Yes, the photos from our summer travels are officially posted! You’ll find them in our Recent Shots… album (assuming you’re reading this a reasonable length of time after I posted it – otherwise you’ll probably find the pictures have migrated elsewhere).
Again, if there isn’t a picture of you on there – don’t be offended. Some people we forgot to take pictures of (and regret it), and many pictures just didn’t turn out (photographer error and all that). So it’s nothing personal! 🙂
Still have some video I’ll put up during Finding direction‘s "Ontario Week". Stay tuned!
The photo to the right shows Hannah and Nathanael with Toronto’s CN Tower in the background. I guess we really were in Ontario! 😉
I know it’s hard to believe, but I actually posted some Ontario photos! There are photos in our gallery all the way to the middle of August, in fact.
So head on over to our Recent Shots… album to see the latest.
By the way, if you don’t see a picture of you in there, and you think we might have taken one, it’s probably because the picture(s) didn’t turn out. It’s not because we don’t like you.
I’ve got some video too, but I’ll probably post that later here at Finding direction.
We’re still in New York state, and will give you an update when we know more about our schedule for the rest of the trip.
Note: the image above is of Hannah in a boat taxi near Moosonee, Ontario.
For those of you who want to see us while we’re in Ontario, I wanted to keep you up to date with our schedule. Below you’ll see the events we have booked, and some of the general locations we’ll be in. I hope we can see many of you at these events – please contact the churches for more information!
July
Sunday the 26th – First Baptist Church Cochrane, ON
I’ll be sharing about Mexico and our ministry, and also preaching in the morning service. We’ll be in Cochrane until Wednesday morning.
Wednesday the 29th (Edit) – Moosonee Baptist Church Moosonee, ON Maximizing Your Short Term Mission Trip Seminar in the evening. This is tentative – there may be a couple of seminars presented in this area. Call the church for information at (705) 336-2394. We’ll be in Moosonee until Monday.
August
Sunday the 2nd – Moosonee Baptist Church Moosonee, ON (Edit)We’re still working out the details, but it looks like we’ll be leading adult Sunday school in the morning. In the evening I’ll be preaching and doing a presentation about Mexico.
Sunday the 9th – Lansing Avenue Baptist Chapel Sudbury, ON
Sharing and preaching in the morning service. We will be in the Sudbury area on Saturday and Sunday, and briefly earlier in the week.
10-22 August
We’ll be travelling around and spending a little time in the Mount Forest area. We’re also taking a week at Fair Havens Bible Conference Family Camp.
Sunday the 23rd – Garside Bible Church Hamilton, ON Preaching and sharing about Mexico and our ministry in the morning service. We’ll be around Hamilton from Saturday evening until Monday.
24 -31 August
We’re still working on some details here, but we’ll probably be spending our time around Wainfleet, Kitchener/Waterloo, and Scarborough/Toronto.
Sunday the 30th – Heise Hill Brethren in Christ Church Gormley, ON We’ll be singing and sharing about our ministry and Mexico in the morning service. At this point we’re also planning a presentation of the Maximizing Your Short Term Mission Trip seminar on Sunday evening. Contact the church for details.
September
We’ll be in Ontario on the 1st, but soon after that will be (Lord willing) heading south of the border to visit Shari’s sister Amy and her husband Nate, then we’ll be heading south homeward.
It’s actually a very long story how this all happened. But we were hoping to have some friends visiting here in Ixtapaluca for a few days from Canada.
In the end, the visit was shortened down to about …
20 minutes.
Yes, we met them at the airport in Mexico City in between flights yesterday – we walked them from one gate to another.
Well, it was better than nothing! We got to see the Farrs and their two beautiful children who are growing up so fast.
Chad returned (briefly) to Mexico city after over 15 years. Chad was with Shari and I in Mexico waaaay back in *gasp* 1993. He was the leader of our team. Now he’s got another team – his family. But this time, they’re on holidays – going to Cancún.
Guess what I’ve been doing over the past week and a half? Well, I mentioned it already – I built a website. Well, I had lots of help from other co-workers, but let me tell you I’m amazed at what we accomplished in a few days, more or less from scratch.
The mission we’re with, CAM International, is implementing new policies based around teams. So they’re trying to make the policies – as well as resources, tips and materials – available to CAM missionaries wherever they are in the world. And that’s why the T2 Blueprint came into being.
