Our Second December in Mexico

Feliz Navidad and Happy Boxing Day today! We have had a full month. The Camrose Alberta Team finished their time with us with a prayer walk around the Lago de Guadalupe (Lake Guadalupe), a subdivision where we hope to have our new church plant. The girls finished their semester of school and we were off to Texas to have some Mexico field meetings and do some Christmas shopping where the prices are much better.
After various trips to the border, I have finally captured some photos of an interesting sight that you see between Mexico City and the border: semi-trailer trucks without cabs being driven by Mexican men, often sitting on a wooden box! The cabs are available here in Mexico but the chassis are far more expensive. For this reason, it is economically worthwhile to drive these "vehicles" across the desert. The first truck we ever saw like this passed us near the Retreat Center in Acolman. The driver was wearing eye goggles and had a long scarf around his neck. As we gawked at him passing, he yelled, in English with his Mexican Spanish accent, "Look at me in my flying machine!" The guys we got pictures of this time had to pass through a half an hour of rain. We saw about 15 of these contraptions during our drive north to Texas.

During our meetings in Texas, the highlight was a morning spent with Paul and Roxanne Wilson. They are currently attending the language school we went to in South Texas and will be administering a camp in Cuernavaca, a city just SW of Mexico City. They have years of experience with Christian Camping in Wisconsin and were a wealth of information and an inspiration to us in regards to the Lily of the Valley Retreat Center. Since we've been back to Mexico City, we've been working on planning a campfire area at the Retreat Center that has seating.
Just after we returned from Texas, the Quinceanera of Frida arrived. Frida is the 15year old daughter of Jorge, our driver when missions teams come. Jorge invited us to this event over a year ago. A quinceanera celebrates the 15th birthday of a girl, symbolizing that she has now become a woman. We got a kick out of the invitation, an orange colored puzzle that said to come bathed, perfumed and on time for the party. Frida loves to dance and had been practising three special dances with her dance troupe for about two years. Jorge also practised dancing with Frida for his father/daughter waltz. Our girls told me that when Jorge was dressed up in his tuxedo, he looked like a Mexican James Bond. Jorge's wife, Lilia is wearing the teal gown and their younger daughter, Alexis was also all dressed up. Frida made a dramatic entrance from a stairway that lowered from the second floor. Two young men escorted her to the center of the room to join her parents. Besides Frida's dances, Jorge hired a live band and another female soloist. We recognized and knew one of the soloist's spanish songs "Como La Flor" from the "Selena" movie and of course, the Achy Breaky Heart line dance song. As it sped up at the end of the line dance, the singers had to work very hard to fit all the Spanish lyrics in!

Much Has Been Accomplished

Our party last night went well. There were less people than we had for our Canadian Thanksgiving back in October (For Thanksgiving, Carolyn had counted 65 visitors + the 16 people from three missionary families.) The fellow we specifically asked you to pray for didn't come last night but another night when we would have more time to spend with him would be better anyways. We did have three new people come who we were pleased to met for the first time - contacts through a soccer club and our English classes. The Mexicans were gracious with their potluck dishes and prepared the food without chili spices "for the Canadians who aren't accustomed to that." We also had traditional Mexican homemade candies and a cake made with pinenuts. Interest was expressed to continue the English classes after Christmas. The Camrose Team arrived at our home a bit weary after all the hard work at the Retreat Center and the long van ride across the city. The Mexicans noticed that the Canadian group was tired and they headed home earlier than usual. For this reason, not everyone at the party is in our group photo but it gives you an idea. Jim, Dennis, and everyone: thank you for your prayers!

Now to show you all that has been happening at the Retreat Center. Each photo can be double-clicked to show it as a larger, full screen size. Then click the blue "back" arrow button to return to our blogpage. If you click the red "x" close button, the blog will close and you will have to start again.

The Camrose Team's main goal was to tile our two huge rooms on the second floor. This was finished days ago and since then, a lot of extra projects have been completed as well. WOW! The long room that also continues on around to the right - all tiled, grouted, scrubbed, and beautiful! I had posted a "before" picture a few days ago where you can see the concrete floor before the tiles were laid. I believe that Moises and Marcel said that 4 tons of tiles were installed! That will explain the sore backs :) In the same L-shaped room, another enormous project was finished - the ceiling paint. That is a lot of square footage to paint with an extention handle roller. Next to our chapel/dining hall, I imagine that these large rooms will be the next most used for indoor activities during the afternoon rains that come each summer. Thank you!!

