Cuauhtemoc--A Needed Getaway

Hello faithful readers! Last weekend, I had the astounding opportunity to go experience another part of Mexico, about 4 hours north of Parral. Cuauhtemoc is a sweet little town, right in the middle of a big Mennonite community. Yes, I said Mennonite. There are actually several thousand German Mennonites that live in Mexico, and are well-known for their agriculture genius and very orderly, prosperous farms that stretch for acres across the northern Mexican desert. The Mennonites in Cuauhtemoc are particularly famous for their delicious manzanas (apples): we passed tons of apple orchards as we drove along the highway. The crazy thing is that these Mennonite communities still speak German and maintain a lot of their customs, but they've acclimated quite well to their surrounding culture.

Cesar (the Director of my school), knows a Mennonite lady named Lena who directs a school in Cuauhtemoc. So, he invited David, Kristen, another teacher from the school named Claudia, and myself to go with him to visit her and enjoy the beauty of the area. Lena took us out in the boonies to a national park that is full of really beautiful hills and super-cool rock formations. And, boys being boys, David and I had a REALLY good time climbing, jumping, running, leaping, and pretending to chase orcs and/or be Spiderman jumping from building to building (that is, boulder to boulder).

As you can see in the first of the pictures above, we took a picture with some Mennonite friends of Lena's that joined us at the top of a big mountain (well, it was more like a big hill, but we'll call it a mountain). That was an incredible time. It was definitely the first time I'd ever been a part of a social event where three languages were being spoken. We sang "How Great Thou Art" at the top of that mountain in three languages, simulanteously (English, Spanish, and German). Uh, yeah...pretty darn sweet.

Along with soaking up the beautiful vistas, jumping around rocks with David, and enjoying the trilingual company, God graciously dealt with me in those mountains. I was tired and feeling at the end of myself when I left on that trip. I felt condemned, sinful, dirty, and unable to do anything right, because much of what happened the previous week revealed my utter sinfulness in the face of a righteous God. Selfish motivations, not having eyes to see grace when it's all around me, and being apathetic towards the needs of others--all these things are evidences of my utter incapacity to be good, to be right. As I sat in those high places, looking out at the great azure above and the rolling, stretching desert brown before, I confessed my failure to their Creator and mine. I confessed how I had trampled his glory, ignored his grace, took his forgiveness for granted, and worshipped anything and everything except He who is alone worthy of adoration. And what an answer I received! It wasn't some divine, booming voice, but the subtle whispering of assured forgiveness because of the crucified Beloved.

Brothers and sisters, find yourselves in the perfect righteousness of the person of Jesus Christ today! What a life-altering gift we have received in Him! Let us commend ourselves in our weakness and brokenness, and be found completely clothed in his person, in fellowship with the Father Himself.

the experience of faith

[This post was written a few days ago, when I was pretty frustrated at my inability to feel God, especially in relation to studying the Bible. For most of the past two months, I've felt somewhat spiritually dry and unable to hold onto (or be affected by) the truth of Jesus Christ. I'm continuing to rely on his faithfulness to glorify himself rather than my ability to see him with my own eyes].

I'm looking for Jesus.

Granted, I’m not looking very hard, if looking hard means poring through the books of the Bible, intensely studying its pages. I suppose I’m too lazy for that. Or, perhaps I’m just too discouraged. Or both lazy and discouraged. Lately, I’ve been really confused in my reading of the Bible. I haven’t felt fed or satisfied—only left wondering what the heck Jesus meant when he said such-and-such in Matthew. Maybe it’s because I think too much about the background, the cultural context, and the physical environment in which Jesus said such-and-such. I’m not sure why I feel confused—I guess I just really want to know Jesus, and I’m having a hard time with it right now.

If Jesus is who he said he was, then he ought to be unbelievably mind-blowing. And I know he is, but I just don’t see or feel it right now. Perhaps I’m too emotion-driven. I really want to EXPERIENCE Jesus, and live out of that unbelievable, life-altering experience. But right now, I’m not feeling or experiencing much of anything. I’m sure a lot of that has to do with my selfish, conceited nature and my exceptional talent for ignoring the truth for the sake of convenience. Perhaps I just want to conveniently experience Jesus, just like we zip through our convenience stations to fill up on gasoline in order to fuel our busy lives.

