What we did tonight (podcast)
Here’s a podcast about what the kids and I did tonight. And here’s a picture…
Ministry glimpses
Community Centre Christmas Event Tonight!
Last night was the dress rehearsal for the closing-of-classes Christmas program at the community centre. And tonight is the big night!
We’re hoping to see many of the people who come regularly to the classes related to the community centre – guitar, English, baking, dance, basketball, tutoring, etc. And, of course, we hope to see their family and friends! And then of course there are people from the church, and quite a few we’ve met other places. For example, we talked to a few people when we were handing out flyers with the First Free Team.
So last night I watched as the drama was practised. This was the English class. They will be performing in English, while the audience reads along in Spanish.
Then I helped with a bit of music with the English class – tonight it will be a medley of Mary’s Boy Child and Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, and then an a capella version of We Wish You A Merry Christmas. We worked hard on tricky words like earth, born, righteousness, and, of course, Hark!
The program is scheduled to start tonight at 6:00pm. It will be outdoors, and considering that the weather report this morning said it was 5 degrees below freezing, it could be interesting doing things like playing guitar!
Tonight will also be a chance to promote all the community centre activities for the new year. We hope to get off to a great start!
We’re praying for a good turnout and a fun time, and of course a clear message of the Gospel which will be in the drama and songs. There are lots of other things going on this time of year, particularly with the holiday for the Virgin of Guadalupe on Sunday (in our claustro there will be a mass to the Virgin of Guadalupe tonight, for example). So please pray that people would come out and hear about the coming of the Messiah.
A Typically Unexpected Sunday
Some days just don’t turn out like you expect. All right, around here no day turns out how you expect.
Actually, the whole weekend ended up being a bit strange.
We had wanted to go to a special Christmas dinner on Saturday night. It’s a special dinner for Christian workers in the Mexico City area. But I felt we were rather over reaching our limits as a family – we were getting pretty over-tired. So we made the difficult decision on Friday to miss the event.
On Saturday morning, Nathanael woke up sick – very sick. I won’t get into details, but he was down and we were madly cleaning up after him.
Suddenly, 2/3 of the way through the day, *poof* he was better. Oh, he still looked a little weak, but he had all his energy back (just when Mom and Dad were completely exhausted from caring for him while he was still sick!).
Now, I had a lot of work to do to get ready to lead the service on Sunday. And then José asked if I would lead the communion service as well. So by the end of the day I was trying to get around to doing that (but of course there wasn’t much hope until the kids were in bed!).
The next morning I finished preparing (sorta) and we decided to keep Nathanael home, which meant Shari would stay with him. Hannah and I went early so I could get to my music practice.
I was just stepping out the door when I got a message from David – could I bring my laptop so we could put the lyrics of the songs up on the screen? (Recently we somehow got a projector – used it for the first time the week before)
So I packed up the laptop and left, a little late.
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We started practising – almost all new songs. For some reason, around here we rarely sing Christmas songs around Christmas. Actually, I’m not sure I’ve ever been to a Sunday morning service with straight Christmas songs since we moved here (this is our 5th Christmas here). So these were all new songs to me.
Some new because I’d never played them. But quite a few new just because I’d never even heard them before.
Then I got a phone call – Rod. Apparently our preacher was sick, so we had no sermon. No problem, I said. We’ll do something.
Then back to the music practice. Ummm… David? I have the laptop… how are we going to get the words onto it?
So, David started working on that. Some typing, and… wait… he had some lyrics on his iPod. So he transferred some of those, formatted, and so on, and so on (hey, this is cutting our practice short! These are new songs!!)…
Uh oh. I just was wondering – if I’m leading the communion service, do I need to have everything prepared for it as well? The cups and….
So, I was off to the store to buy the food and drink for the communion service (tostadas are basically unleavened bread, right?). Then I delegated and asked someone else to get it all ready, while I figured out what to do for the sermon time.
Tostada photo courtesy of Omar Omar
*Poof* the computer program David had been using to put the lyrics in closed, and he hadn’t saved anything. Back to square one.
Back to the iPod, transferring lyrics. I looked up passages and prepared for a time of discussion in place of the sermon. Hoping Rod would help (which he was happy to do).
It was after 10am (the start of the service). The good news was that most people still hadn’t arrived. So I dictated the lyrics to two of the songs while David typed them in. We gave up on PowerPoint (no, actually I use OpenOffice Presentation) and stuck with scrolling through pages on Word (er… no, OpenOffice Text). While we typed and copied, we saved it lots.
Mayra was kind enough to operate the laptop. Rod was kind enough to remove the door (we take the door off every Sunday because the room is so small we need all the space we can get). The other David and I put up the screen. All of a sudden there was a full room, and we hadn’t started yet. I grabbed my notes and apologized, and we were off and running.
After my brief introduction, we were into the songs. What I didn’t know was that David had – well, he used the lyrics that he had on his iPod, which were not necessarily songs we had practised. So each song was a new and wonderful surprise for me.
Now, these songs weren’t necessarily all that familiar to David either, so I felt that a strong keyboard track was important. But not only were these songs I had never played, and songs I had never heard… they were also not the easiest songs in the world. And they were written in Latin Music Notation. English Notation is A-B-C and so on. Latin is Do-Re-Mi. Now I’m more or less familiar with the latin notation by this time – but when you’re playing a song you don’t know which has lots of chords fast… well… the music on Sunday was interesting. Let’s say … it was a little creative.
