Back from Mexico!

How can I explain 11 days of experiences in a post that is short enough to read? I will have to do just a short summary this time, and then try to update later as I think of things.

We left early Friday morning, June 1. Our journey was mainly uneventful, although our team leader nearly missed the plane from Phoenix to Puerto Vallarta! We panicked and prayed a lot, and they opened the doors to let her and another team member on just before we left. Our arrival was interesting. We disembarked the plane onto the tarmac, and then piled into a standing-room-only bus for the ride to the airport.

The airport was dark and confusing because crabby immigration traffic control people were shouting in Spanish for us to do stuff. We all piled into a line, and then he pulled three girls from the line and pointed for us to go somewhere else. One of the girls was married and her husband was left in the other line; since she wanted to be with him I went back and told him to go join her. However, the guard caught me sneaking back to the line. "No, Senorita!" he yelled and pointed for me to go back to the other line. I was kind of frustrated by that time. But we all made it through immigration (they never stamped my passport though! I have no proof that I was ever anywhere outside this country! :-(). Next came customs. A very young lady glanced at my customs declaration sheet for about a second, then told me to push a button before I could leave. Whatever.

From the airport we caught taxis to the bus station. The taxi driver wove smoothly in and out of traffic, crawled over massive speed bumps, bounced over cobblestone roads, and consistently stopped about two inches behind the bumper in front of him at every intersection. I got used to it after the first few stops. Good thing, too, because it seemed that every driver in Mexico keeps his breaks in excellent repair for the purpose of stopping quickly as close to the limit as possible.

The bus station was less cultural for me, at least at first. It looked almost exactly like an American Greyhound station, including the social status of the bus riders, the snapshots of humanity sitting on every bench, the dingy shops selling water, snacks, and postcards, and the general feeling that you were perfectly safe as long as you kept perfectly to yourself. However, uniquenesses were that you had to pay to go to the bathroom (only 30 cents, but still...) and you had to grab your toilet paper before you went into the stall. And in Mexico, toilet paper does not go down with the flush. You throw it in the garbage can. Thought you might like to know that. ;-) Also, they charged either 14 pesos (roughly equivalent to $1.40) for a huge bottle of water, or $4.00 if you were a stupid American who had neglected to exchange your currency. Also, they sold porn magazines in the dingy shop. Mexicans apparently have much greater tolerance for that than in the states, and also they have little respect for any women but especially little for American women. So as three of us girls sat and guarded the luggage, one guy came up behind us and tried to pick us up in his broken English, and another guy sat down directly in front of us and started reading the porn magazine he had just bought. Gross. But we were reassured by the numerous security guards around, and nobody really bothered us.

After a three hour bus ride to Tepic, through which we alternately watched various big and little Mexican towns pass by and tried to understand Save the Last Dance in Spanish, we arrived at the bus station tired and ready to be finished traveling. We were met by Barbara, a nice, grandmotherly lady who gave us all hugs and directed us toward the Casa vans. And here came my first lesson in the way of God versus the way of me. They needed two people to stay in the girls' dorm so the rest could fit in a rental house that the Casa has for groups to stay in. I said I would if nobody else would, meanwhile wondering why I always had to be the martyr. The other girl with me was all excited that we would have a chance to share a room while I grumped in my head about being separated off from the group and now we wouldn't be as good friends with the rest of them and why didn't one of them volunteer to be left behind, for goodness sakes! I made her feel bad for her excitement and even made her wonder if the rest of the group really cared about us -- we asked if we could switch halfway through the week.