I recently read Psalms 145. The Psalms have been a source of consolation for me during the past few weeks, because they’re so direct. They certainly have their confusing parts as well (not the least of which deals with smashing infants’ heads against rocks), but especially the latter psalms (139-150 or so), the writers are profoundly direct in their praise to Yahweh. I like that. As I read this particular song of David, these words caught on the branches of my heart:

You satisfy the desire of every living thing.

I have to be honest with you: my true, deep-down, soul-level desire does not feel met right now. I feel far from having that desire being satisfied, because I honestly feel far from God. I’m not sure why. Maybe because this is one of those “desert experiences” that people talk about. Perhaps there’s some sin in my life that needs to be dealt with in order for me to be able to know Jesus on a different level. Regardless, I believe that David was right. I’ve experienced this penetrating longing for something true and substantial before, and that knowing Christ fully and eternally satisfies it.

I suppose I should continue to look for him. Perhaps that’s why he brought me here to Parral, away from familiarity, to learn how to look for him, to follow him. In my pursuit, I’m going to hang on to something else that David said in that great psalm:

The Lord is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth.

i'm right, aren't i?

In church today, I was simultaneously convicted and overjoyed when God graciously gave me a glimpse into my sin-drenched heart.

Since I arrived in Parral, even from the very day of my arrival, I've been looking for ways to prove how my Christianity is better than that of my Mexican church family. I came here with a barely-sealed wound against anything that savored of Pentecostalism, and when I first walked into the church here, that wound opened wide once again. Since then, I've seen my new family through the eyes of suspicion, keeping them wide open for abuses of emotionalism, poor doctrine, an overemphasis on the individual, or whatever else has made me wary of Pentecostals in the past.

And thus far, I've been humbled and completely proven wrong by what I've seen. These people are real. Most of them have been saved out of ridiculous pre-conversion situations like drug or alcohol addiction, party-it-up lifestyles, and lifeless Roman Catholic rituals. I have a friend (we'll call him Hugo) who was so addicted to sniffing crack that his nose looks as if it has been broken several times over. And then Jesus found him. I love watching him worship the true King, because he's been through hell.

These people often face persecution. Being a Protestant in Mexico is slightly akin to being a penguin in the Saraha. They're definitely outsiders, since this country has been tightly controlled by the Catholic church for hundreds of years. The pastor of the church told me a story the other day about someone who is a drug addict. Apparently this guy's mother told him that she'd rather him be a drug addict than a Protestant. That's the kind of social atmosphere in which my new family lives.

These people, my new family, also truly live the Gospel. I've never been in a church like this before. They are dedicated to the expansion of the Kingdom. My brothers and sisters here really practice their faith, especially when it comes to sharing the truth of Jesus Christ with those that haven't yet been rescued.

Sometimes their style doesn't match my preferences, but what does that matter? Sometimes they emphasize one teaching more than I would like, but does that change the fact that God is radically working in and through them? Even if (on the extreme offchance) I'm 'right' and they're 'wrong', they are my brothers and sisters, and it is my greatest privilege to serve them in self-denying love.

Oh, dear friends...it's really hard to learn these lessons, especially when one's heart is hard with self-righteousness. Praise GOD for his grace, which soften the hearts of even the most brittle Pharisee (aka, myself).

geography lesson

Hey ya'll...

For your visual pleasure, I've attached a beautiful shot of Parral taken from the hill that is about 1/2 a kilometer from my house. I climbed it on Tuesday of this week in order to get a little solitude, adventure, and perspective (visually, mentally, and spiritually). I actually wound up getting a little more adventure than I bargained for, because, once I was almost at the top, I encountered a nice couple taking a walk with their 3 large, not-so-nice dogs. Being used to big dogs, I remained calm on the outside, and yet still couldn't help thinking about how bad their teeth would hurt as they circled around me, baring their mandibles and barking quite viciously. But thankfully, they eventually lost interest after their masters yelled at them sufficiently and apologized profusely.

