back at it...one last time

Apologies to my faithful readers for my two-month silence. Much hath occurred this spring in my life here in Parral. The following is a brief summary:

1. Spring Break - I was heavily involved with our numerous youth activities during the first week of spring break (Mexico has two weeks, called Semana Santa), in which we decorated the house of prayer at the church, cleaned parts of the church building, and hosted a group of youth from San Luis Potosí, a large city in central Mexico. During the second week, I was able to take a bus trip up to Ciudad Juárez and meet the youth group from my church in Kenosha at an orphanage there, where we spent a week with the children, serving and loving them in whatever way we could. 

2. Swine Flu and a Trip Home - Upon returning from Juárez, we had classes for a few weeks, but then the global panic about swine flu began to hit the fan the last week of April. I had a plane ticket bought for the first of May to go home and visit my family and watch my brother graduate from college, but a nationwide school suspension and a generous move of my parents brought me home a few days early. I enjoyed a week in Kenosha, reuniting with different folks from the Body there and receiving much from good fellowship. Then my mom and I drove to Joplin and spent time with my grandparents for a day before going down to Siloam Springs and visiting my brother at JBU. After a sweet reunion with several JBU friends and professors at graduation (and hearing an excellent graduation speech from my bro), Mom took me to the airport in Tulsa, which eventually landed me back in Parral, after an overnight stay in El Paso with a delightful missionary family. 

3. A Big Decision - As the title of this post gives away, I have finally made the official decision to return to the States after this year of teaching is over. The school year terminates in early July, and I will moving back home and (hopefully) starting at seminary in the fall, as well as become involved in my local church in Kenosha and (again hopefully) find a part-time job as I go to school. It was a difficult decision in that I will certainly miss the people of the church and school down here, but God made it very clear that this is the right direction in which to head. 

So, I would covet your prayers as I finish this school year. I have two months to faithfully love and serve this school and church, and I want to do it with all my heart, unto the Lord. Please pray that I remain faithful and that I don't give into the temptation to mentally "check out" (believe me, that temptation is very real!). And if you have been praying for me and the work of the Gospel here, I thank you wholeheartedly! May our God continue to establish the work of our hands as we toil for his service and unto his glory.

putting your hand to the plow

Jesus once said that whoever puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God (Luke 9:62). My friend Ruth mentioned this verse to me yesterday when we were talking about what God has been doing in our lives. She said that God used this verse to challenge her to keep following the path that God had set out for her and not dwell on past failures. 

To be honest, I've never liked this verse too much. It always sounded overly religious to me, like Jesus wanted unreflective, robotic zealots for disciples. Never looking back and plowing straight ahead didn't sound appealing to me, because of the lack of reflectivity involved in such determination. I like reflectivity.

However, after my conversation with Ruth, I began to see the verse in a different light. If you're plowing, you've gotta face forward. Jesus isn't saying that we don't learn from the past or reflect on what we've experienced, he's saying that the Kingdom of God is about straight rows and well-plowed fields. If we're focused on what's behind us, we're plowing crooked. 

Recently, I realized that I most often look back as an escape. Life in Mexico is not hard. I don't suffer anything, just distance from loved ones mainly. My job is not enormously stressful or difficult. Things can be stressful at times, but no different than life in the States can be. But still I find myself desiring the "better life" on the other side. Like when my mom cooked my meals for me. Or when I had the freedom to learn new things and reflect deeply at college. Or gazing upon the deep blue of Lake Michigan instead of a dull Parral desert. And having put my hand to the plow, I look back.

I hate falling into this deception, but I do it almost every day: imagining a "better life" somewhere else than the place where God has so faithfully called and equipped me to be right now. And having taken the bait, I rue my "former life" and resent the current one that is brimming with possibility and discovery if I have eyes to see it. 

May God make us people of the moment and enable us to bloom where he has planted us. 