You would think that they had had enough tiling but they just kept going and also tiled our large stairwell steps. These are the main stairs to access the second floor for the entire building. (We will be installing a metal spiral staircase to use for emergencies at the far end of the building.) This photo shows one of the two flights of stairs. Between visiting the pyramids and carrying tiles to the second floor, these Canadians have climbed a lot of stairs during their trip to Mexico!

All the "oatmeal" color trim work around the second store windows was painted. This, again, was on the exterior of the newly tiled rooms, two large rooms that form an L shape. It is the bottom left hand area of this map. (It can't be read without double-clicking to enlarge.)



Moises' sister, Olga, cooks for the team during the week and is helped by the Camrose ladies. They have had several Mexican dishes and also some familiar ones like hamburgers and fries.

On the first floor, each of our eight couples/families rooms had the plumbing secured to the wall and painted.

During this past week, a Mexican builder has been constructing some public washrooms. As they are so new, the washrooms aren't on my little map yet but are located between the archway in the wall and the dormitory building on the side of the yard that has the fountain. This will help us when there are Mexican construction workers that we have hired to install windows or build the cistern. Rather than using a washroom inside the house, they can use this separate washroom and we will have less cleaning to do. We will also use these washrooms when people are using the chapel/dining hall or playing games outside. Again, less feet walking in and out of the house. In the photo, I see new tiles on the washroom building roof. This is to prevent leaking through the concrete roof during rainy season.

The exterior of the one room "guest speaker" house was also painted. The cistern got a matching coat of terracota paint as well.


Finally, some special swimming pool paint was purchased, not for our swimming pool - we don't have one! - but to line the inside of our beautiful fountain.

Today the team has gone a few different directions. The Ruizes have taken some people to a local soccer game, I think played by teenaged boys. Sadly, the Ruiz boys did not have any soccer games scheduled this weekend. Unusual. Some other team members are spending the afternoon relaxing at the Ruiz's house and watching some English television with Spanish commercials. My girls and I have been cleaning up from the party and will go grocery shopping. The rest of the team went downtown with Marcel and Alejandro to visit the free zoo and the Anthropology Museum that are both located in a gigantic park. They may also visit a castle if they have time.

Please Pray for Effective Outreach

Tomorrow night (Friday), the Mitchells will be hosting an "End-of-the-English-Class-Semester Party". At our last get-together to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving, we invited all of our contacts and ended up with a house full of 50 people! We are hoping for an equal number of people, if not more. Please pray especially for one person who is recently thinking about spiritual things and has questions. We are so grateful to have the Camrose Team coming to our home to help provide opportunities to practise English conversation. Many Mexicans in our area have studied English but don't have many chances to speak to English speakers. They want to hang on to everything that they have learned in English and are excited about this coming party and opportunity for conversation.
The photos I've posted are of the following: Photo 1) A beautiful building in a small alley near the Basilica of the Virgin Guadalupe. We are thinking of modeling our exterior paint color scheme at the Retreat Center after this handsome building. Photo 2) Our kitchen. It was renovated a few years ago and is beautiful but small when we are having a full camp during the summer. We have another kitchen in the new dormitory building but it is an empty room with plumbing roughed in. The cooks amaze me with how they prepare meals in our current kitchen with just this one regular sized fridge, a regular sized stove, and a couple extra burners outside the kitchen for the largest pots. The gentleman in the photo is Jim Crozier from Camp Caroline. He was here a couple weeks ago to advise us on how to run a camp/retreat center facility. Photo 3) I understand that tomorrow, the Camrose Team will be painting the exterior of this small building. It is a tiny house, just one bedroom with an attached bathroom. I believe that it was intended to be the maid's quarters when the Retreat Center had previously belonged to another owner. We have been using this room for our guest speakers to enjoy a bit of extra quiet a couple steps away from the main house. Photo 4) English classes on a night with only a few people attending. After the Spanish bible study, we finished the evening with a cake in celebration of one of the ladies' birthdays. These people and their friends and families will come to our Matthew Party tomorrow night. A Matthew Party is when Christian and non-Christians get together and God provides opportunities for the non-Christians to discuss spiritual things with the Christians in an informal way. This is an important part of church planting - building relationships with our neighbors. I'm especially hoping that my one neighbor brings her son again. At Thanksgiving, we were careful that he was included. He had lots of fun with the teens who were hanging out on our patio but was too shy to come into the house to get some food! We'll be watching for him so he won't be leaving hungry again:)

Where Are We?

