celebration, there has been a lot of activity preparing for the celebration! It's crazy how something that lasts such a short amount of time requires a huge amount of time to prepare beforehand! Anyway, we weren't originally planning to decorate the church palapa this year for the Christmas service, but about a week before Christmas, Pastor Goyo asked me if I'd be willing. Last year, when I came down here with a group from my church for our Christmas Outreach trip, we brought with us all of my white Christmas lights. Then last spring another group brought some down and left them when they were done using them. So, all in all, we probably have about 2000 white Christmas lights!

So, after spending a rediculous amount of time testing them and making them work, which basically consisted of mixing and matching bulbs since we can't just go out and buy replacements around here, I was finally able to get to the decorating part. Mili and Sandy came and spent the night before with me and then the Saturday before Christmas, we spent half the day putting up lights all in the church. It was quite a job! Duct tape and masking tape don't stick very well to brink and columns painted with a metal paint! So, it was interesting trying to get the lights to stay up, and trust me, between Christmas and New Years, I had to re-tape the strands numerous times. But the church looked COOL!

It didn't get truly dark until just after the service ended, but it was so amazing to turn out the lights in the church and just have the Christmas lights on as people were fellowshiping and leaving. I honestly don't know what it is, but there's just something about the twinkle of those lights that leaves me in awe. Just one is nothing special. But all those twinkles together is a powerful thing to behold. I think that's what amazes me about the body of Christ as well. We're just like those lights. Alone we are nothing and we can do nothing, but together functioning as ONE body in unity and fluidity in the Spirit, no force natural or spiritual or otherwise can stop us, and it is quite a thing to behold and experience! Merry Christmas!

Mili and I having fun with the lights!

Around the columns..

Around the projection screen..that things is BIG and TALL!!

Sandy, the 2006 Miss Mexico Christmas Lights!

All around the sound closet...

Around every entrance...

It's bigger than you think!

"Behold, the Light of the world..." It's a good time of year to be reminded once again of who our Light really is!

Glory to God in the Highest!!!

So, Christmas was amazing! We already know it's my absolute most favoritist time of the year, and this year it was no exception. It was certainly different, and there were times that I actually missed the cultural aspects of the Christmas season that are found in the US and not here in Mexico. It just didn't feel like Christmas all around me, so sometimes it was hard to believe or easy to forget that it was actually Christmas time! But when it arrived, it arrived with force and power and was unforgettable...for me at least.

So, the month of December was incredibly hectic as far as the preparations are concerned for our Christmas service. Christmas Day this year was on a Monday, but the more important day in Mexico is actually Christmas Eve. Since that day was on a Sunday, we planned a joint service to take place at 4 pm instead of in the morning. Pastor Goyo wanted to have our service as close to Christmas Day as we could, and I just thought that was such a great idea.

Worship started off our Christmas Eve service

In our Christmas service, usually every demographic participates in one way or another. The youth put on a humorous sketch recounting the birth of Christ. We chose one we found online for free called Myrtle, Frank, and a Few Wise Guys, which I had the priveledge of translating. Let me tell you, there are few things harder to translate than humor! Primarily because it's very idiomatic and culturally based. In this sketch, the humor came mainly from play-on-words. It took some thought, but it turned out pretty funny in Spanish too, and the kids had a good time doing it. I not only tranlsated it, but I also got to help direct it and take care of most of the behind-the-scenes details like collecting props, helping to sew the costumes (first time using a sewing machine!), etc. It was busy, but it was fun and the sketch turned out really well. The kids did such a stellar job and had fun doing it, and the audience really enjoyed it too and got a kick out of it. Some of the lines from the play still live on, actually, and that's kind of cool...it's neat when you see that the investment you make is not in vain and that the results are not quickly forgotten..this result being a retelling of Christ's birth!

The youth sketch dress rehearsal. By the end of the play they were in position of a living nativity. It was pretty cool.

Sandy playing with some of our costumes and props.

Lorenzo, Martin in the sheep mask, and Beto having fun at dress rehearsal

All our props put together...we made do :)

The youth in their living nativity at the end of the sketch during our Christmas service, surrounded by all the young children watching.