A lot of the ideas and policies are still being worked on, so there’s still a lot to be added on the site. But you can see the basic structure, and in an hour or two you could probably know more about CAM than I do. You might even figure out what T2 stands for!
Actually, we essentially built two websites in the last few days. One part is a blog – the T2 Sandbox. This is where everyone with CAM can get together and share reports, ideas, news, resources – basically anything that can help us all to reach the world with God’s Word.
In fact, even if you’re not with CAM, you can still read the blog, and leave your own comments and ideas. Fun!
As I say, there’s still lots to be added. But it’s come a long way… well, from nothing. We used the excellent Site Build It! to build the site, with the addition of WordPress for the blog.
The site required doing a lot of things I’ve never done before. And, of course, doing those things a lot faster than ever before! The creative stuff I enjoyed. The programish computerish stuff I slugged through.
But now is the time that everyone in our organization is trying to understand how these teams work and how to further enhance our ministry. No time like the present to look to the year ahead and look to the Lord to do great things!
It’s about time I gave you an update about the last part of our week last week. It’s been quite a ride! Let me start with the concert.
The Battle of the Bands
The concert took place in the traffic circle in front of our church meeting place, and we got permission to actually close off the street. That night I was at Nathanael’s school Christmas concert, and so I arrived a couple of hours late, only to discover they hadn’t started yet! They were still putting the finishing touches on the massive light and sound system, I guess. So the concert finally started with Laura Guaza and her band (Laura is from Columbia but living here), then followed Charlie Bostik, and finally Lighthouse Collective from the USA.
I missed quite a bit of the concert, because I ended up taking Laura’s band back into Mexico City that night. It was a late night for me, but far later for those taking down the sound system, who I understand were working after 2am!
I do know that the message about Jesus as Saviour was shared at the concert, and one person accepted the Lord and came to our worship service on Sunday morning. His name is Alberto – please pray for him, and others who heard the message!h3>The Pastorela
The Pastorela, or Christmas play, took place Sunday night in the Walmart plaza (El Cortijo). The children from Hannah’s Sunday School were to put on a "Christmas Tree" first. They all wore black with green capes, and using benches made up a Christmas tree, telling the Christmas story with their lines and songs. Then the pastorela was to follow.
That’s basically what did happen, but a few things did go wrong.
First, a teen band ended up going on stage before us – and actually about when we were supposed to go on stage. That meant no time for a walk through on the stage and a test of the sound system and lights. It also meant that by the time the pastorela started, the shops were closing and people were heading home.
Next, during the children’s Christmas Tree, the microphone got handed to the wrong child at the wrong time, meaning that Hannah’s lines – which she had practised for weeks – were totally missed! She was pretty disappointed.
Having had no time to test the mics, we were halfway through the first scene before we discovered that no one could hear anything. We switched mid-scene to having everyone hold mics, which wasn’t ideal.
Now the mic thing was unfortunate, but two things were amazing. First, how prepared MartÃn and Miguel were, and how quickly the cast adapted, without missing a beat. Unbelievable.
In spite of things going wrong, a lot more went right. The kids did an amazing job (see a brief video here). They had all kinds of special hand motions planned, and it looked great. Here’s a clip from Rod:
The actors also did an amazing job in the pastorela. The message was clear … very clear. And there were surely a couple of hundred people listening, and many really were listening, not just wandering by.
I didn’t get to watch it all closely. I was busy fixing the backdrop that had come loose, or making sure people had mics, prompting, reminding people to pray, and so on. But from all I saw, it was a grand success, and God answered our prayers.
Here’s a brief clip from Rod, showing the entrance of the Magi. The stage is above (you can see Mary and Joseph and the baby in the house):
A team from Lighthouse Collective agreed to help as stage hands at the last minute, and they did an excellent job as well.
Directing the pastorela was not something I wanted to do. The language and cultural barrier are still pretty big for the subtleties involved. No doubt the cast missed half of what I tried to say, and I missed half of what they tried to say. But they were very patient, and I think we all had a great time (I did, anyway!), and God used it.
It was good to brush up on my drama skills anyway – it’s been a while!
The actors performed way beyond my expectations. Kinda wondering what their next triumph will be!
Thanks so much to those of you that prayed, or through your donations helped make all this a reality. And also to those who encouraged all of us involved. And of course, thanks to all who were a part of it – Lighthouse Collective, the people from our church, and others!
