Pastors Conferences in Chiapas and Guatemala

Pastor Marco teaching exegesis with iPad and projector

THE JUMP TO LIGHT-SPEED (or at least the 21st century)

Adapting to new technology

One of the added benefits of being able to live here full-time is the opportunity I have to mentor people. Of course, I have my mentors as well, both in the US and here in Mexico, as I seek input to clarify and correct our work here. This picture here of Marco teaching using an tablet and LCD projector represents a significant milestone in my work here equipping pastors.  For the last 8 years, we have

A registration table!

used overhead projectors and transparencies to help pastors take notes during our teaching, and to graphically illustrate concepts in our teaching. The plus side of an overhead projector is it's simplicity, but with most of our teaching arenas being outside, the visibility of the transparencies were usually very poor. One of my goals this year was to train our team to use tablets connected to projectors to annotate digitally while teaching. As you can see from the pictures, the image is very clear which is really important when the pastors you are teaching are partially illiterate. What I had planned to be a slow roll-out of technology turned into an instant transformation when the overhead projector we were attempting to use was too dim to be readable. During the first lesson, we quickly set up the tablet and projector, which we already used for worship slides, and after a crash course in annotating a PDF on a tablet, we were off and running.  Amazing.

BLESSING AND BEING BLESSED

Despite the fact that we are constantly invited to teach conferences throughout Mexico, we always question our motives: 1) Whether we are reaching out to the right people?, and 2) What kind of longer impact on their on communities will training pastors to more effectively teach and understand the Bible have? These are questions we wrestle with as a team, and so we evaluate each conference based on the responses of the pastors and churches where we are conducting each conference. Previous conferences in Chiapas (southern Mexico) were well-received, and culturally the pastors in Chiapas are some of the most studious pastors I have ever met. There are also other indicators, which both stand out as evidence of sincere need and genuine thankfulness, in the thorough attention to detail that churches put forth in their preparations to host conferences. We request very few items outside of a sound system for music and teaching. The churches provide the food, coffee, and in this case (see picture above) 3 people who set up to register pastors as they arrived for the conference. Being that this used to be my principle task, to register pastors and create name tags, I was both very impressed and relieved at the same time! An even more humbling event at both conferences was a formal presentation of gifts to us from each group of pastors. These were distinct groups, and yet each group expressed their appreciation to us by presenting us with these small gifts, which we understand to be indicators of the value these conferences have for these pastors.

Public transportation

DIFFERENCES

to feed his younger brothers

A boy of 16 earning money on the street by blowing gasoline on his flame

As we intentionally seek out areas of need in Latin America, we are constantly reminded that we are further and further away from the comforts of home, even comforts my Mexican leaders are accustomed to. As we were eating breakfast our first morning in Guatemala, one of our leaders remarked at how terrible the food was. "That's why we're here," said another leader. Indeed. I neglected to snap a picture of the ubiquitous armed guards that stood in front of almost any shop or restaurant, from a fried chicken fast-food (read KFC-ish) to a small cell phone shop, all of them had at least one guard with a shot-gun and bandolier of shells around his chest. It's a disconcerting thought to see  where the balance between peace and violence rests in the hands of an armed guard who makes less than $5/day. Just crossing into Guatemala makes Mexico seem like the US in comparison. The sense of desperation and hopelessness on the faces of the people, and the way in which everything from toothpaste

Traveling to the conference in Guatemala. No kidding its safer this way!

to medicine to computers costs so much more for people who make so much less.

End of the conference in Guatemala.

MENTORING FOR CHANGE

There has been some movement in the last few years towards using technology to teach pastors remotely in developing countries. While there are great benefits in getting tools and resources into the hands of pastors quickly, as a team, we feel called to mentor and disciple great leaders. As in a business, you wouldn't hand a book to an employee and expect them to become a model employee, you have to walk them through the material and verify that not only do they comprehend it, but that they could teach someone else the same material. We're doing that, and trying to take it a step further. As we have conducted over 20 conferences and trained over 900 pastors in Mexico and Guatemala, we have accumulated a short-list of pastors, who have displayed the ability to mentor other pastors. We are working with them to encourage, coach and mentor them so that they can transform their communities.

Our Life in Chacala . . .

On this "Fall" day, it is 92 degrees outside and 88 degrees inside, so as I write to you, the fans are blowing and the sun is shining. I'm having a hard time welcoming in the new season without much evidence of change, except for the few Fall decorations we brought with us, but such is life in the tropics. We can live vicariously through all of your photos & tales of the changing seasons!

As some of you might be curious as to where we have landed, after uprooting our lives in Escondido of 13 years, I wanted to share with you what our life looks in Chacala through a "tour" of sorts. Now that we're settled in, the school year is in full gear, and we are gearing up for our next pastor's conference here in Chacala, there's no time like the present.

Here's the village of Chacala, on the north end with the beach on the north side. This is about 2 hours north of Puerto Vallarta via automobile.

Here is the main "street" with a few hotels, restaurants, street tacos, and tiendas (groceries & gift shops).

Here is the Plaza with the Chac Mool restaurant in the background.



Here is the fish market, where fresh fish comes in daily from the nearby harbor (below). 
Fishing is one of the main occupations of local residents, next to tourism.

Here's the local market where we buy the basics: bread, fruit, veggies, milk, yogurt, chips, soda, and ice. Anything more, we need to go to the nearest town, Las Varas, which is 20 minutes away. Most other things, we shop for when we go to Puerto Vallarta (2 hours away); at Costco, WalMart, or other big chain grocery stores.

Then it's off to Alistair's kindergarten . . . just a small walk towards the harbor from this store.

This school is for 3, 4, and 5 year olds. The classroom is the light orange building (below). The purple building is where the teacher sleeps and lives all week. His home is a ranch an hour away, so he commutes by bus on Monday and Friday (this reminds me a bit of Little House on the Prairie). The tiny red building under the tree has a tiny kitchen and bathrooms for the kids. The families of the 6 students are on a rotation to provide a substantial snack for the students & teacher each day at 10:30am. School is from 9:00am to 1:30pm. The salmon colored building in the background is a vacation home/rental house.

Below,  a student is given a book to "read" (describe what they see) as they look at the pictures. Amazingly, Alistair is really enjoying school now after a few really rough weeks.

Back in town, don't forget our favorite pizza place . . .



And our favorite hotel & restaurant, Las Brisas . . .

Now leaving "downtown",  you head up the hill towards our house. Here in the foreground is a small lagoon filled with lily pads (dark green). Then in the distance is another lagoon that is light green, where the local crocodile lives. Then beyond that, where the palm trees are, is a campground right on the beach and amongst the coconut trees. On the weekends & holidays you will see a handful of big tour buses lined up here. In the very far distance is a hill of mango groves, which was once a volcano, and you can hike up to see the crater.

Back to the main road, where the clinic is on the left (pictured below) and the turn off for our house 
is to the right.

If you continue straight here for another 100 feet on the main road, you would come to this great park.

If you were to turn right from the clinic, this is what you would see, our road. After the rains, it has become more of a 4 wheeling practice course, great for mountain bikes. The house you see here is not ours, but our neighbors, we are directly across from him to the left.

Here's our place . . . built on the rocks.

And if you were to come visit, you might find this guy waiting to greet you. 
Alistair calls him "Brown Guy".

These are our neighbor's bananas, almost ready for harvest.

And of course Sydney and Ethan working hard on their schoolwork.

I hope you enjoyed your tour of Chacala!  

With all of these sights, please don't forget the wonderful people that live here (more introductions to come later) along with the plethora of mosquitoes and other exotic insects and animals all thriving amongst the heat and humidity.