REFLECTIONS FROM THE ROAD

your comfort food . . .
Steamed Meat, Cooked Cow's Head, Hominy Soup, Beef Stomach Soup, Creamy Oatmeal

I posted this picture on our 

When comfort food isn't

Facebook page a few weeks ago on our drive back to Chacala. Truthfully, we were exhausted from our time in the U. S. Now, before you feel bad for us, we have learned something about the missionary life as we've watched our own missionary heroes travel the globe, visit churches, and on occasion, when the opportunity allowed, visit with our family. So we knew (well we thought we knew) that furlough, missionary style, means a small window of time where we try to catch up with as many people as possible. Unfortunately, we only covered part of southern California this time, which leaves us with many more states to visit in the future. We pray for the opportunity to visit so many of you. You see, missionaries aren't really on "vacation" sitting on the beach, or by the lake, during furlough. Any missionary we know, and many of the mission organizations we are familiar with, require their missionaries to visit churches, update donors, AND raise more support. The truth is that life happens to everyone, supporters have unexpected expenses too, and so despite the fact that we have the most amazing, humble, loving and encouraging team of supporters, some people stop giving. Now, I'm not the most spiritual person by nature, so when we started this faith journey, it would seriously freak me out to think that we could actually live (buy groceries, pay rent, buy gasoline and maybe even buy clothes) solely based on 40 families, generously giving us small and large portions of what God has given to them. Hold that thought for a minute, I'm going to come back to it.

So, please don't think that we need a vacation from our furlough because what we did on furlough, meeting with so many of you and having time to catch up in person was so wonderful and really encouraging. With each event or shared meal, we were able to share with you, our dear friends and family, what God is doing in Mexico and Guatemala through the church.

Indulge me for a few minutes more about some observations we had while in the good ol' U. S. of A.

First of all, American roads are so SMOOTH and BIG. I'm not just talking about the size of the lane, but the number of lanes, the overpasses which allow you to go in multiple directions without stopping, and even angled lanes so that you don't have to slow down. For Americans, I couldn't help realize how valuable we think time is that we can get in our cars and have tons of free space to drive almost as fast as we want to get somewhere. We used these lovely roads A LOT during our time in the U.S. driving an average of 150 miles/day. I began to wonder . . . if what we are in a hurry for really matters. Stop for a minute and ask yourself what matters? What REALLY matters? It really prompted me to ask these questions while we were driving around, because we also get "busy" with lots of things in Mexico, that maybe don't help the church grow or help pastors, and I would encourage you to make sure that when your life is going 80 mph in the carpool lane, does it matter? In the economy of heaven, is it worth it?

Second, (that is if you're still reading), is there space for God to work in our busy lives? We have a great luxury living in a foreign and sometimes risky country to depend on God and see God work in many ways, because many times we have no other option. In the U.S., we have lots of options not to see God work, and they are easy to access. I LOVED ordering the majority of stuff that we wanted to take back with us from Amazon, but once all the things started arriving, my appetite to finish buying the rest of the stuff on our list (wire, hard drives to replace broken ones, fans, etc.) I found my desire to buy evaporating and instead thinking that we can make do without this or that for awhile longer. I have to confess that when we first arrived in Mexico we (I should say I was) were a bit fanatical about replacing broken or missing things that we thought were important. What we've realized over this year is that leaving room for God to work is often a MUCH BETTER SOLUTION.

Now back to thoughts on support raising. (You can skip this part, if you've already heard it from me directly.) One of the biggest things we've learned this year is to allow God to work. To get out of the way. I don't want this to sound arrogant, so please understand that we are so humbled in the way we have seen God work to raise support. Of course, we had to show up, and some of you showed up as well (i.e.: showing up to serve at a conference) to witness first-hand what God is doing in the Church in Latin America. Back in 2012, as we prepared to move to Mexico full-time in 2013, we sought the opportunity to visit with many of you to share our story and rally support. Now, I'm not a fundraiser.  I'm not comfortable asking for money (actually it's a pride thing I think, but I like to spiritualize it as humility), and the last thing we want when we call to visit someone is for them to think that we're going to ask for money (as one might be naturally inclined to do). So we never do. What we do do is pray a lot. We pray before we share, we pray for you to do what God wants you to do (which may be to do nothing).  I'll never forget, after we enjoyed dinner with a sweet family, and we were finished with the meal, the husband says to me, "We'd like to support you guys for $xxx/month." I thought I was hearing things. I could believe that people supported missionaries for anything other than what comes in the tens column. I was so humbled. This is the way that God works. God works BIG. In orders of magnitude that we often don't have faith for. But we do have to show up. We might not have the courage to ask, but we DO have to show up. If you're wondering if we have 100% of what we need, actually we still lack a modest amount, but if we lacked nothing we would have no place for God to work. As I drove (a lot) around southern California last month I couldn't stop thinking "This stuff isn't really important, impressive, but not REAL." People are real, God is real, Jesus is real.

Excitement on the road

It's 10:20 in the morning as we leave Starbucks for some much needed caffeine as I drive south through Ciudad Obregon, Sonora, and I remember that we need to find a bank to withdraw some pesos. As I search for a bank, the caffeine still hasn't kicked in, I decide to turn left onto a side-street to go around the block instead of attempting an u-turn in the middle of a busy street. As I start my left turn off the side street into the next street, suddenly there is a loud bang against my door and the next thing I see is a motorcycle with the rider laying on the street. We need help God! I run over to the rider lying in the street. His ankle and knee are clearly hurt, but otherwise he looks OK. Colleen moves our car out of the intersection, she the kids stay in the car, and a small crowd of witnesses starts to gather. I ask someone to call an ambulance, but before I can even finish, an ambulance pulls up. If you read the blog about Juan, you'll know that ambulances don't just show up in a minute in Mexico, if they ever show up at all. A minute later, a policeman pulls up and starts evaluating the scene. Witnesses come forward, the vast majority supporting my version that I was turning left with my blinker on and the motorcyclist tried to pass me to go straight on the left side before I turned. After the policeman finishes his report (partially), we both sign it and even though he says that the motorcyclist is more at fault, he suggests that I should pay for an x-ray of his leg so that he can't claim anything against me later. The owner of the company, who the young man works for, has also come to the scene, along with her husband, so we follow them to a small private hospital a few blocks away. The couple call their personal physician, who just happens to be an orthopedic surgeon working in the same hospital. He looks at the x-ray (for which I paid $30 US) and examines the cyclist and pronounces him OK with only a "golpe" (bumps & bruises). The doctor also refuses any payment. So in less than 2.5 hours we are free to go. Remarkable! How's our car? Well, it does have some dents in the driver's side door and the running board, but in light of how this event could have played out, we have no problem with that. Sorry we didn't get any great pictures of the accident, but I did take this picture of the intersection where you can see the police car on the left side and the motorcycle to the right of the intersection. God is with us!