I know it has been a little too long since my last post. A lot has been going on: Jon shadowed me in work for about a week in Croc, then most of the YouthFront Mexico staff (including myself) went back to KC for meetings at our main office and then to Cincinnati for this year’s CCDA (Christian Community Development Association) conference, and now I am spending a few days with my family in Blue Springs. I will be heading back to Croc with the rest of the staff on Halloween.

I can’t cover all of even the big details of the past two or three weeks, but I do want to share a couple of stories:

First Jon, Peluchi, and I went to visit Julio and Idolina’s house a couple of nights before I left Croc. Idolina cooked eggs and chicaron (a spicy sausage which was one of Jon’s favorite new foods in Mexico) with flour tortillas. It was delicious. I made some chocolate chip and also some chocolate-chocolate chip cookies (I was finishing up the dough of the latter) for desert. All that great food helped set the stage for great conversation (this might be a maxim to live by). In previous conversations we had talked, particularly with Idolina, about spiritual things, but this night we got into deep discussions that included Julio. I think the connection with and opening up of Julio started when I shared that Peluchi and I understood we couldn’t change anyone (Peluchi had been talking about how we are open to having spiritual conversations but don’t want to force that to be the only topic). I went on to say that we didn’t need to force conversation because God had given each person a free will to decide what they thought about God and that only Christ and the individual had the power to change that individual. I could see in Juilo’s eyes he really bought into that idea. As the night went on we talked about all sorts of things, from sports to movies to thoughts on praying to saints. Typically towards the end of a visit Peluchi and I pray for the family, but Nathan’s cancer (which I mentioned a post or two ago) was on my mind and so I asked if we could all pray together for Nathan and for their requests. Both Idolina and Julio didn’t want to pray, but I think that I had asked for their help praying for Nathan was impactful and Idolina soon agreed to pray (before we left Peluchi made Julio promise to pray next time we came; Peluchi is definately more forward than I would be, but perhaps God has us together for our tandem of approaches). As we were about to go both of the couple excitedly wanted to know when we could come back, I told them we could come in a couple of weeks, as soon as I got back from the States.

Second, while at CCDA in Cincinnati a couple of the YouthFront Kansas City staff and I were sitting at a table near an open square downtown. An African-American man in his fifties named Jerry asked us for a light and then accepted an invitation to join us. We talked for a couple of hours with him. We asked a lot of questions and got to hear a little of his story: his apartment had been foreclosed last Wednesday and he had chosen to live on the street rather than move in with his sister (her talking was worse than the cold according to Jerry, though he remarked that if the current cold streak continued he might not still be saying that the following night). He had lived on the streets before–six months being the longest single stent. Jerry currently had a job at a Catholic ministry to the homeless. He grew up in Cincinnati, then moved to Atlanta for a while but hadn’t liked it so he moved back. He had been in jail once. He wants to get married and recently met a lady he likes. He grew up in the 60’s and said he was pretty radical. He regrets that in his youth he hated white people. He has since changed, but he thinks there are a lot of powerful forces working in society to hurt the black community. He was very passionate about the Willy Lynch letters ( http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/Perspectives_1/Willie_Lynch_letter_The_Making_of_a_Slave.shtml )and how insane the systematic evil found in them was (they cover a speech during the early American colonies about how to control slaves by breaking down family structure, breeding mistrust/division amongst blacks, and viewing them like horses to be broken). Jerry convinced us to go and read them and they were disturbing. We also talked about drugs and he shared how problems had improved in Cincinnati over the last 20-30 years. He believes this is the case all over the country because drugs have become more scarce and thus prices have gone up and quality has gone down. In response, according to Jerry, many people have gotten off drugs. And he attributes all this to the war on drugs. I was surprised to be hearing all these positive views on the war on drugs–because typically all I hear is that drug problems are awful and getting worse and the war on drugs isn’t working. I’m not saying Jerry single-handedly convinced me that all my previous notions on drugs in the States are wrong, but it got me thinking about a similar scenario I have experienced in the past several years: with the war in Iraq I also have no first-hand experience and I hear a lot of negative reports in the media. And a few times I have had the chance to hear firsthand reports on Iraq from returning soldiers. On a couple of occasions these reports were by far more positive than any media report I had heard and covered details I had not considered. Again, it didn’t totally change my idea of what was happening in Iraq, but I began to realize the need to add to my knowledge all firsthand reports I could because they were very valid and a critical piece of the truth. Talking to Jerry I realized that I need to seek out hearing people’s personal stories and experiences in regards to race with just as much fervor. Because just like Iraq, I have read a lot about race struggles in the States, but I haven’t heard many nonwhite firsthand accounts–and they are powerful, critical pieces of the truth.

