Ten years ago today – we were on the Polar Bear Express, on our way to visit friends in Moosonee! In this picture from our train ride, I was playing ¿Adivina Quién? (Guess Who?) with Hannah and Nathanael as we travelled north…
We really miss all our friends in Moosonee – I hope we can visit again soon! Meanwhile, our door is open if you would like to visit us in Mexico! 🙂
A visitor we had recently. That’s all.
(Anyone know what kind of bird this was?)
10 years ago today, a team of people met at our house – one of several meetings – to discuss planting a church in a new area. We didn’t know what area that would be at this point, but in the next few months it became clear that it would be the community of Jesús MarÃa.
June 2009 was really an amazing month. The church in Santa Bárbara had newly recognized leadership, and their building was undergoing some major construction. There was a baptism service, in which many people were baptized who would eventually serve the Lord in the new church in Jesús MarÃa. Hannah and Nathanael were hard at work at school. And by the end of the month we would be crossing the border on our way to Canada for the summer.
The 1st of May, 2009. The month before, the H1N1 Flu had first been reported in the state of Veracruz. Now all of Mexico, in fact, the whole world, was talking about what soon would be labelled a “pandemic”.
On this day, 10 years ago, I snapped this photo
“Everything is going to be fine”, claims the poster. What is the solution? The rosary.
The rosary is a prayer of devotion to the Virgin Mary. The poster promoted a website (no longer available) that aimed to tally three million prayed rosaries to the Virgin in order to counter the H1N1. “Your prayer can make the difference!”
The website listed promises (supposedly) from the Virgin herself. For example, “The soul that is commended by the Rosary will never perish”, and “Whoever serves me, praying my Rosary every day, will receive whatever grace he asks of me” and “I will soon free the souls from purgatory that are devoted to the Rosary”.
Those days were actually an interesting study in what people really trusted, and what their priorities were. Trusting in the recitation of the rosary to Mary was only one example. Although the crisis soon passed, there were some lessons learned that will not be forgotten.
I was just looking over some of my blog posts from April 2009. WOW. That was quite a month! It was the time of the A(H1N1) flu scare in Mexico (originally called the swine flu). There was an earthquake. We had $1000 of repairs on our van. Other financial surprises. Travel!
A month I’m glad I survived!
But I’ll leave all that behind, and post a picture from Resurrection Sunday, 10 years ago today. At the time we were serving at the Path of Life Bible Church in the community of Santa Bárbara. At around 6:30am, we went up into the hills where the Valtierra family lives, and sat around a campfire singing praises.
As you can see, at around 7:45am the sun had conquered the hill.
Just last month I had the privilege to preach at that church (actually, I did the same 10 years ago in April! Busy month!). What an encouragement to look at this picture, seeing many of the same faces I just saw, still serving the Lord. And there were many new faces as well!
And so, the resurrected Lord is still giving life and light – 10 years later!
Ten years ago today, Hannah and Nathanael were involved in spring celebrations at their schools. The picture below shows Hannah and also David Fry (far right). Hannah was in a play, where – I think – she played a bird. Something with wings, anyway (the flowing silvery things you might see made up her wings).
Another big event ten years ago this month was the recognition service for the first Mexican leaders of the Path of Life Bible Church in Santa Barbara. You can see a (low quality) video of the event – A Very Special Sunday for Sendero de Vida!