The kids also did something for the service. They all participated in singing Away in a Manger, which I accompanied on the keyboard. Ok, now THAT was nerve-racking! I grew up playing piano, but I started fading out of that as soon as I hit college and didn't have a piano to play anymore. So, it's been almost 10 years since I played the piano regularly. Not only that, but the last time I played in public was when I was 10 and played at my first and last recital! So, this was definitely a stretch for me. But I got through the piece without messing up, which was my biggest concern, and the kids did such a stellar job! It was so cute! In addition to singing, several of them recited scripture or a poem, and a few of them even presented a little mini-drama/dialogue. They did such a great job!

The kids preparing to sing their song (I'm in the back left corner), and Jonathan in costume for his recitation and the mini-drama.

Some of the women actually shared a song with us, and I do believe there were a couple of testimonies, although I am not sure on that count since I was outside the church helping the youth and kids deal with costumes, etc. And finally, Pastor Goyo preached a stellar sermon about the wise men that came to visit Christ and the gifts they brought. The youth sketch ended with this line: "God gave us the gift of His Son. The wise men brought gifts to Jesus. What will you give to Him? Goyos's sermon presented a similar challenge as he took a closer look at the gifts they presented and what that means for us in our relationships with Christ. It was really cool. The service ended with a time of prayer. It was amazing because we had all three towns together: Cofradia, Santa Fe, and Arrayanes. And they were all praying together and for each other surrounded by the Christmas lights and with the worship band playing softly in the background as we were celebrating Christ's birth and it's signficance for us today. It was a powerful thing to be part of!

The prayer time at the end of the Christmas Eve service.

When the service was over, it was so great to be able to fellowship with everyone all together. Their smiles were so huge, and they were all intermixing and enjoying each other's company. That doesn't get to happen very often since Arrayanes usually has their own services. But the unity was flowing that night, and it was indescribable!

Fellowshipping and smiles accompanied all as they went on their ways for the rest of their Christmas Eve celebrations!
(Amalia holding Esperanza, Jan, and Amalia's husband Salo)

After the service, the custom around here for Christmas Eve is to go around visiting people and sharing meals with folks. The towns also have what's called a "posada", which is kind of like a town party where they have music and dancing and pinatas for the kids and lots of hanging out, etc. Well, Mili and Sandy's family invited me to hang out with them on Christmas Eve after the service, especially since it was their little sister's 12th birthday. So, I drove the Arrayanes folks back to their town and hung out there until around 10 pm. It was fun! We went to the posada for a little bit, but mainly we just hung out with the family all together and enjoyed each other and the festiveness of the night!

Christmas Day dawned beautiful. I have to admit though that it was really weird to wake up to just myself that morning. I honestly don't think I've EVER done that in my entire life! Normally I am with my family on Christmas Eve, and we all wake up together and have breakfast and open presents. Then my sister and I head to my mom's to do it all over again with her and my step-dad and step-sister. It's a full day full of food and people and festiveness. This year, I woke up to myself. It was very strange. So, I took the opportunity to call my families and talk with everyone. Then around 1 pm, all of us American/Canadian missionary staff headed over to Jan and Doug Taylor's house (part of our staff...missionaries from Canada in charge of the marriage and family ministries here) for a good ole' fashioned Gringo Christmas dinner. We had turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy (which you never find around here...quite a treat!), I made my dad's apple cider, and we had beets which is apparantly a Ukranian tradition (Jan is Ukranian and they always have something red to represent the blood of Christ).

Christmas Day feast at the Taylors
Clockwise, L-R: Married couple friends of Steve and Gena, Kathy, Jonathan, Dave, Doug, Jan, Steve, Gena holding Emma, Rebecka

It was a great Christmas this year. It was totally different, but it was unique and perfect. It was unforgetable, and full of significance and power..just as it should be. I truly wish that Christmas could last all year long. I don't know understand why it's so hard to carry with us throughout the year the same Spirit that makes us so festive and so disposed to unity and fellowship at Christmas, but that's my prayer for my own life as well as for our churches here: that the Lord would fill us with THAT Spirit and that it will light this area and this country on fire for Him!

Merry Christmas!!

O Christmas tree...

