missionaryMAC

That is what the group from St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Barrington, IL's schedule looked like last week! Historically Barrington comes down every summer to lead VBS at Santisima Trinidad and every October to run medical clinics at 2 of Pastor Hernandez's churches and do some sort of construction project. In 2009 the summer team broke with tradition and chose to stay stateside; they ran 2 Vacation Bible Schools and brought a construction contingent as well. Chris and I missed out on working with them since we were in Chihuahua City interpreting for an eyeglass clinic, but we were here for the 25 of them this year as they stayed true to their new tradition and did likewise. Both this year and last, they still sponsored VBS at Santisima--aka sent whatever materials they could and funds to purchase the rest--but left the leadership up to them. The first time, an atmosphere of longing and fear reigned over the decision; Pastor Hernandez's wife Blanca was terrified to take the...

From Wednesday to Wednesday, July 14-21, a combined group from 2 churches in MI was here. Half of them, from St. Paul Lutheran Church in Caro, stayed at the dorms in Anapra and built two houses there; they are the church that built the new sanctuary for those of you that remember pulling the vans right up underneath the carport and worshipping in that cramped room off to the side. The other half of the group, from Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Flushing, stayed and worked stateside at two sites in Horizon City. Half of them--lots of halving going on here--worked with Chris on a full build for the Garcia family. Check out Chris's blog entitled "Better than raking leaves" for pictures and stories about them; Luz, David, Rafael, Elizabeth, Dora, and Nadia are quickly working their way into all of our hearts. The other half worked with me to finish up the kitchen/BR addition at the "Wildfire house," home of the Olivas family. Oh, I suppose I need to explain the titl...

In spite of the title of my last blog, or perhaps because of it, Satan never quits trying to prevent us from doing what we do best. I stole the title of this blog from something someone said to me in conversation too--this time it was Becky, YLM's bookkeeper. In case you haven't heard, a car bomb was detonated by gang members in Juarez on Thursday, July 15. The bombing took place somewhere near downtown Juarez, killed 4 people, and injured between 16 and 20 others. On Saturday of that week, police found a graffiti threat allegedly written by the gang that pulled off the car bomb, saying that if the authorities didn't stop "supporting" the rival gang, they would bomb another car in 15 days with 10x as much explosives. That date is this Sunday, August 1. I was actually in Juarez on the Saturday that the threat was found, at Gaby's quince. However, based on the bombing itself and the subsequent threat, we as a mission staff made the decision to keep groups out of...

Pastor Kluzek used that phrase in a conversation with my mom and I last week and I liked it. The purpose of this blog is two-fold: I want to tell you who Pastor Kluzek is and what he does because it is actually really neat and my guess is that not very many people know about it, and I want to tell you how much truth I have seen in those 3 little words in just a couple of weeks. Rev. Mark Kluzek is a pastor from NM who has been coming, on his own or with 1-2 friends, to YLM every summer for something like 7 years now. He always drives, and his vehicle is always loaded to capacity and beyond with donated goods for distribution. He stays at the mission for 3 or 4 days, 2 of which are usually spent evangelizing in Juarez, at San Pedro y San Pablo and San Lucas. He first goes door-to-door inviting people and then later holds a huge gathering which he uses as a time to share the Gospel in a mass setting and give away all his loot. This year, he chose not to cross the border and instead did t...

I wasn't just wearing a dress in the previous post for a random photo shoot with my "little" sister that's taller than me; I had just returned from Panchis's daughter Gaby's quinceanera at San Lucas with Chris and Chris's parents, who were the padrinos (sponsors) of the cake. Chris and I were the padrinos of Gaby's dress, which means we paid for it--finding sponsors for various components of the celebration is very common among Hispanic families who can't afford to go all out for the big day. It also meant that we had a special role to play during the ceremony though since the word "padrino" also means "godparent" and bears much more significance in Hispanic culture than in ours. All of us had to process in behind Gaby, the pastors, and her family, we had to sit in the front row, and we were called up along with Gaby's parents during one portion of the service. We told Panchis straight-up when we got there that we had to lea...