Philosophy class

Spring semester brings a new delight into my life: teaching Philosophy to ready-to-graduate high school seniors. I teach them 20th Century History in the fall, in which I greatly enjoy imparting to them my love for the past. But there's something about pushing these kids out of their comfort zone to think about their life from another angle and preparing them for the college world that really exhilarates me. 

We're about ready to finish up Unit I, a short intro to the subject of Philosophy. Now, I have to follow a boring government outline, but aside from that, I can do whatever I want. I try to draw out their natural hunger for meaning, which is especially keen as a blossoming young 17 year old. Asking the question, "What is life all about anyway?" is natural for them (or at least should be) at this stage or perhaps a little bit later in life. So I take advantage of this life-questioning and try to make them think for themselves about understanding reality in and around them. 

But as a teacher, I want to always submit myself to the probing question that Paul asks in Romans 2:21 - You then who teach others, do you not teach yourself?. That is, am I practicing the same kind of self-examination and brain-stretching that I ask from my students? Or am I contenting myself to an unreflective, tossed-by-the-wind-and-waves kind of life?

It's easier to reflect this way here, in a foreign country, where I see all the exposed cracks of Mexican culture and liberally point out its failures, starting with ranchero music and ending with its corrupt police system. I see how much better off I am as an educated, spiritualized, organized gringo. I see the values of my reflective and informed life, and I shake my head at this backwards society that knows no such thing and is governed by its sensual, materialistic passions. 

And then Paul hits me again: If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

This keeps me running to Christ. I love reflectivity, pondering the mysteries of life, but if I haven't any love, these mysteries are empty. Even if I do understand this culture, my own, or even grasp a full understanding on truth itself, it does me no good unless I love and am loved. I'll arrive at the end of all things and stand before Eternity Himself with empty hands and a forfeited soul. 

Jesus is still in the boat.

The summer before I came to Mexico the first time, I went sailing several times with my family on Lake Michigan. One of the most memorable sails was on a cloudy Sunday afternoon with a few friends from church. The wind and waves were technically safe, but the gusts and swells we encountered rocked the sturdy 27-footer in a manner that told my greenhorn sailing sense to be glad I was not at the helm. I trusted my dad through the trip, knowing that he wouldn't venture out into what he couldn't handle. But I found a new respect for the sailors of old, braving wild seas with limited technology far from shore. 

I'm sure that Peter and the rest of his maritime fishing partners knew the capricious seas on which they sailed, and that the storm in which they found themselves in Matthew 8 was no joking matter. Matthew records that the boat was being swamped by the waves. That makes my little Lake Michigan adventure sound like a pleasant day trip compared to having waves twice my height crash into the boat and threaten to send her to the bottom. 

And Jesus was sleeping. 

No doubt he was tired from his long day of teaching, healing, and casting out demons, but seriously...he was sleeping?

You know the story - they wake him up, thinking they'll be dead in a few minutes and he's their only chance out of this mess (they were right). He reprimands them for their lack of faith and then directs his attention to the tempest, saying, Peace! Be still! 

I like how the Eugene Peterson puts it in the Message: The sea became smooth as glass. The men rubbed their eyes, astonished. "What's going on here? Wind and sea come to heel at his command!"

I imagine myself in the disciples' place, and I would flipping out and wanting to wake up Jesus thinking he'd drown too, if he didn't wake up and do something fast. You know, Jesus would have been caught off guard, he wouldn't have...known what...to do.

He was in control the whole time, asleep and awake.

I'm trying to believe this is true. I wouldn't say life is a tempest right now, perhaps somewhere between a Lake Michigan rumble-tumble and a Galilee gale, but life and all its noise is making me lose sight of peace. I feel like Jesus is sleeping and thus isn't in control or doesn't really care. 

