Pray & Preach

This time I came to Zapotitlan with a few people from church, including Pastor Gerardo and a woman named Marta Estrada. It was the first time I got to meet Marta. Wow, what an inspiration! I heard her story previously, but I never had the chance to meet her or even hear her speak. She’s a pastor from Columbia, who travels now as a speaker and a missionary. She has done such amazing things with her life, such as starting an organization to help women out of prostitution, and ministering to gang members and the Columbian mafia. She has snuck Bibles into a certain country, and is going to Thailand for 3 months to help a group there that helps prostitutes. (I know this is just a little ol’ blog, but I’m trying to be careful about what I say because I would hate for this to show up in the wrong person’s search engine or something, and for her to get red flagged if she goes to a certain country again.) She was my buddy on the way here and during her time here because she speaks English perfectly, and she lives in Lancaster City so we’re practically neighbors. I tried not to tire her by acting like a child who wanted to hear “just one more” story, but really I just wanted to keep hearing stories. I shared with her a story of God’s faithfulness and she “one up’d” me, though I don’t believe she meant to. Boldness inspires me. I want to have the boldness to walk up to gang members and offer to pray for them, or to buy a prostitute for the night so I can tell her of the love of Christ. She wrote a book called “To the Mafia with Love,” I recommend checking it out. Talking to her makes me want to share the love of God with everyone, especially those who feel unloved.

It’s been exciting being back here. The group was only here for 2 days, and when they left they took Aby & the kids with them. So now it’s only Israel, Ben and I. Israel had a dream that Ben and I got into a big fight and I told him to leave so he went back to Mexico. I don’t see that happening, but Ben & I have talked about staging a fight to scare Israel. I like that Ben thinks messing with people is fun.

Both churches, in Zapotitlan and Huizitlan, are doing well. They changed the schedule around, and I think it’s better. We had services in both places on Sunday, and they were both really good. Some of the youth started leading worship, for both churches, right before I left last time and they are great! I’m so impressed with their talent. On Saturday they were here practicing for a few hours, and the one kid who had never picked up an instrument was playing bass like a natural. He was actually better than the bass player who’s been playing regularly for a month or so. I’m amazed at their ability to learn new songs, like they’ve been doing this their whole lives. I believe it’s God’s hand on them.

People here seem to like to tell stories about whoever they think my current love interest is. Our first day here Pastor Gerardo heard the story about the guy on the horse. If you keep up with my blog, you may recall that story. If not, basically I saw a really hot guy riding a horse while we were driving home one day. Yeah, it’s not a very exciting story, but someone thought Pastor should hear this story. For a few days we ate at Tia’s house. Tia is Pastor Gerardo’s aunt, actually tia means aunt. Her name is Benni, but we all call her Tia. The first day we were there I was being available to help cook, even though I didn’t actually do anything. During that time she called me a word I didn’t know, and can’t think of, and Aby told me it means daughter-in-law. I didn’t think anything of it, I just thought she was saying it because I was around to help out. The next day she said something about me marrying her son, and I then understood what the daughter-in-law reference was. Somehow Pastor caught wind of this, no, I’m going to tell you the truth. Pastor Gerardo was told that his aunt was trying to get me to marry his cousin, Arturo. Who, by the way, is … um, a very handsome young man. In this case handsome means: so stinkin’ fine I nearly passed out the first time I saw him. Pastor kept telling me that I’m only allowed to pray and preach while I’m here, and he would say “no cowboys.” Arturo was going to be coming home the next day, so the next day we were invited over to eat again. Unfortunately, we ended up going over there a lot later than we wanted. See, this is one of the problems with living with men. Tia came over that day to say that Arturo is home and she would like to have us over for breakfast. The guys wait for me to come out of my room, probably an hour or more later, to tell me we’re going there for breakfast. Well, this girl needs to shower, do her hair and put some make-up on. So by time I was ready, Tia had left her house. We ended up not going over to her house until lunchtime. Arturo was already at work, he works at a store in Zapo, and I wasn’t going to walk all the way across town (it probably takes 5 or 7 minutes to get there) to his store to say hello. I know I could have, but I didn’t want to. So I didn’t get to see him, and that’s ok.

Rach, I’m picturing your reaction to this story. I see you throwing both fists in the air shouting, “NO Becky! You should have gone to the store!!!!” :-)

And by the way, Tia now tells me not to call her Tia anymore, but rather suegra, which means mother-in-law.

Rach, here’s 4 Spanish words for you: tia=aunt; tio=uncle; suegra=mother-in-law; suegro=father-in-law.

Last night I dreamed about McDonald’s. I haven’t had any fast food in 5 months and I’m seriously craving it. I woke up briefly from the dream and decided today I’d head to McDonald’s. I was planning my trip when I remembered that I’m in the middle of rural Mexico and there is no McD’s anywhere to be found. Can I mention that despite my current craving, I think McD’s is pretty stinkin gross? But I plan to go there when I go home.

