Highlights from the May 2013 Chacala Pastors Conference

An incredible conference indeed, here are a few reasons why . . .

A lot of new pastors in attendance ~ It is always a tremendous blessing when a large percentage of attendees are first timers. It's reassuring to know that previous attendees are sharing their experiences with their acquaintances and sharing the vision. Then there are the amazing testimonies of how these precious pastors and their wives were able to come to the conference and what they are expecting God to do during the week.

A group of new pastors, hanging out, during registration.

Reaching the indigenous people ~ As a result of Chuck, Rafael, and Pedro's visit to the mountains a few months ago (see previous post), an indigenous pastor and his wife came to this conference. During their mountain adventure, Chuck's team drove over questionable roads, through a river, parked, and walked a mile to visit pastors in that area (this is before rainy season). The indigenous couple many more hours into the mountains from where Chuck's team visited. The couple hiked several hours and travelled by car for at least 14 hours to come to the conference. They had heard about the team's visit and wanted to find out what this conference was all about. Awesome! During the conference, they were invited up front to translate what was being sung & said into their native tongue, what a treat! They would love for Chuck & the team to come visit their area, Chuck thought he may need to hire a pack of burros.



A Time for Healing ~ During the conference, as we strive to strengthen marriages, we provide a special opportunity for the husbands & wives.  During one day, there is a special teaching time for the ladies, and during this time the husbands write a love letter to their wives. Then that evening during fellowship time, letters are picked at random, for the husband to read to his wife on his knee, while she sits, in front of everyone. For some this is very moving, as they may not hear these words of admiration, love, and affection from their husband very often, let alone in front of a whole crowd. This week a husband shared of his thankfulness to his wife for her patience, endurance, and love for him as he had abused her and been an alcoholic previously. What a transparent moment and opportunity for healing in their relationship. Would you pray for them? That God would continue to bring healing, transparency, and growth to their marriage.


Special friends ~ What fun it was to serve the pastors with our dear friends, Dave & Dala Breummer (see their posts).  They were incredible! Dala used her spanish to have many conversations with many in attendance.  Dave taught the men. Dala taught the ladies. They both served meals, moved chairs, hung tarps, cleaned tables, prayed, and loved on everyone.  Their patience, humility, and tireless energy were an inspiration to us all. What a special week!




Wisdom Shared ~ Something new this conference was a panel on marriage, provided by Paul & Elaine Newkirk and Bill & Jane Robertson. Both couples have faithfully served at many conferences, and what an significant impact they made. God spoke profoundly through their experiences and wisdom gained through their own journeys. Difficult questions were asked and thoughtful, practical, insightful, and discerning wisdom was shared.

Alistair is taking it all in.

Sydney entertaining the kids.

An awesome lunch crew.

     

Outages and differences

Thank you for your prayers for us in transition!  We have certainly been encouraged by your notes, goodbye greetings and updates of goings on up in the States.  Some of you have asked how life is now that we have arrived in Mexico permanently. In our experience the leaving was not too difficult because we were excited to be doing ministry full-time here in Mexico.  Our departing was mixed with some saddness to say goodbye to many good friends we have known in our 13 years in Escondido.  Arriving however was like a birthday, you know you should feel different, but you hope not too different.

There are some clear differences in lifestyle that we have been acquainted with previously, but all of these differences take on new meaning when you are here to stay.  One of these differences is the unreliability of utilities.  Those of you who have travelled in Mexico and other places in the developing world will remember seeing water tanks on top of each house in Mexico and elsewhere.  Roof-top water tanks solve two problems.  The first is that it alleviates the need for each city to have pressurized water because the water in each tank is then gravity fed into the house.  The second reason is that when the water service is interrupted (a somewhat frequent occurrence) you always have the water in your tank to use until the service is restored. 

Broken water pipes and a long ditch always portend bad news about water.

The funny thing for us was that the last full day we were in our house in Escondido, the water department left a note on the door that the water would be turned off on our street for repairs for 12 hours. We put some water in buckets to give our house a last cleaning before our renters moved in, and the next day, the water was only off for a few hours, not the 12 hours they had announced. Therein underscores the small differences in life in Mexico as opposed to the U.S. After arriving last Monday, I was leaving Chacala early Tuesday morning for a meeting with some of our leaders when I saw that a large section of the water main pipe was dug up indicating that we would be without water for at least another day (it has been off since a week ago Saturday). Thus, we were hopeful that we would have water restored by today (Monday), but yesterday the town officials announced that during the night Saturday that the town water pump had been stolen extending our water outage for another week (hopefully). Thankfully the house we rent has a large cistern, which should last over a week, so we are fine and we can order a water truck if we have to.  

La pipa (water truck) delivering 14,000 liters of water is a welcome sight with one more week of waterless Chacala to continue.

Here the people are not happy to be inconvenienced by the lack of water, but everyone finds another way. Imagine in the U.S. if your water was off for 2 weeks or more, these things make national news back home!  Power outages are common here too during the rainy season (June-October) and sometimes longer ones (3-4+ days) when folks come in the night to steal the wire from the transmissions lines. Of course, there are other things which we foreigners consider inconveniences, but we're relatively used to them. Besides, if all we ever had to report from the field was how different everything is here, we probably wouldn't make it here for very long!  So don't read this as a rant, but rather a description of the reality of life, which is ever so more rich because we can invest our lives with these great folks without concern of when we have to return.  Thanks for holding us up in prayer as we seek to serve God here in His kingdom.