There was more at CCDA that helped open my eyes to my need to hear and listen to different peoples’ experiences, but I can’t go into it all here. But Jerry, more than anyone else, helped me learn this lesson.

Please be in prayer for Jerry and that he will be able to get off the cold streets, for our staff’s trip back to Mexico this weekend, and for Peluchi and I’s visit with Idolina and Julio this week. Thanks.

Listen to Jon and I share about the rest of our trip:

A couple of weeks ago in an audio post I said I would put up a link to Jon and I’s first traveling adventure (Hitch Hiking to Corpus Christi, TX) but I forgot to put it in the post. Here you go:  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2085444&id=34314336&l=9447bf48d7

Jon and I are about half way through our vaction to southern Mexico. It’s been going incredibly well. We arrived in Villa Hermosa and then traveled the next day to Palenque (a town right next to an incredible Mayan Ruin). We found a cheap (we have been doing everything we can after this fashion) hut in the rainforest next to a nice little stream. Unfortunately, this being the rainy season, the stream didn’t stay so little. I woke up around 1:30 and saw Jon looking out the window. He said we were in the middle of our third thunderstorm and was worried about the rising stream. I looked outside and it was still in its channel, but was up about six feet. We watched for a little while longer and it continued to rise. We took all our stuff off the floor and onto a table. It was quickly within a few inches of the back patio. We started debating if we should leave and to where. We repacked our bags and placed them in trashbags.

By now the water was over our front step and we noticed it was a few inches deep for at least the next twenty feet and was starting to get some current. It still was an inch or two from our floor and the bed was another six inches above that, but we decided we should leave now before the current out front got strong. We donned panchos and made our way to some of the two-story rooms which had a high balcony. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t help laughing as we wadded along. As we neared the stairs up to the balcony, we dropped to about waist deep water (we didn’t realize there was a steep slope there). We made it up to the balcony and scared a couple of girls who were staying in one of the rooms. We talked to them a bit and explained why were were up there and then moved in front of and unoccupied room. Where we stayed till about 5:30 when the stream at receded back to its banks. A crazy night.

We stayed in Palenque for about five days, spending two at the ruins, one at a musuem, one touring a couple of amazing waterfalls, and one just messing around. Then we moved to San Cristobal. Today was another lazy day, we found a bakery and a good coffe shop (perfect for my love of baked goods and jon’s of coffe) we lingered here till noon talking of how to respond to poverty and our favorite video game memories of childhood.  Tomorrow we will vist a national park that is home to a huge canyon that we are going to take a boat down (well, us and others on a tour).

I’ve been reading Ben Franklins autobiography this trip and have really been enjoying it. The guy is wise, but what’s been better is hearing lots of little stories about what American life was like in late colonial times.

Please be in prayer for us that we will continue having a great time, stay safe, and lastly that Jon’s camera battery will last (he left his charger in Croc and it would be a shame if he has to stop taking pictures on the trip since he is a great photographer and has an incredible camera). Thanks!

As many of you know, Peluchi has become my partner down here. I see the guy almost everyday and he is the first one I ask when I need help building something or visiting someone. In fact Peluchi comes to almost all of the house visits I do. Sometimes he even helps me bake what we take with us. And in turn I help him with errands his family ask him to do (from pawning his uncle’s TV to finding his youngest brother when he didn’t come home one night). But I’m beating around the bush, what I mean is that we have become good friends.