The rest of the service went all right, I think. During the sermon time, we centred our discussion loosely around the prophecies of the Messiah in Isaiah 9-12. We had some good discussions both about the passages, and about other far-flung topics.
For example, Rod was reamed out about his country’s strange obsession with Santa Claus. Of course, this is one case in which Canada is just as guilty as charged as the USA.
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You see, in Mexico, Santa is more of an imported tradition. Generally speaking, the gifts are not given on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, but on Epiphany – the 6th of January, here known as Three Kings Day.
You know, give gifts when the Magi did. Kinda makes sense.
Now, Mexico is arguably just as guilty as many other countries when it comes to secularization and detaching Christmas from anything to do with the Gospel. But you’ve got to admit, linking gift giving to the wise men is a little more of a direct connection than some jolly old elf in a red suit. (After all, how many people would even know who I was talking about if I mentioned the Bishop of Myra?)
No wonder some Mexicans are baffled by the strange tradition of Santa Claus that so many Christians in the rest of North America seem so attached to!
(Not sayin’ it’s good or bad or neutral, just trying to help you see things from their perspective)
Er… yeah… speaking of getting off topic…
There were lots of other things going on that I won’t even get into – handing things out, talking to people about this and that. It was a good service in the end, actually. People had some great things to share. We had some good times in the Scripture. You know, all that good stuff.
When I got home, I found that Nathanael had maintained his energy (which meant that Shari hadn’t!) and the day continued at a typical fast pace.
No, there aren’t any typical days around here. But we wouldn’t want to be bored, would we?
Uncharted Waters Sports Ministry
We have a big… very big… event coming up in January! On the 5th to the 7th of January, the sports ministry known as Uncharted Waters will be returning to Ixtapaluca.
Uncharted Waters has actually been here more than once, running evangelistic sports camps. And they’re coming to do it again – but this time, with a twist.
The purpose of the camp will not only be to reach out to kids here in Mexico City. It will also be to train Mexican workers from other parts of the country to run their own sports camps. So it will be 15 years of international experience from Uncharted Waters added to the national experience, enthusiasm and people-power of Mexican leaders!
Now regularly doing over 100 camps a year, Uncharted Waters wants to see this ministry grow exponentially.
So we’re hoping to be hosting a lot of people come January! If you know Mexican Christian workers who would be interested in this ministry, point them to the poster below. Our coworker Rod has also posted more information in Spanish here.
This event will be three days long, hosted at our community centre in Jesús María, Ixtapaluca – Tiempo de Vivir. There is no cost.
First Free Mexico Team Flies
The members of the First Free Mexico Team are now on their way home! We certainly had some interesting days here in Ixtapaluca.
The team really made an impact, and we certainly appreciated the boost they gave to the work at the community centre, and the encouragement they gave to us and the other believers here. Yesterday they were involved in two Bible studies, plus time preparing, our own time in the Word and prayer, learning more about Ixtapaluca, trying new foods, and a lot more. Yesterday was quite the day!
Some of you are also aware that we were praying about a family issue back in Canada, which was on our hearts during the team’s time here.
The picture above was taken on top of some indigenous ruins on the hills above the city. You’ll have to ask the team how they got up that high!
Of course there are always minor disasters going on in the background – such as a broken lock on our front door yesterday. While we were eating and doing some errands, Shari and the kids were locked out of the house, waiting for a locksmith. He’s returning today to finish what he started!
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First thing this morning the team members said goodbye to their hosts and we headed back to the airport. The team’s flight was slightly delayed, so we went to the food court and had a snack. (I won’t say what we ate – it’s supposed to be a secret!)
I soon discovered that almost every table in the food court was covered with this same ad! What is this supposed to tell us about the food in the airport food court? And, of course, it wouldn’t reinforce anyone’s stereotypes about Mexico, would it? 😉
Anyway, we saw the team through security, and had a remarkably uneventful trip home.
I have lots of video and pictures of the team – hopefully I’ll be able to get that up soon. But don’t hold your breath.
So now we’re home again, dealing with … homework! And tonight we have our first practice at the community centre for the "closing ceremonies" of the year. So excuse me – I’ve got to run!
English/Canada Class
I’m trying to get some information up here for people back home that wonder what’s going on with the team! I do have more pictures and video, but I’ll deal with those later.
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Today we had a good time talking about some of the things we’ve seen and done, and talking about ministry, and God’s Word. Then we went out in front of some of the local schools, just when the kids were getting out, to hand out flyers promoting this evening’s English class. We must have handed out 6 hundred flyers or more.
Actually, it was an English and Canadian culture class. The team did a great job with a packed house, showing the names of the provinces, teaching pronunciation… all kinds of fun things. In the picture above, you can see them teaching the "head and shoulders" song.
There were lots of people there, and the event drummed up a lot of interest in the English classes that will be starting up again in January. Also, we invited people to an event on the 10th of December. Some even expressed interest in the baking classes.
In short, we made a lot of new friends!
If you want to pray about tomorrow, there will be a Bible study in the morning (for the women) and in the evening (for everyone). In between we’ll be getting ready, doing some errands, and some other fun stuff.
And while you’re praying – well, it seems like there’s a lot of sickness going around! The Fry family has been laid low by something. Our friend Allan couldn’t make it tonight because his Mom is sick. We just keep hearing of people struggling with health. So pray for them – and for us, that we would stay healthy! (All right, so I’m not healthy. But I could be a lot worse!) 😉