Father, give us: eyes to see that Jesus is indeed with us in the boat, an understanding of your desire for your glory and our good, and the faith necessary to trust in your sovereign promises.

pray for Antonio

I arrived early at church yesterday, thinking I would be needed to help with the praise band. Turns out that I didn't, so I began wandering around and greeting folks that had arrived. A young man I had never seen before was sitting by himself in the back, so I went over to introduce myself and talk to him. His name was Antonio, and he had just arrived in the city as a soldier of the Mexican army, and was involved in training in a nearby town. I asked if he was a Christian, and he said no, but several of his friends had given him music and sermons from the pastors of our church to listen to, and since he was in the area, he wanted to visit and find out more.

It turns out that Antonio knew next to nothing about the Christian faith, but felt that all his attempts to be a good person and please others were coming to nothing. So I explained to him that we are all like that. We try to reach a place of rightness, to be good, but we can't. And I told him about Jesus, who makes us right in the eyes of God despite our having offended God through ignoring him and thinking that we can do it all ourselves. 

Tears came into his eyes as he explained to me how he has been wanting to make his life better, but he knows he can't. God had obviously been rubbing this sore spot, drawing Antonio to himself. 

The service began, and the Gospel was preached. After church, we sat there in those blue plastic folding chairs at the back of the auditorium and Antonio gave his heart to Jesus.

Please pray for him, because he doesn't have many friends and knows very little about Jesus, but I think the essentials are becoming readily stuck in his heart. Like a newborn baby is completely dependent on its new environment, so this newborn is going to need a lot of help. So please pray for him to know and believe the truth of the Gospel deep down, and that it would bear good fruit.

ready or not...

Classes started again today for Elementary and Junior High, after two days of cultural adjustment and preparation. I read my 4th graders a story from their reader and am trying out a new discipline system with them, to see if I can maintain a little more order. Wednesday is my double trouble day with my 9th graders, so we kicked right off with some good ol' passive tense. 

Church life has been interesting since our arrival at the Parral bus station 5:30 Monday morning. After sleeping an hour or two, we got to school around 10 am (classes hadn't started yet - it was a prep day in the office). Somebody told me how the youth group had started an entertainment fast and a two-prayer-meetings-a-day routine, wanting to re-connect with God. It caught me a little off my guard, but I'm learning to roll with the punches as they come. 

I sometimes find myself struggling with the spirituality of the body I'm a part of down here. It's intense, to say the least. Not legalistic, not even overly charismatic, just very intense. Everything is urgent, it seems - urgent to know God, to recapture a right spirit, to establish justice, to raise money for a project, to worship rightly. And these things are good, but instead of communicating zeal, it often gives off a sense of unpreparedness, a lack of structure and organization (not uncharacteristic for a latin church). But is that just my North American cultural bias talking? Should Christians seek sanctification in a long-term "process" way, or short-term "we need this now" way? Thoughts are appreciated...

heading 'cross the Rio Grande

Tomorrow I'm boarding a bus for Juarez at 11 pm and will be crossing the border in Wednesday morning's wee hours to board yet another form of mass transportation in El Paso, and drift into beloved O'Hare Wednesday afternoon. 

Yup, I'm headed home. And I'm happy. 

Two more sets of exams to grade and final grades to calculate, but it shouldn't be that consuming. After that, it's all downhill. America, land of infinite comforts and conveniences, here I come!

...but that's what worries me. The part of me that loves my homeland's appeal to my every need and want that money can buy (central heating, dishwashers, drive-thru everything, Blockbuster) just has a heyday every time I return to the States. And it so easily satisfies me. 

I love those good things: soft carpet, plush down comforters, snow outside and a roaring fireplace inside, excellent food without limit, hot chocolate, Christmas treats and goodies, shining Christmas decorations, a well-equipped kitchen, and I believe those good things come from the Good Creator. 

But oh, how easy it is for these good things to come in between the Good God and my soul that so desperately needs him. 

Jesus, maintain our gaze on your inconvenient, uncomfortable Advent so our souls will be satisfied with our good Father.