It’s been a journey to this point, my first summer (2006) I only knew Peluchi as the guy who showed up at our fiestas. He seemed a little odd to me at the time, but nice enough. The next summer he helped me level the floor our second week (a task he still continues to do, he has a better eye for it than I do). We interacted the rest of the week as he continued to work for us. At one point I saw him get into a conversation with some people across the street. He came over and asked me to come and pray with him and the family because they were facing some tough times. I was blown away. This was the first time I had encountered a local who meet someone on the street and moved the conversation to Jesus and wanted to offer prayer immediately. I immediately knew there was more to him than the goofball reputation he had. Yet he just worked with us that week and so I only saw a little more of him that summer.

The next summer (2008) he was hired as a construction supervisor. And so we got to spend a lot of time together and we really became friends. But everything wasn’t easy, Peluchi is a hard guy to be the boss of—he shows up late and gets offended easily when given orders. These traits are why, for most of the time I have known Peluchi, he has been unemployed. His laziness was never a greater force than his compassion if he saw something as a real need. He would jump up and help me when he knew (or I yelled) that I needed it. During that summer I had felt somewhat cut off from the rest of the full time staff and this made me rely a lot on that summer’s construction team Drew, Jonathan, and Peluchi. But Drew returned to America and Jonathan now lives in Belize, so only the relationship with Peluchi remained in Croc.

When I first started house visits, they were very awkward because of my limited Spanish. I asked Peluchi to come and help and help he has! He has a great conversational gift and can glide between serious and funny like no one I’ve ever seen. He is also helping me come out of my shell with Spanish. Many Mexicans think I’m incredibly serious because I find it hard to joke around at all when I speak Spanish. But when Peluchi is around this is a lot easier, I feel a lot more confidence with my Spanish when he is part of the conversation.

This past spring I faced a hard decision, whether to hire Peluchi once again for construction. We had become good friends and he really wanted to work for us again, but his previous actions really spoke against him. I also was, and have since been struggling with whether I was having a good impact on Peluchi or not. He is my age, and yet he can’t hold down a job. I feed him a lot and pay for him whenever a group of us go somewhere. He had an incredibly hard childhood: bouncing around between uncles’ families, living on the street for a few years dealing drugs, and now coming back to live with his mom and four half brothers here in Croc. He never finished school. He has some chips on his shoulder that are the source of his response to orders. I wondered if I was just empowering these weaknesses to continue? Without my help, which was more than financial—it gave him a place and a purpose that had to help him answer his conscience when he thought about not having a job, would he be forced to grow out of these bad traits?

I talked often about this broad topic and whether to hire him or not with my roommate Rodolfo (who has been good friends with Peluchi for several years). I prayed about it a lot too. I felt that God had brought us together to do these house visits—we each had a drive for it and strong gifts/weaknesses for it that completed very well. I didn’t want to ruin that by turning him down. And I knew he truly wanted to help build the houses for the sake of helping the people of Croc. In March we had a month of construction and he volunteered at this often. He only came about half the time while the groups were here and he continued to sit around some, but this is fine when he’s not on payroll. When the groups left there was still a lot of work to be done and he helped me with all of it—I don’t know how I would have gotten the rehab center roof done without him.

Yet the spring helped confirm that his work habits hadn’t changed, he would be late (he never came to help in the morning) and would sit around more than was right for someone on payroll. And when he was volunteering we got along super well because I never did order him to do anything and everything he did I took as a favor and praised him for it. We got along incredibly well at this time. In the end he was more helpful as a volunteer than a worker.

In the end, with Rodolfo’s encouragement, I decided not to hire him this past summer. I laid it all out to him and explained why I wasn’t going to hire him. It was an awkward conversation and we had to have it twice because he didn’t take no for an answer the first time. I felt the conversations hit him hard; he could tell that I cared a lot and that it was difficult for me not to hire him—and that understanding gave force to my critiques about his work ethic and that he should be getting fulltime work.

By God’s grace our relationship didn’t regress after this and we have continued to grow closer. Throughout the past summer he would come to construction as he liked—some weeks often, some weeks only to help me level the floor. He would come more regularly when just the summer staff and I were finishing up things between groups. He is still helping me often with house visits, in fact yesterday, after a couple days without a house visit, he came by to ask when we were going again. It was great to see him eager and pushing me to visit.