But you know, like usual, when we are willing to serve then it is really God's chance to bless us abundantly. God blasted His blessing through my terrible attitude that night, and many times through the next days. We were able to meet the girls ahead of time, and had an automatic "in" with them that the rest of the group didn't have because they didn't share living quarters. We got to know the workings and workers at the Casa much more intimately, and were much closer to the call of God as we were constantly reminded of the needs and the benefits of the kids there. And God's Spirit must have been moving in Katie to make her want to share a room because we were a great team. She is 18 and I'm an old guy of 24, and God has taught each of us different things. I learned and fed off of her excitement and willingness to follow wherever God led her, and was also able to share some of the things God has taught me with her. We were both greatly encouraged by the chance to get to know each other. So was I a martyr? No -- God was singling me out for a blessing! Silly me to be crabby!

Here's a picture of Mexican life -- people walking, street vendors everywhere. This was taken on our afternoon in the big city; we exchanged money at the bank (which had a fascinating airlock system whereby you had to enter one door and let it close before the second door would unlock! We thought we were locked out of the bank for a long time! Loco Americanos...) and then walked around town and bought some souvenirs. That evening we had a quiet dinner at a beautiful restaurant where our table was set out right on the sidewalk. It was pretty cool.

We were at the Casa for two reasons: to serve the kids, and to serve the rest of the people at the Casa. This is Derrick climbing a tree to tie on a rope swing; he and some others decided that the kids NEEDED a rope swing so they bought a few meters of rope while they were in town and then proceeded to put it up the next day. It was more difficult than originally envisioned because we had to clean out some branches first, and instead of saws they mostly only had machetes. So Derrick hacked away at the branches from his perch up there, and then we twisted them off from the ground. I got a chance to machete-whack too, some of the littler branches that he couldn't reach. The swing was a big hit; as soon as it was up and we convinced the first few kids to try it, it became the new neighborhood hang-out. It was hardly ever unused except for when Katie and I took one last swing at 4:30 on the morning we left Mexico.

We played with the kids a lot: played with squirt guns and water balloons that a couple of the guys on our team brought, made hemp necklaces (collares) and bracelets (pulceras), played with markers and construction paper and Elmer's glue and beads and string. It was amazing how long the children stayed interested in a simple activity. Comparing them to the kids I've taught in America who don't know how to slow down and have fun was pretty sad sometimes. We also played with words a lot. "Como se dice..." (How do you say...) was one of my favorite phrases; I learned about shoes and knees and fruits and the food we ate and how to say "funny." The kids would go to great lengths to help us understand what they meant. They would model, explain over and over in Spanish (which didn't help much!), use the few English words they knew, pull us over to someone who could translate, draw a picture, pantomime; one little guy even went so far as to spell the word for me in sign language -- but since I didn't know what it meant, the spelling didn't mean so much. The language barrier was one of my biggest trepidations about the trip, but God was bigger than the problem. By Monday it was gone -- the kids knew how much we understood, and they worked with us to explain things in ways we could understand, or else to focus on the nonverbal communication that worked just as well. One particularly smart 13-year-old boy named Guillermo began a tradition on Monday night that continued throughout the rest of the trip -- since we couldn't say all the typical good-night conversations he got the kids started chanting "Buena Noches" (good night) and "Hasta Manana" (see you tomorrow) over and over again. We chanted it right back to them and left feeling that we had communicated at the very least that we loved them and were looking forward to seeing them the next day.

For Bible lessons we had a wonderful translator named Chico. He had worked at the Casa for a long time so had the long-term relationships with the kids that we lacked, and He loved the Bible a lot so his passion for it added onto ours and communicated the stories even better. Kids are amazing learners; it was fun to compare the amount they remembered from the stories to the amount our college group remembers with the same amount of practice. They beat us hands down! While the Bible time was important, I think it was the other time we spent with the kids that they will remember for longer. But God's word never returns empty, so I'm sure He'll use the stories we taught them somehow.

Our secondary goal was to help out the adults at the Casa. We painted sealer all over a concrete roof so it wouldn't leak in the upcoming rainy season. We painted a hallway, and then some of the girls painted a mural on it. Mexicans don't hold with plain walls; I saw such an amazing variety of murals and designs that I was inspired to paint my own house when I have one ;-). As another group member put it, "American walls are boring!" We stained some unfinished wood doors, and another team of two painted an amazing mural for the children's room in a new church that was being built in Tepic. And we did lots of yard work to help out Dan, the maintenance guy, who had at least twice as much as one person could do.

