We just finished our first of three
weeks at FMC's mission in General Cepeda, Mexico. We left after
dinner last Friday evening and drove through the night, arriving at
the Mexican border around 8:00 Saturday morning. We ended up getting
stuck there for five hours because there was some kind of issue the
people at the immigration office were having with the vans we had
rented.
As four of the guys sat in line after
line and tried to work things out, the rest of us prayed and
interceded for them and the people that didn't want to let us
through. For some of the time, a large group of us sang praise &
worship in the parking lot. Rebekah, one of the girls riding in our
van, brought out her ukulele and sang praise with the kids and the
others in the van with us at the time. I was edified by her prayers
of praise and thanksgiving to God for giving us the opportunity to
offer up the circumstance we found ourselves in amid our tiredness
from the night of driving and our restlessness to get to our
destination.
Just the week prior, we had been given
a talk on praise, thanksgiving and rejoicing, and how central they
are to the Christian life, and essential to being a missionary.
Scripture is full of verses about praising and thanking God
(particularly in the Psalms) and rejoicing in all circumstances. St.
Paul exhorts us in Philippians to “Rejoice in the Lord always. I
say it again: rejoice! ...Have no anxiety at all, but in everything,
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known
to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will
guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 4:4, 6-7) The
Catechism tells us that “every joy and suffering, every event and
need can become the matter for thanksgiving which, sharing in that of
Christ, should fill one's whole life” (CCC 2648). It references 1
Thes. 5:18 which says, “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this
is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” This talk was a
potentially life-changing one for both Robert and I – if we can
truly live it out! And getting stuck at the border was the perfect
opportunity to practice praising, rejoicing, and thanking God when we
wouldn't normally feel like it.
As we approached General Cepeda, we
were struck by the beauty of the area with all the mountains (which
the locals apparently call hills as they are technically foothills,
but to a Minnesota girl, they're mountains). We were told that the
altitude here is one mile high. The town, which has a population of
roughly 11,000 people, is what I would think of as a stereotypical
Mexican town: colorful buildings, mariachi music playing outside
store fronts, and warm, welcoming people. We are staying at the
mission house in the downtown area, which was originally built in the
1700s as servants quarters. The night we got here, John Paul said,
“I could get used to this!” and as I was tucking Annabelle in for
bed, she said she wanted to live here forever.
Throughout this past week we have
continued some of the same things we did at Big Woods in Louisiana:
community prayer and meals, assigned chores, our Acts of the Apostles
and Mission of the Redeemer studies, and a weekly “desert day.”
But the biggest difference is that most evenings (and some days) we
go out to the “ranchos” (small, rural communities) in the
vicinity to hold Communion or prayer services at the local chapel.
This has been an awesome experience and opportunity for us to meet
the people here and learn a little bit about their particular needs.
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| Community meals |
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| A General Cepeda neighborhood |
Most of the time, when we get to the
rancho, we go door-to-door inviting people to come to the chapel for
the communion/prayer service. Unlike in America, it isn't considered
rude to bang on a person's door and yell, “Buenos dias!” to get
them to answer the door. The people we've talked to have been so
kind despite us not knowing Spanish and having t
o read our invitation
to them (completely botching some of the words).
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| A rancho chapel |
Lots of kids have been coming to the
chapel at most of the ranchos we've visited. At one, they
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| Lauren playing Duck, Duck, Goose with kids |
gathered
outside and played loudly while the adults were inside for the prayer
service. I went outside with our kids not long after the service
started because they were getting antsy and it seemed to draw even
more kids over. It's amazing how the language barrier doesn't seem
to matter with kids. They interact and play just as well as if they
spoke the same language. I had many girls coming up to me asking
questions about baby Aaron (What's his name? How old is he? Can I
hold him?). Lauren, one of girls going through intake with us,
organized a game of “Duck, Duck, Goose” for the little kids while
Robert, John Paul, and some other missionary kids played another
made-up game with the bigger kids. That prayer service lasted
particularly long because most of the people there asked to be prayed
over, so the kids were able to play for quite awhile.
Someone shared that at a rancho they
visited, an older woman was out of breath as she came to the chapel
after they rang the bells indicating that there was going to be a
communion service. She said she had been out in the field working
with her 99-year-old father when she heard the bells ringing and came
running. She shared that she has been feeling forgotten by the
Church because the priest rarely visits that rancho and there's a
lack of presence at the chapel there. At the mission house, there's
a map of all the ranchos in the vicinity and there's simply too many
for the amount of missionaries here to effectively minister to
them
all. Just another reminder that the Church is in desperate need of
more missionaries!!
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| Playing outside with kids after a Bible Study at a rancho chapel |
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| Gathering outside a rancho chapel to talk with people |
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| Singing fun songs just before a prayer service starts |
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| Inside a rancho chapel |
This coming week, we will likely be
finding out which country our family will be getting sent to for our
first mission post. We'll try to write another post next week to
make the announcement! The
following week, we will serve alongside
people coming here for a week-long mission trip. We'll be
celebrating Thanksgiving during this trip by inviting the poor to
come to the mission house for a feast!
Throughout this coming week, I
encourage you to practice praising and thanking God in every
circumstance and in all things, and rejoicing even – no,
especially! - in your trials and hardships. It's hard to do when you
feel like complaining, but not only will it glorify God but it will
change your perspective. It's harder to feel upset or worried about
something when you're praising and thanking God for His Providential
care for you and for all the good things in your life, even simple
things that we take for granted like a warm house, indoor plumbing,
and clean drinking water.
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| An outhouse at someone's house on a rancho |
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| Be grateful for all that you have. |
Once
we got to our destination, each of us were handed an envelope which
contained the information we were anxiously anticipating for the past
few weeks: which country we were getting sent to. The boys were
praying for jungles and mountains for the past few months. Our
oldest son, Robert, had been hoping and praying specifically for Peru. We
eagerly took our envelope and make a short hike to an area where we
could lay out blankets to eat lunch and pray. 
We
don't know too much yet about the area we'll be going to. We do know
that it's a small town near a larger town named Picota and that it's
in a moderate jungle area at the foothills of the mountains. The
town itself has a chapel but we're not sure how often the priest
makes it to that chapel; people most likely have to go to Picota for
Sunday Mass each week. The church in Picota is less than 50 years
old, and the surrounding towns are still largely uncatechized. The
local priest is a Spanish missionary and has specifically asked for a
missionary family to come to the area. We are so excited about this
opportunity to get to know the Peruvian people and be Christ to them,
and encounter Christ through them!
