End of an Era

Today marked a sad day in the lives of so many. Royce and Sue Baron, retired from active missionary service for about two years now, are leaving the Christ Lives Bible Church and Mexico. They are moving to Houston, Texas to enjoy their retirement years and serve the Lord in Hispanic ministries in new ways. The service was very nice with several men preaching small sermons and then there was a special presentation to the Barons in thanks for all their work (first picture). The Barons' two daughters, Michelle (seen in the second picture with her husband Gabriel and their daughter) and Becky sang a couple songs in honour of their parents. After the service there was a fiesta, a Mexican pot-luck supper with many different kinds of food that can be put in tortillas. There were even clowns for the little ones. What I was amazed at today was how much Spanish little Ahava (seen in the third picture) already knows as she talked with other little kids during the supper. There was even a large cake for the Barons but what was interesting was a tradition that I had not previously seen here before. The Barons were seated in front of the cake for pictures, then after a couple of minutes of nice pictures, the crowd started chanting "mordida, mordida, mordida" which translates "little bite". The Barons then responded to the chants by eating right from the cake in front of them: no hands! Then the crowd chants "kiss, kiss, kiss" and again on cue the Barons responded with a icing-laced kiss for each other. It was all lots of fun. I know that the Barons will be missed by all here and our prayers are with them as they move to the Lone Star State in the first week of May.

On Their Way Home

After spending about a week with us during a month long stay in Mexico, our friends Warren and Wanda, along with their daughter Shyla, are heading north to Texas and then on to Alberta as I write. Yes folks, they drove here. It can be done. They spent a few days with Ingrid and the girls at our home on the northwest side of the city while I was at the camp on the northeast side of the city. Then they all came to visit the camp last weekend. When the Manitoba team left, I took our friends on a tour of the historical centre of the city. We had a great time with them and they have become dear friends of ours. Though we are all from Alberta and actually lived close to each other, we only met each other two years ago when we became neighbours in Texas. They are using their Spanish acquisition to bridge a relationship between their church in Alberta and a church in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico. We're going to miss them a lot but we will see them again soon I'm sure.

A Neat Kinda Guy

While the Manitoba team was doing tiling, Moises had a man from our church, Adolfo, and his assistant, Miguel, make new windows for the boys' dormitory. Adolfo has done other aluminum work for Moises in the past and Moises has been quite satisfied with his past work. The new windows were installed in the dorm this past Saturday when the Manitoba team was here. They all had a supper together and the team was quite taken with Adolfo's pleasant personality and joyful spirit. Miguel was a great guy, too. He helped me speak Spanish and corrected my mistakes ever so well. You may notice from the above pictures that Adolfo is quite a small man. Jokingly he put the chair in the picture to be as tall as the Manitoba guys. He may be small in stature but he has a huge heart.

Manitoba Team

Sorry about the lack of blogging this month. We have simple been overwhelmed with three sets of guests and two missions teams and all this in addition to our regular taking kids to school and doing other home duties. We had the team from Manitoba come and do some tile laying and they did a great job! They tiled the remaining six matrimonial dorm rooms and the stairs leading out of all eight rooms. They were very fast and did great quality work. We did the usual tourist days with them as well. Saturday, Moises took them to the artisans' market and the basilica. Sunday after church we all went to the pyramids along with our guests from Alberta; Warren, Wanda and their daughter Shyla. The team was efficient and each man was given a job to do. I took the opportunity to be with Moises to purchase materials and clean out the green storage shed that had been accumulating stuff for quite sometime. Since there is no garbage disposal network like in the U.S. or Canada, we burn what we can and then we call in a local business that has a truck to remove the rest. On the Saturday night the Ruizes and ourselves went to a married couples' supper at Christ Lives Bible Church. We had to leave the kids at the camp with the Manitoba team. We had the younger kids get into their pajamas early and put Brittany in charge to ensure that: 1. The kids were in bed at 8:30 p.m. and 2. that they would not be trouble for the men..."Give them lots of space." I said. When we came home at around midnight, the kids were in bed and sleeping. All looked well, but someone stole my camera and took a lot of pictures that night of the kids playing soccer and other games with the Manitoba team...according to the digital memory... long after they were to be in bed! They all had fun from the sound of it and we were grateful for the babysitting. The Manitoba team left here where the weather has been getting to 32*C everyday and returned, to my understanding, to cold and snow.