Ever been on a tour and wondered, "Where are we? I'd love to see where all these places we are visiting are located on a map!" Well, here you go! 1) In the northeast of Mexico City is where you will find "The Lily of the Valley Retreat Center" in the town of Acolman, Mexico State. Acolman is on the outskirts of Mexico City and about 15 minutes away from the pyramids. 2) The Pyramids of Teotihuacan (teh-oh-tee-whah-CAN) are also in the State of Mexico near the town of San Juan Teotihuacan. 3) Iglesia Biblica Cristo Vive (Christ Lives Bible Church) is in the northeast Mexico City suburb of Ecatepec. Population of this city suburb: 3 million. Christ Lives Bible Church just recently celebrated their 12th anniversary! 4) For our current church plant, we are targeting an area on the edge of the suburb city of Atizapan de Zaragoza located in the northwest of Mexico City. There are another 2 million people in this suburb. We are making contacts with families near the southwest side of the lake you can see on the map, the Lago de Guadalupe (Guadalupe Lake). This is the area where both the Ruizes and the Mitchells live.

This coming weekend, the Camrose Team will come across the north side of Mexico City to Atizapan de Zaragoza. The Retreat Center and our Church Plant appear close on the map but those 45 miles will take at least an hour and a half to drive:) Our plans for the coming weekend: 1) a Friday evening party with our English class students where they can practise their conversation skills with some Canadians 3) on Saturday, a prayer walk and either a day trip in this area or time to just relax 4) on Sunday, participation in our small church service in our home.

Monday morning, the group returns to Acolman to do some more construction projects at the Retreat Center.

Hosting the Camrose Alberta Canada Team

The Century Meadows Baptist Church team from Camrose, Alberta, Canada have arrived safely and got right to work! After working extremely hard for three days, they set off on their two tourist days. Saturday was spent in El Centro: downtown Mexico City. They saw many things: the Bascilica of the Virgin Guadalupe (the large Catholic Church honoring Mexico's Virgin Mary figure), the Ciudadela de Artesanias (Artisans Craft Market), the Casa de Azulejos (House of Tiles), the Zocalo (the main square in downtown Mexico City), and the Metropolitan Cathedral. Rest was provided while waiting in traffic during the short-distance-but-long-time-spent trip back to the Retreat Center. Sunday brought shorter distances to travel. Igelsia Biblica Cristo Vive (Christ Lives Bible Church) was where the group worshipped with fellow Mexican Christians. Two members of the team shared their testimonies with the congregation. The preacher was animated and gave an empassioned hour and 10 minute long sermon, all in Spanish! Then we had tortas for lunch (similar to submarine sandwiches) and were off to spend the afternoon at the nearby Pyramids of Teotihuacan. The Pyramid of the Sun provides 248 steps of varying sizes to climb. The Pyramid of the Moon is built on a higher elevation and though it is smaller than the Pyramid of the Sun, the tops of both pyramids are the same altitude. What engineering! Today the group set back to work. The photos displayed above: 1) triumph on the Pyramid of the Moon with the Pyramid of the Sun in the background 2) group photo [one gentleman not in the photo] 3) admiring the Metropolitan Cathedral 4) the "before" photo of the enormous room that this team has applied 4 tons of tiles to. Today, they will apply the grout between the tiles. 5) the building where this large room is located in on the second floor. It will be our indoor games room which will be well used during the summer rainy season months! We are also delighted to have all of the toilet plumbing replaced. This coming summer, one faulty continuously filling toilet tank is NOT going to rob us of all our water in the cistern and leave us with 75 people and no water! We are so grateful and pleased by the quality and quantity of work that has all ready been accomplished. We are so blessed to have brothers and sisters in Christ from another country (in this case, Canada) who are so generous with their time, money, and hard work. The dream of a fruitful ministry at the Retreat Center grows as each construction project is completed!