We also got to form some relationships with the workers at the Casa. The houseparents, Usiel and Nory for the girls and Consuelo for the boys, were fantastic people although our communications with them were very limited because of the language barrier. They held out longer than the kids, so we only got to know them for the last few days of the trip. Barbara and her husband Dave had come because they wanted to start up a fishing resort whose profits would support the orphans. Russ was the director of the Casa and school (about 60 students PK-8th); he, LeAnn (a Minnesotan involved in Casa leadership and recently married to a Mexican man), and Dan the maintenance man had all come on week-long mission trips like ours and felt a call to return. One our group members, Katie, felt the same call so she is working towards returning later this year.

Which brings me to my last point. God did way more work in us than He did in the kids through our being there, I think. He taught us about how to listen to His voice and obey it by taking time to pray for somebody rather than focusing on work all the time, by teaching us that our work is not necessary but His presence is. Another huge lesson was from Katie. As she began to feel the call to return to the Casa she got confused and pulled away from the rest of us. She was afraid to tell anyone what she was thinking and kept feeling further and further from God and the rest of the group. Our leader, Hanna, noticed and helped her to bring her struggles into the light so the rest of us could pray for her, hold her accountable, and encourage her. Hanna said that the devil always tries to tell us to get off by ourselves; that nobody will understand; that we just need time to figure things out on our own. That has been true in my experience, and it was even true while I was there sometimes. But God's way is to share our burdens with His people and to let them help bear them. As soon as Satan's lies are out in the light, they seem silly and his power is broken, and we can learn from Him and other people as we are supported by His church.

My big lesson was to allow myself to love again. This year of moving around has been hard for me; I loved my kids in Chicago very much and then I had to leave them. Then I loved the kids at Zuni so much, only to have to leave them. Substitute teaching is a series of barely learning to love and then having to say goodbye. I thought I was strong enough to handle loving the kids at the Casa even though I knew I had limited time. But I didn't. I was nice, but I didn't allow them to come into my heart and affect me until God started bringing this to my attention. He also helped me to see that He was speaking to me, too, but I just wasn't willing to listen because I was too full of my own plans. I planned to find a job around North Idaho and be here for my family for another year at least. He was saying that maybe He has called and equipped me for cross-cultural missions, and maybe He wants me in Zuni again for next year. As I looked at the Casa kids I would remember my students from Zuni and wish their lives could be easier. And when I told this to our group they were very supportive and encouraging. But it's so hard to keep remembering what God says once you get back in familiar settings and the busyness of everyday life.

However, I received a job offer from Zuni last night. I think I'm supposed to go, but the process of giving up my old dreams and the responsibilities I feel here in Idaho is hard. Please pray that God will be clear and that He will give me the strength to follow Him and to trust Him to care for those I love.

Anyways, in conclusion of the Mexico trip, God did give strength to love. And He gave strength for the loss when we had to say goodbye. It was heart-wrenching to see how sad it made the kids that we were leaving. I felt like I could handle being sad myself, but to watch these kids who have already been through more relationship trauma than most of us have in a lifetime -- to watch them try to deal with losing another set of friends was very hard. Just have to believe that God is strong enough to support them through this, and that the relationships they built will help them in the future, and that the prayers they will now have will support them as they grow into men and women of God.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support. They were richly rewarded, and when I get pictures of the kids (I didn't take any because I'm bad at multi-tasking -- I could either have fun with the kids or take pictures of them...) I'll put them up and tell you a bit about them. They were each so unique and funny and cool!

Sorry this got so long. There is just so much to say, and I've only knocked the tip off the iceberg so far! Keep watching for more updates, and thanks for making it this far with me!