But what is even better (and in fact is the motivation for taking this whole look backwards at our friendship) is that Peluchi has, just last Monday, both gotten a job and started going to night school! The job is only doing the electrical in a building and will probably be finished next week (and he has occasionally had jobs like this in the past), but the school thing really has me pumped. Rodolfo was just telling me about a month ago that he thinks I have been having a good impact on Peluchi. I’m a pretty disciplined person and, when the tasks are there, I can work very hard. I think this has gotten Peluchi thinking. He has also been around enough to see me get mad, depressed, and frustrated. We have talked about a lot of things. We’ve given each other advice about soccer, how the world should work, what the church should be like, and girls. And I think we have changed each other for the better.

A small piece, and the most difficult, of our history was to talk to him about why I didn’t want to rehire him. But I think it had an important part to play. I think unfortunately we typically critique our friends in a burst of foolish emotion or not at all for fear it will damage the relationship. But I think to really consider who the person is, to pray about it, to think about it some more, to have a mutual trust built, to love them and from this place to offer critiques can bring life. In fact I question a love that refuses to critique when there is need for it.

 Proverbs 27:5-6 

“Better is open rebuke
 than hidden love. 

Wounds from a friend can be trusted,
but an enemy multiplies kisses.”

But since Peluchi got a job this week, we decided to hold off on visiting his uncle’s (which I mentioned in the last post), We plan to go a week from today.

 Lastly, please be in prayer for me. YouthFront, in response to the lack of housing need in Croc, has asked me to lead a sister site to Croc. They want me to commit 5-7 years and have given me two weeks to decide (they asked me last Saturday, so it will be Saturday, September 19^th).

I’ll have a real post early next week, but I just wanted to fill you in on a couple of things:

First, I updated the ‘Meet the Families’ page (just click on the tab above). It now includes all of the families from spring and summer construction.

Second, monday Rodolfo, Peluchi, and I are going to visit Peluchi’s family near San Rafel for a couple of days. We will be looking at a couple of towns close to there as possible sites for YouthFront to move its housing ministry. Please be in prayer for us for guidence and to enjoy our stay with this great family

Note: I visted this same family with Johnnathan (Johnathan and Peluchi are cousins) last year about this time. You can see a video of that if you click on the ‘Videos’ tab and then scroll down to #3.

 

1st Corithains 12:12-27

¹²The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. ¹³For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

 ¹⁴Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. ¹⁵If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. ¹⁶And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. ¹⁷If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? ¹⁸But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. ¹⁹If they were all one part, where would the body be? ²⁰As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

 ²¹The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” ²²On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, ²³and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, ²⁴while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, ²⁵so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. ²⁶If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

 ²⁷Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

 “For the real good of every gift is essential first, that the giver be in the gift—as God always is, for He is love—and next, that the receiver know and receive the giver in the gift. Every gift of God is but a harbinger of His greatest and only sufficing gift—that of Himself. No gift unrecognized as coming from God is at its own best: therefore many things that God would gladly give us, things even that we need because we are, must wait until we ask for them, that we may know whence they come: when in all gifts we find Him, then in Him we shall find all things.”

—George MacDonald

Last Friday Peluchi and I went to Garcia (about 50 miles from Croc, located on outside the western edge of Monterrey). Peluchi had lived about six of his childhood years with his aunt’s family in Garcia. He remembered there being a lot of wooden shacks back then and so we added it to our list of sites to check out for expanding YouthFront’s construction ministry in Mexico.

We had called Peluchi’s aunt the day before and had agreed to meet her in Garcia at 10am. She works for the local government and knows the area well. We arrived at her house a few minutes early and got to talking with one of Peluchi’s cousins while we waited for her to arrive. About 10:30 we called her and she said she was on her way. We walked around the neighborhood a little bit (which had drastically improved as far as house materials since Peluchi was a boy). We talked to Peluchi’s old pastor and found out there were a large neighborhood of shacks on the northern side of town. About noon we called Peluchi’s aunt again and she said she was only a couple of blocks away. But it was still a little more than a half hour before she arrived. You can never hold your plans too tightly here in Mexico.