As I’m writing this I have 1 week and 1 day left. Yikes. As much as I look forward to going home and seeing you all again, I don’t look forward to not being here anymore. I’m going to miss the folks, and the culture, and the weather, and the food. I’m even going to miss my gringo friend, who is going to be Lord-knows-where for the next Lord-knows-how-long. Good thing God knows stuff, cause we certainly don’t.

Dropped the Ball

Since I have had unlimited internet access I have not been blogging very much at all. Yes, I dropped the ball. But I'm back! At least for today because tomorrow I'm headed back to Zapotitlan!!! Can I get a woohoo?!?!

If you would have told me 6 months ago that I'd be spending so much time there, and loving it I would have called you a mentiroso...or mentirosa if you're a girl. God did some kind of work in me because not only am I obediently going back, but I'm so excited because I love it there! I'm only going to be there for about 10 days because I want to come back "home" before going home to PA. Wow! Two more weeks!!

Yes, I miss you so much, and I can't wait to be back in PA to see you all! But I'm so at home here I really just want everyone in my life to move to Mexico with me. Ok? Ok, it's settled then.

On Thanksgiving, we celebrated Thanksgiving gringa-in-Mexico style. I made a traditional Strause Thanksgiving meal--turkey, stuffing, potato filling, corn, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, 7 layer salad and cranberry salad. It was stinkin' yummy! My Mexicans loved it. Israel & Aby the pastoring couple in Zapotitlan just happened to be in the city last week so they came over for Thanksgiving, and brought a pumpkin pie. Yay for American food. Actually I don't like pumpkin pie, but I was excited for those who do. It was just a great time with good food, and good friends.

So, tomorrow I'm off to Zapotitlan. We should have some vegetables to harvest pretty soon, and I'm very excited about that! I'm hoping to get some sweet corn before I leave, but with the way the weather has been, I'm not so sure that's going to happen.

I had a few Spanish classes while I was here in Mexico City, and my Spanish is still really bad but it's better than it was. Rach, here's your word for today: manzana (apple). I want to spell it phonetically, but I'm not very good at that. Here's a try mahn-ZAH-nah.
Rachael quiere muchas manzanas con chile. (Rachael wants many apples with chili.)

Rach's Word of the Day

Rach requested I teach her a new Spanish word each time I blog. Since I already blogged today, before I saw her proposal, here's the word of the day for Rach...and anyone else who's interested:

palabra - word

Esta es tu nueva palabra.
This is your new word.

Mas Lomas

I realized I had forgotten how absolutely gorgeous it is in Lomas. Hilary and I got here, to my host family’s vacation home, Sat. night around 8:30. The rest of the family was away at a birthday party, but arrived at home soon after we did. The family had come to Lomas on Friday, and Hilary and I stayed in the city an extra day because she needed to be at church on Saturday, and her parents didn’t want her staying alone. Friday night was fantastic for me, because I’m the type of person who craves alone time and that doesn’t ever happen in my house. When Hilary and Chucho said they were going to the movies and invited me along, I declined and enjoyed the house to myself. I watched more t.v. than I have in the past 4 months. I laughed hard, and watched an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition so I cried hard too. I cooked up some chorizo, which I knew would make me sick, and enjoyed my totally self-absorbed night alone.
Saturday morning none of us wanted to get up. Chucho and his sister, Pris, stayed with us also. We needed to leave at 10:00 to get to church on time. That’s the same time that I started waking up teenagers. We got to the church an hour or so late. I didn’t understand why we were supposed to be there anyhow, but no one seemed upset that we were late. Actually, we had to wait for the other youth to get there. Hilary taught them a skit to the song Jesus Mesias, or Jesus Messiah. They worked on it for about 3 hours, it was pretty good by the end of the day. I look forward to seeing them perform it.

As Hilary and I were trying to find our way to our bus to come here, one of the guys from church texted her because some of the youth wanted to hang out with me. He said they hadn’t had time with me and wanted to spend time with me. Awww… they’re so great. It’s been difficult building relationships because I’ve been back and forth from Mexico to Zapotitlan so much. I haven’t really had the opportunity to stay in one place long enough to pursue friendships, but now that I’ll be in Mexico for the next 4 weeks that’s something I really want to do. I’ve often, said that when I leave I don’t want to be “that gringa that was here for a while”. So now I really need to work on relationships with more people than just my family. Well, now being tomorrow after we get back to the city.