Give Up Already...Jesus is Taking Over

Last night we received an email from a high school aged girl that had recently visited us on a Gateway team trip. She had experienced a class in her high school that blatantly tried to undermine her Christian faith. One could certainly sense the young student's frustration with a teacher that clearly tried to use sophomoric logic to denigrate Christianity. I (Marcel) wrote a rather lengthy apologetic response to the teacher's, frankly, strange deductive skills but also encouraged the student not to give up but take advantage of such opportunities to study reasonable answers to counter objections to Christianity. I have to be honest, I love playing the apologist. I cherish a challenge to Christianity and finding a strong defence of the faith and orthodoxy. I received a very gracious and thankful response from the student. Yet this incident had me think all the more about something. Why do people resist Christianity? We have the greatest message ever told. Jesus died on a cross taking upon himself our sin and shame, He extended His unmerited favour to us so that we can not suffer the effects of sin. To me it is a beautiful story, to others it's silly. It is like what it says in the Bible, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." 1 Cor. 1:18 Others want to find their own way to God but resist the way He communicated to them. To me, this is foolishness. Where there is resistance, there is the sense of fear that soon they will be taken over. Resistance is done by the weak toward the strong out of fear to the potential of change. Religion that takes up armed resistance in the name of their god does so because the followers do not believe their god is sufficient to defend himself or the system it created. Religion that defines itself by what it is not shows, it has few original thoughts but those of a charismatic yet not overly cerebral leader. Religion that blames Christianity for displacing indigenous religions fails to recognize that unlike indigenous religion, Christianity transcends cultural boundaries. There may be some last gasp efforts on the part of some to reintroduce ancient religions such as Egyptian worship of Isis, Celtic paganism or Aztec sun worship as seen in the pictures at the top of this page, but they could never be great religions because they are locked fast into their unique culture. As much as people want to make it seem that Christianity has been the aggressor of other religions, and though there is a measure of truth in this when it comes to Catholicism, was the displacement of indigenous religion all that bad? (see Mel Gibson's movie Apocalypto) When Hernan Cortez came from Spain to what is now Mexico City, he noted the large size of the city, beautiful buildings and a market that rivaled anything in Europe. Yet as he approached the center of the city, he came across the central pyramid when he could see blood that ran down the steps and the smell of human death in the air. It was the place of human sacrifice. Tens of thousands of people (and I'm being a tad conservative about that) were sacrificed to appease a pantheon of gods. Is this what people today want to go back to? People being sacrificed for gods! To it is amazing that people are willing to resist Christianity that has God sacrificing one person and that is His own Son - God Himself? God sacrificing Himself for people! This is the opposite of very other religion which is some way shape or form demands humans to be sacrificed. This aspect of Christianity is not only preferable but stands out about the loving and redeeming nature of the God of Christianity. Hence, if our God is willing to sacrifice Himself for us, ought not we follow and worship such a God? Our God need not be defended with the armed resistance because we are people that uses the strength of His Word to expand a kingdom that transcends cultures and resistance one heart at a time. As the Bible says, "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ..." 2 Cor. 10:3-5

Informing the Leaders of Missionary Plans

Last night we had a fairly normal leadership meeting at Christ Lives Bible Church. We prayed, went over the new constitution, discussed everyday issues and had the lights go out for a while. We even went to our favorite taco stand after the meeting. What was unique about this meeting was that the missionaries informed the leaders of their exit strategy and desires to do a new work in Atizapan and that this is going to happen sooner than later. With almost everyone present who needed to be there, the message was well received. I can't give exact dates or at this time until the entire congregation is informed first but I can say that we will soon be strategizing with other missionaries in the area to find the best short-cycle, cell-church movement for this unique area, an area that is both rich and poor and is the heart of Juan Diego country. He was born very close to here in Cuautitlan Izcalli (Juan Diego was the one that had the vision of the Virgin Guadalupe around which Mexican Catholicism centers). We are going to begin by building relationships which in some measure we have already been doing just by living here. This summer we have a team returning from the Cleveland, Ohio area that will be bringing a large group. Part of the group will be doing construction at the camp, part will be helping Christ Lives Bible Church with a Vacation Bible School and part will be helping with an English Camp in the Atizapan area of Mexico City. This week however we are anticipating a return from a Manitoba team that visited us last summer. It is a small team but skilled to do some good work at the camp. I'm also expecting Ingrid to arrive home from Alberta today...yeah!!!

Things are Certainly More Quiet

To cap off having people visiting us for four weeks we thought we would have some childlike fun. Our family along with Brittany's friend visiting from Canada, Lauren, and her local school buddy, Nicole, went to Six Flags Mexico for the day (see first picture). This is the second Six Flags that we have visited the other being in San Antonio, Texas. We had a great time trying the rides but it was a very busy place and the wait for rides was at times too long. The next day we took Lauren and her mom to the airport for their flight back to Alberta. The next day I took Ingrid to the airport in the city of Toluca and she too was Alberta Bound for meetings with lawyers, accountants, bankers and to get a few visits in with friends. Thus I'm doing the mister mom thing. Dishes, laundry, getting kids ready for school etc. Though I'm glad not to be having all the meetings that Ingrid has and though I'm glad for the calling to be a missionary in Mexico City there are times I pine for home and wish I was Alberta Bound. So until I get an opportunity to head north for a few weeks I'll just have to appreciate Paul Brandt's beautiful anthem. Enjoy the vid.

Lots of Guests

After the group from Chilliwack left we received more guests. This time it was our friends from Alberta, Lauren and her mom Shelley. We were neighbours to Lauren and Shelley several years ago when we lived in Beaumont, Alberta while we were attending college. Brittany always kept in contact with Lauren who is the same age, was similarily homeschooled and both are rather athletic. We have been showing them around much like we do when missions teams are here. Our first day we went to the anthropology museum. Then it was off to the retreat centre for the weekend where we took some time to visit the pyramids on what was a very hot day. We did get a chance to eat some rapidly melting ice cream as seen in picture two and during that brief moment, the clouds moved in and made the rest of the afternoon pleasant. The next day we went to church where we met Carolina's mom (with Shelley in picture three) and the some other members of Carolina's family that were visiting from Cuernavaca. We had a nice lunch with their family. We ate Pozole which is a type of corn soup with chicken and vegetables. Yesterday meant that our girls had to return to school so I (Marcel) took Shelley and Lauren to the basilica. Today, Lauren is with Brittany at school and the rest of us adults are just doing household chores. Later this week, we will spring Brittany from school to do some fun things with Lauren and we are hoping that on Saturday we can go to Six Flags.