If you have sharp eyes, you'll notice that I performed a little Photoshop magic and added a nice yellow arrow, which points to our casa. We live in a pretty nice part of town, and happen to be right across the street from the only park in the city. The big hill that you see on the left side of the picture is Antenna Hill (I'm sure you can guess why it's called this). If you can imagine that the picture extends to the right about another inch, then you would see the hill on which rests the famous Parral silver mine (now out of commission), and under the shadow of which lies the school/church at which we spend most of our waking hours.

Chido, bato! (which means "Cool, dude!")

Of Rainy Days and Narnian Thoughts

I returned to my room this afternoon in a state of “whatever”. Actually, I had been in this floaty, largely self-pleasing state the whole day. I didn’t really feel like teaching today. My heart wasn’t in it, I was unproductive during my non-teaching hours at work, and my attitude matched the dull, rainy weather outside. Nothing exciting: just wet, inconvenient, and blah.

As I do whenever I find myself in these pensive, floaty moods, I began to give myself permission to not think about work and just lay on my bed with thoughts of purpose and meaning meandering through my tired mind. I looked around at the pictures in my room, and began to realize that my life is changing. My family and most of my good friends are hundreds of miles away, and I’m here in Mexico, teaching kids who, when they see me approach the classroom, groan in anticipation of another boring English class. And then it dawned on me yet again that this is no mission trip: I get to do this for a whole year: during the autumn rains, the mountain cold in wintertime, spring’s newness, and summer’s heat.

Then I desperately turned my thoughts to God. “So, I’m here by your will, huh? It sure better be worth it, because I’m missing a lot back home, you know. What’s the point? I came here…I’ve been her for a month now, and I’m really starting to miss the nice life I had before. Are you going to give me some great revelations, fill me with profound experiences, lead me on great adventures? Because so far, my time with you has been pretty silent, frustrating, and…well…pretty dull. I keep reading the Bible like a good Christian and I’m not really understanding it. What’s the deal?” Although these weren’t exactly my words, they definitely summed up my attitude toward God at the moment.

I just recently finished reading The Horse and His Boy, the third book of C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series. I started it on Sunday evening, and finished it last (Tuesday) night. Monday and Tuesday after school, I returned to my house with nothing on my mind except finding the book and devouring its juicy pages. It was a wonderful escape: in picking up the book, I lost track of my responsibility and entered into a foreign and exciting world of runaways, chases, deserts, high mountains, lush valleys, haughty dark lords, humbly noble princes, giants, fauns, centaurs, talking horses, and best of all, a sweet battle at the end where the good guys win and bad guys lose. I hadn’t read the book since I was 12, so although the story was vaguely familiar, all the details had to be gloriously rediscovered.

At one vital part of the story, the main character, a boy named Shasta, meets Aslan (the great Lion from whose creation-song Narnia came into being) for the first time, although he had unknowingly encountered him several times before. Shasta was lost, very discouraged and bemoaning his “unlucky” state, and suddenly Aslan appeared next to him, an immense and ominous presence, temporarily invisible, in the midst of a terrible fog high in the mountains. He asked Shasta to tell him all about his unfortunate situation. After telling his whole story (which was rather unfortunate from a human perspective), Shasta finally asked, “Who are you?” Aslan answered by saying, “Myself” three times, once deep and thundering, once very clear and loud, and once extraordinarily quiet and intimate. Then Aslan revealed to him that he had been with him before, especially in times of trial and important decision, even though Shasta didn’t know it. The fog suddenly cleared, and Shasta beheld the Lion. Boom. Wow. You ought to read it sometime soon.

For some reason, this came back into my thoughts today as I selfishly complained to God about my discomfort. God is Himself, in three glorious Persons. A deep and thunderous Father on his Throne; a loud, clear Son who is the manifested Word; a quiet and penetratingly omnipresent Spirit. Ok, my circumstances are uncomfortable, but I can’t contest with the reality of HIM. He who knows the beginning and the end, He who is capable of crushing the mountains into dust and speaking gentle peace into an unquiet soul, He IS. My weeny life-situation can’t change that eternal, abiding reality. And I am called HIS. Boom. Wow.