Last night (Sunday) we went to papa Roberto’s sister’s house. Before we went, mama told me that the house is big and there is a lot of food. The food was out of control. They just kept sitting things to eat in front of me. No matter how much I said “no, gracias, estoy llena (no thanks, I’m full)” the food kept coming. Actually, I guess it wasn’t as bad as it felt. I managed to turn down the cake, I ate the amazing tostada with shrimp, turned down the peanuts, ate some corn cake (mmmm…), only ate 1 piece of the candied fruit thing, only a bite of a sweet…. empanada (I think), and too much gummy candy. Rach, you would have loved the gummies. They were spicy and sweet …and muy rico! I’m not sure what I liked more the tostada, or the corn cake…both were delicious! When we left the house, after eating and eating and eating, we stopped for dinner. Wait, what??? I was very confused. We stopped at a taco place, which apparently had amazing tacos. My family recounted the food that I ate in order to convince me to eat more, decided I hadn’t had enough and that I really should eat some tacos. Despite their persistence, I won the battle and managed to leave without so much as tasting a piece of steak.

I’m hungry…and my family will be up in a bout 2-2 ½ hours. Today we’re heading back to the city. Normally it takes us about 1 ½-2 hours to get here, but today it will probably take 4 hours to get home because of traffic. I remember the same thing from last year when I was here. It’s ok, hopefully I’ll sleep on the way home. I didn’t sleep much last night because I wanted to get up for the sunrise this morning. I guess because I was trying to wake up before my alarm so that it didn’t wake up Hilary, whose room I was sharing, I kept waking up all night. It was worth it though. Not only did I see the sunrise, but I also get this great alone time.

Gossip & Tacos

Yesterday I was standing on the corner, waiting for the bus. I saw this guy across the street, and thought "I know him. How do I know him?" I thought for a few seconds, and realized he's one of the guys who works in the taco place up the street from my house. I wonder if I've been to the taco place too many times, since the only Mexicans I recognize are either from church or the taco place.

One of my new Spanish words this week is chismoso. Which means gossiper. Tonight a few people are at my house, and a little while ago we were just all standing around. They were talking, I was just trying to be involved. My host sister, Diana, said that she was tired, but was a chismoso so she was staying up to listen to everything. She said that I'm also a chismoso that's why I was hanging around. She then told mama that, and she asked me if it was true. And I said, "No, no entiendo nada pero los quiero mucho." It was a suck-up line. I said, "No, I don't understand anything, but I love you all so much." That's not entirely true, I understand some, but the more I let them think I don't understand the more gossip I'm sure to hear. Hehehe... Ok, for anyone who doesn't like that I'm joking about gossip, it's just a joke. I don't think my family actually gossips about anything, I just think it's a way of joking around.

I was on the metro today thinking about something interesting to blog about,but I don't remember what it was now. Stink! Well, there's always tomorrow!

Pretty Random

This blog post is going to be pretty random, and hopefully it doesn't come out too weird. I'm writing it when I should be in bed, at 1: 45 a.m. I was looking at pictures today from the harvest party at my church and this one stuck out to me.



The reason it hit me at first is because I don't know the guy in this picture. My church is the type of place where everyone pretty much knows everyone. And I try to make a point to know everyone, it's just part of my personality. I figured he's probably new to church, and something in me wanted to know who he is. So I emailed my friend, Mildred, and asked her. Unfortunately she couldn't see the picture, so I had to describe him. She told me his name, it's Ralph, that he used to be a Latin King, and that he's a nice kid. The term Latin King might not mean anything anything to my loyal readers, so I'll tell you what that means. Latin Kings is the name of a gang, not just any gang, but it's said to be the largest Hispanic gang in the U.S. So this kid is an ex-gang member. Here's a picture of an ex-gang member at a church party, smiling while he paints kids faces. To me, it's a portrait of the power of redemption by the blood of Christ. Ralph is not any worse than me. The sins he's committed are not any greater than mine. And the redemption he has experienced is not any more powerful than what I experience. But still this picture moves me.

I don't know if he'd ever find out that I wrote this, but I hope he's ok with me posting a picture of him for all the world to see...or at least for the 2 of you who read my blog. I'm looking forward to meeting Ralph when I get home...in just a few short weeks.

...and not be moved by You

Tonight my sister, Hilary, was listening to Everything by Lifehouse. Actually, she was watching the skit on YouTube because the youth in church want to learn it. I really love that song, and so my attention was turned (from the Eagles game) to it. And I started to think about my situation. I spend so much of my time just being bored, not really doing anything, and wondering what's next. And all of a sudden, I thought "I'm a missionary in Mexico, right now." This isn't about preparing to go, I'm already gone. It's not about getting ready for something that's going to happen, it's already happening. I started to ask Jesus how can I be serving here, with Him, and not be moved by Him. Every second of my day I should be moved by Him. I'm not even sure what it means, but I know it should change me.

Lord, move me!!

You're all I want, You're all I need, You're everything...everything...

I also want to remind you that your life is happening right now. Yes, I believe every season prepares us for the next. But we don't sit and wait for something big to come. We need to work out our salvation right now. Right where you are in this moment is where it's happening. It's where God wants to move in you and through you. Let Him, because He truly is everything.