We have been joined this week by Pastor Larry of Calvary Baptist Church in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and Jim Crozier of Camp Caroline in Caroline, Alberta. These men have been a great blessing to us. Pastor Larry has the gift of evangelism. He and Marcel spent some time street evangelizing while they were downtown being tourists. As they gave a Bible to one man, another man who had been listening intently but off to the side came over to them and asked, "Do you have another Bible for me?" They did happen to have just one more and it was meant for this second man. Pastor Larry has also given us some timely wisdom and been an encouragement to us and the Ruiz family. Jim Crozier helped us think through some strategic planning regarding the Retreat Center in Acolman. His years of camp ministry experience where beneficial to us as well. Our thanks to their families and ministries for "sharing" their gifted leaders with us for a few days! The photos we share today are: 1) the edge of the garden at the Retreat Center 2) our new windows on the boys' dormitory 3) Pastor Larry visiting with our colleague, Moises and the Retreat Center caretaker, Carolina and 4) a rare, clear morning when we could see the volcanoes Itza and Popo from our house in the NW of Mexico City.

I Have A Headache

Our new English as a Second Language classes have become quite popular. We get about 15 people every Wednesday and Friday night and there is still lots of interest about the class in the community. Another lady drove here tonight and said she is interested in the classes as are some of her friends and neighbours. As with all people who join our English classes, we tell them that it is followed by a Bible study and most of the people stay for that, too. Moises teaches the adults while Brittany teaches a small Bible study to the teens that come. I'm very proud of her for taking this study on. She is a real go getter and is craving to have an active youth ministry to be a part of.
At a recent lesson we were talking about going to the doctor and how to, in the most simple way, say that you are in pain. I said to them "Just say the body part and then say ache. For example, 'I have a stomach ache', 'I have a foot ache', etc." When the English and Bible study class finished, we enjoyed some coffee and cake and watched the last few minutes of the soccer game between Canada and Mexico that was played in Edmonton. In the closing minutes of the game here was a rush of Mexican players toward the Canadian goal, a kick was made, and the Canadian goalie came out, made a great save but elbowed a Canadian defender in the head. The defender went down hard! Just then one of our students, Oscar, said "I have a headache." We all burst out laughing. The pictures above show the teens that Brittany is leading, the second picture is of the hurting player and the third is a closeup of some of the kids. The game was a tie 2-2.

Canadian Thanksgiving with a Mexican Twist

Last night we had 50 people in our home to help us celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving. Some people we had gotten to know through our English lessons, others we know through a ladies' bible study and still others, through the Ruiz boys' soccer club. We met husbands/wives and children of people we had met. We had an explanation of the history of Canadian Thanksgiving and we all sang "Give Thanks" in both Spanish and English. We ate a lot of turkey and also enjoyed poutine.
Poutine originates from Canada's French speaking province, Quebec. It is made with french fries, cheese curds, and hot beef gravy that is poured on top and partially melts the cheese. Yum! There is a new teacher at our girls' school here in Mexico City. She is from Quebec and was delighted to have some poutine. When we asked this francophone to tell us what poutine means, she simply told us to go and eat some. After a little research, we have discovered that it means "Mess." So true when you have melted cheese and gravy dripping from your fries.
Earlier in the day, Marcel gave a presentation about Canada to the elementary students at Mexico City Christian Academy on the occassion of their annual Cultural Day. As always, our potluck meal was delicious with a variety of Mexican, American, Canadian, and Korean food. The Korean girls wore their beautiful traditional dresses.
After such a full day, we were plenty tired but truly grateful for what God is doing here. Around midnight, the Ruizes, another missionary couple - the Williams, and our Christian neighbor gathered with us to pray and thank God at the end of the Thanksgiving party in our home.

Our First Mexican Birthday Piñata

The big sisters are bitter. Little Ahava was the first one to have a piñata for her birthday though we've all celebrated a birthday (or two) here. Ahava is now 5 years old. She requested a piñata that looked like "a girl in a pink dress" so she ended up with a Boo piñata from Monsters Inc. Before taking the piñata outside, Ahava noticed the crack on the back of the girl piñata's head. "I didn't do anything Mommy - honest!" We had to explain that the candy needs to be put INSIDE the piñata by means of piñata head surgery. Then where to hang the piñata? Our lemon tree is all ready keeling over from the weight of the lemons so we couldn't tie a piñata up there. The solution was seen in the corner by the front door: hockey sticks. Daddy held the piñata up by a hockey stick and Ahava whacked the piñata with a hockey stick. "High sticking" I'd say! But the sheer joy...
Hey Petra: it's a bad idea to put a piñata head over your OWN head! She asked, "Do I need to smile?" Oh my.