Lady in Black (dress second from right) helped guide us

After eating lunch with Peluchi’s family we made our way to the northern side of town. The neighborhood was much larger than I had expected, probably 200-300 families of whom two-thirds were in wooden shacks. We stopped at the house of a women (pictured to the right)who had been the aunt’s neighbor for many years. This lady was very excited to see Peluchi “all grown up”. We ate tamales with this lady and talked about the town and YouthFront’s interest in possibly building there. She said all they really needed was tin (pointing to her rusty tin and complaining that it leaks). I explained that we wanted to do entire houses and that just giving tin is messy because people will often turn around and sell it.

After we talked more about the town I asked if most of the people here own there own land (Squatters are a catch 22: often they are the poorest people and in need of the most help, but if you build a nice house on their land the owners will show up to take the house and kick them off the land, leaving them in a worse condition than they started). The lady we were talking with didn’t own her land (which we could have guessed, it was located directly under huge power lines) but she wasn’t sure about the whole town. She thought a store-owner nearby would probably know so we walked to the store.

But the owner we sought wasn’t there at the moment. So we waited for an hour or so and meet some of the first lady’s neighbors. (We even got to hear this lady lead a couple of the kids in singing some hymns in Nawatil—a native Mexican language). After about an hour we checked again and the store owner still wasn’t there. So we decided to visit another one of Peluchi’s cousins and then come back.

When we got back, the store owner still wasn’t there, but our first contact had thought of someone else to ask. When we arrived at this woman’s home, she explained that right now almost no one owned their land here, but in November the government was going to put it up for sale for about 2,000 dollars a lot.

So by next summer, when we are thinking about possibly expanding, there could be several families there who own there land but are living in shacks. So far this is our best site, but Peluchi and I still have some other places to look at and also I need to get together with Umberto (our summer chef who with his wife also work with us part time doing house visits and family counseling) and see if he knows of any sites. Furthermore we need to do some more investigation into Garcia (I want to get John and Rodolfo to go out with me sometime soon). But it was encouraging to find an option that looks possible.

Please be in prayer for me and Peluchi as we continue to investigate sites (and continue doing house visits here in Croc). Also be in prayer for the whole YouthFront staff as we try to discern how to adapt the ministry in view of Croc’s changing needs.

 

“Do you think the work God gives us to do is never easy? Jesus says His yoke is easy, His burden is light. People sometimes refuse to do God’s work just because it is easy. This is sometimes because they cannot believe that easy work is His work; but there may be a very bad pride in it….Some, again, accept it with half a heart and do it with half a hand. But however easy any work may be, it cannot be done without taking thought about it. And such people, instead of taking thought about their work, generally take thought about the morrow, in which no work can be done any more than in yesterday. The Holy Present!”

-George MacDonald

Thank you for your prayers last week about worth-while construction projects for that group to do. A couple of hours after I posted the family we had planned to build for (but couldn’t because they couldn’t come up with their part of the cost of the materials) came to the church with the money. So we started the house a day late and are still finishing it up this week while we do another house. Last week’s group really enjoyed getting to start the house and I was glad we are going to be able to move Jesus and Angelica’s family into a new house before winter (their previous house, on loan from Angelica’s mom, had wooden walls with a lot of cracks in it—not good for the winters here).

This week’s group is from Iowa and is lead by Jill’s parents: Jeff and Mary Timmer, who have become friends of mine. Also Bethany (a friend from a previous summer staff) and Jason (a friend from language school in Cuernavaca) are here with the group too. It’s been great to have so them all visiting.