Ok, the Christmas season is finally upon us, and this is definitely my favorite time of year! I love the lights and the traditions that I share with family and friends; I love the sights and sounds and smells; I love what it stands for, even more than Easter! This is so much my favorite time of year that I'll watch Christmas movies and listen to certain Christmas music throughout the year whenever the mood hits me. It used to drive my roommates crazy, but what can I say? I LOVE Christmas!

But nothing in Mexico looks, sounds, or smells anything like what I'm used to for Christmas, and I started to find myself a little bummed a few weeks ago whenever I'd look around my appartment and want to see Christmas, because I had nothing to decorate with. So, I've watched White Christmas and Holiday Inn about 2 million times over the last three weeks, and I've had Christmas music playing all day (when I'm home) to try and compensate for the inability to sit in the glow of Christmas lights and the fireplace video. You say, "why didn't you go buy Christmas stuff then?" Well, it's not that easy for me to get to town, first becuase I have to use a base truck and I need to be responsible with gas, and second because although I know how to arrive in town, I don't know where anything is once I'm there, and I'd never find my way out again! However, about a week and a half ago, Isable was heading to town, and I had several errands to run so I went with her; while there she helped me buy a Christmas tree and decorations! So, I've finally bought my first "real" fake Christmas tree! It's about 190 cm tall, and it's perfect for my appartment! Here are pics of my new stocking, the decorations I bought (complete with little pinatas!), and my tree!!












I was so excited that I decided to have a decorating party with my youth girls. So, I made plans and invited them all over last Saturday to help me decorate. Mili and Sandy spent the night after youth group on Friday, which I taught for the first time (yikes!). We completely rearranged my living room, which needed it anyway, and also made the brownies for Saturday. The girls were supposed to arrive around 11 am on Saturday, so that morning we got everything ready and I made my dad's homemade hot apple cider. It has cinnamon and cloves that cook in it on the stove, so with that smell and the smell of the Vanilla Biscotti coffee I made for our breakfast, combined with the Christmas music that was playing, I had a hard time remembering that I wasn't actually at home on Christmas morning! We ate bagles and cream cheese with our coffee, which was a first for Mili and Sandy. They loved it though; their exact words were that it was "celestial", which means "heavenly"!

Around 11, two of the five girls I'd invited arrived: Ana and Sandy Paz. We all had some cider and brownies and then got to work on the tree. As we were putting on the lights, I started sharing stories about traditions my family has surrounding decorating and Christmas morning. When I asked them about theirs, they told me they didn't have any! None of them have ever had a Christmas tree! It just isn't the culture here, at least not out in "el rancho" (the country) where life is much less Americanized. Some folks may put a few lights outside their house, many will have a nativity scene, and those who are Catholic may very well have a decorated shrine to the Virgin Mary, but that's about it for decorating. The big day for them is Christmas Eve, and they'll normally have a huge dinner or something, and if there's money for gifts and stocking stuffers, those will be available for Christmas morning, but that's about the extent of celebration. So, this tree decorating was another first-time for all of these girls, and they had such a blast with it! Now, I love decorating for Christmas and of course was completely in my element, but watching their first-time enjoyment made my enjoyment so much greater! It was truly a blessing and a blast!

These are the kinds of activities I want to have more often with the girls, so that they can be hanging out and having experiences together, making memories together, getting more comfortable with each other, so that one day they will be more comfortable going deeper in their friendshipse. Please pray that the Lord will open up more such opportunities for fellowship with these precious girls!

Anyway, a complete photo album is posted on my photosite (see personal links on the right), but here are a couple of pic just to wet your appetite!

FELIZ NAVIDAD!!!

Cheers! Hot apple cider--(L-R) Sandy Paz, Mili, and Sandy tasting it for the first time and loving it!! Daddy, your cider is a hit in Mexico!

Mili about had a heart attack over the decorations as she helped unpack them. These are some of my favorites too!

(L-R) Ana, Mili, Sandy Paz, and Sandy unpacking the decorations.

Ana and Sandy Paz putting lights on the tree.

My newly-arranged living room complete with resplendant Christmas tree! I absolutely adore this room now! I don't really put much stock in fun shuei stuff, but I think this room's got it!