Future Plans

It took two days of praying and talking to determine what it is we sense God is leading us to do for the purpose of planting a church in this area of Mexico City. We pulled out our white boards and asked of ourselves "What are our core values?" By that I mean, "What is it that we understand the local church here is to be like?" We noted what God is all ready doing through us here and saw that it seems rather clear that God wants us to plant a short-cycle church in an area of Cuatitlan Izcalli in a colonia called Bosques del Lago. The goal is to have a first generation church up and running, with leaders developed out of the harvest by September of 2013. Currently we are all ready meeting on sunday evenings and that will form the seed of our new plant. Pray for us as we begin with intensity planting a church.

Dentist Day

We were asked a little while ago from a supporter if we have a dental plan. We responded by saying, "Mexico IS our dental plan." We are very fortunate that we found a good Christian dentist in the area. Yolanda, has treated us very well and the costs of dental work are about half of what they are north of the border. Yolanda has expressed some interest in helping us in our work of church planting because we plan to plant a church close to where she lives in an area of Cuatilan Izcalli called Bosques de Lago. Things seem to be progressing on the field and we think we are close to having a major breakthrough in reaching out to the community. I'll post more about this tomorrow.

Mexican Independence Day

Every night of September 15 into the wee hours of the 16th Mexicans celebrate their independence day when Father Miguel Hidalgo declaired Mexico's independence from Spain in 1810. The Celebration is called Noche Mexicana and it is a very fun time where friends and neighbours gather together for food and fellowship. Often people will wear traditional Mexican clothes for the celebration as you can see Emma did in picture #2. We were invited to a new friend's home to celebrate with his family. Alejandero (in the first picture with Ahava) is a lawyer that attends our English lessons with his wife Lulu and he seems to have really taken to us. We attended the celebration with Ruizs and we had a great time eating a traditional soup called Pozole (picture #3 Brittany and her friend Nicole) and chanting the Grito which is the declaration of independence. We also had strong opportunities to meet new people that are from the community where we plan to plant a church. I, Marcel, had a particularily legnthy dicussion with a man named Carlos who is a pilot for Mexicana Airlines. Since I have an aviation background I could "talk shop" with him but soon our coversation led to discussions of faith and religion. For about two hours I was an appologist as I answered his thoughtful objections to faith. Yet all was not lost. I gained a friend and his respect and he agreed to meet again with me soon to talk some more. Moises also spoke at length about faith issues with a man at the party who is a dentist and his wife. I did'nt get to bed until 3AM but it was a great time and we enjoyed every minute of this fun celebration. The final picture is of Ahava at school where they celebrated Independence Day at school wearing traditional clothes, singing songs and dancing traditional dances. It's so funny that our youngest girls is already so Mexicanized. She is unbelevably fluent in Spanish already and loves Mexican food.

So Much for Canadians Being Liked Around the World

O.K...I hear it all the time. It's like the worst Canadian media driven propaganda. Canadians are well liked around the world. That possible is true except when it comes to playing the soccer team of another country. Tonight, Canada will be playing Mexico in a qualifying match for the World Cup. The game which is to be played in the state of Chiapas is very important as it will, if the Mexican team wins, bring them closer to advancing. So this morning's newspapers are covered with, dare I say, anti-Canadian headlines and comments. Some of it is rather humourous because it is suggesting the Canadians will have difficulty playing in the 33*C weather with 70% humidity. That reporter needs to visit Toronto or Edmonton in the summer! Perhaps he will get a chance to visit on October 15th when Canada plays Mexico in Edmonton when the average temperature is an average high of 10*C and an average low of 0*C. Either way, it's in all good fun. Hopefully, there will be a good game and Canada will win its first game on Mexican soil in 50 years of FIFA play. Let me explain the pictures above. The first one is of the Mexican coach, Sven Eriksson (a Swed) in a Mounties uniform with a headline that says the Canadians are going to melt in the hell of Chiapas. They second picture has a Mexican rooster with a maple leaf on its head. The third is an ad from Toyota showing a foozeball player having kicked the ball so hard that he broke off the legs of the Canadian foozeball player.