Yet in the midst of those good things there has been a lot of bad luck this week. We were out of water for a few days. The group had trouble getting their vehicle through customs so some of the summer staff had to go pick them up (because we, the full time staff, are still waiting on our visas). On the way a tire on the truck lost its tread. Then, on the bridge to get into the states, the van over heated. So the group got in about 2:30 a.m. Aaron and Allie had been two of the drivers for getting the group so they got the first workday off. Meaning I was the only construction guy left so we couldn’t work on both houses. Yesterday, our first workday, our floor started to crack because the sun was so hot. So a few of us had to stay behind and put a cap on the floor, then as we are about to leave we notice the loaded truck has a flat. Since the spare was already on we had to put the bald tire back on. Then when we got it back Laura and I took it to the tire repair shop right away, the guy there was really nice, but we found out the tire had not one leak, but three! And one of them was on the sidewall. He patched all of them, but we will need to get a new tire before we can use it this Sunday to take the group back. I was in a fairly frustrated mood by the time we were walking back from the tire shop. It had been a long day. Laura talked about how she had learned that you just had to have fun with things (she was singing as she rolled the tire alongside me), that whatever is out of your hands you can’t worry about and that everything will be ok. I told her ‘I used to know that, but life in Mexico, being tired most of the time, seems to have made me forget it’. I admitted she was right, but I wasn’t comforted. When we got back it was dark and I went to work putting the patched tire back on. This time the jack sunk just enough into the dirt so I had to get some wood for it (and of course the wood wasn’t in the first place I looked for it). Then the bald tire wouldn’t come off and I had to use a hand sledge on it. By this point, to be honest, I was furious.

I was mad and kinda at the end of my rope. I been worried that day about getting the floor done because we didn’t get started till 11am (since the group had gotten in so late) and had prayed that the dirt at the site would actually be dirt and not have a lot of big rocks (those can really slow down the trenches we have to build) and that the group would be good workers. Both of those prayers were answered amazingly. Both the group and the dirt were about the best I have run into this summer. Yet it seemed like so many things were being thrown in the way to frustrate me. As if God had said yes to my two requests and then given free reign to Satan to mess up the rest.

Upon trying with the hand sledge and not being able to get the bald tire off, I bowed my head on the truck and told God I realized I was a sinful mess, that I wasn’t strong enough to do all this stuff and at the same time have a good attitude. At that point Laura, who had been watching me work, saw Peluchi and asked if I wanted him to come help. I said yes. Then I hit the tire a few more times and it came off. Then Peluchi came and helped me with putting on the newly-patched tire. I felt a lot better as soon as Peluchi was there. I felt that he understood my frustration (he had worked alongside me most of the day) and he was helpful with the tire.

As a few of us ate a late dinner, I was joking around and in a better mood. That night I read in John 3 about John the Baptist talking with his disciples about their concern that Jesus is becoming more popular than John. He replies, “A man can receive only what is given him from heaven.” He goes on to explain who God has made him to be and what his specific role is and that it ties into this ‘problem’ his disciples are bringing before him. He is joyful with his role and situation. I’m still trying to figure this out, I think for me a lot of the application God is trying to get across is my weakness, that I can’t do all the things I think need to be done by me (yesterday I did several tasks alone or with one other person that I could have delegated). But also there is this idea of not forcing results, of receiving from God and that being enough.

One area I know how to apply this last thought is with regards to the visas. As many of you know myself and the other five American full-time staff have all been trying to get missionary visas here in Mexico. The process has taken more than six months. They finally asked for our pictures a few days ago (which is great, that’s about the last step on our end) but then informed us that it would be 15 days after we turned in our pictures to get our visas. I have a wedding of a good friend, Dave, back in the States in less than two weeks. Several of the staff, including myself, are planning on leaving next week with the summer staff. But none of us can leave Mexico till we get these visas (well yes we can leave, but then we wouldn’t be able to get back in). I was feeling really bad that it sounds like I will miss Dave’s wedding, I felt like I was letting him down. (We found all this out on Monday, and Laura reminded that I had talked about our need for faith in Sunday’s Bible study and that I need to have faith God would help with the visas). After reading in John 3 last night I have realized I need to let this visa thing, which is out of my control, rest in God’s hands. He can push it through in time to get the wedding if it needs to happen. If not, I can’t help that.

But all that said, I would really appreciate your prayers for us to get our visas before the summer staff leave. Thanks.