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!
This past Wednesday we went into Mexico City (DF) to pick up some friends from the airport. We got to the airport quite quickly. Well… we got very close to the airport quite quickly – like maybe 5 minutes or less away. But due to the construction around the airport, we arrived another hour and a half later. Gotta love it.
The Knightly family (Steve, Patti and Callie) was coming to get an up close view of the work of some of the missionaries with the mission connected with their church (FEB International). So they are actually spending most of their time in Puebla, but were kind enough to stop by Ixtapaluca on their way. And guess what? The trip back from the airport was way better.
They were a great encouragement to us, and even brought us some gifts from Canada. In fact, they did so much for us that we have no chance for any reward in Heaven from the visit. But that’s ok, because knowing them they’ll probably share their rewards with us.
Steve (who does carpentry work in Canada – cabinets and the like) and I went to visit some carpenters here in town, which was fun. They went out to eat and shop with Shari and Hannah (Nathanael and I had to stay home for that part). And that evening we drove them to Puebla. (Amazingly enough, we had met the people they went to visit, and had actually been to their church and their house. Join me as I sing – it’s a small world after all…)
The Knightlys probably think we always have wild and crazy traffic adventures. Really, it’s not always as bad as it was Wednesday and Thursday. But maybe we’re just getting used to it.
Anyway, hopefully the Knightlys can be an encouragement to the missionaries in Puebla too. We look forward to hearing about their visit there! And if the traffic hasn’t scared them away, we hope they’ll come back soon for a longer visit to Ixtapaluca. Thanks for visiting!
(This picture was taken the day after the trip from the Mexico City airport, at night after the trip to Puebla, when everyone was exhausted. Look pretty good, don’t they?)
Yes, I’m finally sitting down and typing something! But just something quick this time. And a rather self-centred post, sorry about that. 🙂
You may or may not have noticed the new nifty feature in the sidebar there. No, not Goodsearch – that was there and I lost it and just got it back.
No, I’m talking about my Facebook status. If you care you can see the brief updates that I send off to places like Facebook. Sorry I don’t have Shari’s on there yet – technology is failing me when I try to put both of us on there. But you can click through to her profile and mine too.
Now, I know that there are a few of you out there who are more into Twitter. Well, yes, I do have a Twitter account. So if you would rather follow me on Twitter than on an RSS feed, my profile is right here. And in case you’re wondering, yes, they are clean. Very clean.
Of course, you can use our rss feed to keep up with updates here. I’m on Plaxo too. And Hi5 (which is more popular in Mexico). I know you don’t want to do all those things – but some people prefer one over the other. So far be it from me to dictate what technology you use.
All right – now that you’re sick of hearing about me, let me share some nifty technology which allows me to keep (kinda) up with these things with minimal effort. Check them out if you’re interested…
Hellotxt updates multiple profiles all at once. Twhirl can handle multiple Twitter profiles on your desktop. Twitter Tools is a plugin for WordPress. And twitterfeed allows you to post a feed to your Twitter profile, which is what I do with my Google shared items. Digsby can also handle Facebook, Twitter and multiple instant message profiles all at once, without opening your browser.
These things let me do a lot automatically, because who has time to keep up with all this stuff? 😉
In case you’ve always wondered, our house in Mexico City is at an altitude of 2238 metres (7343 feet).
As a point of comparison, our home in Calgary was at 1075m (3527ft), the Banff Springs Hotel is at 1427m (4682ft). Colorado Springs in the USA is 1831m (6008ft). Mt McKinley (Alaska), North America’s highest peak, is 6194m (20,322ft).
At 2238m, there is only 77% the amount of oxygen that there is at sea level (as compared to Calgary, which has 88%) (see this altitude graph).
The Maple Leaf Forever has been called Canada’s other national anthem, but that’s not what I’m talking about. This song was written in 1968 by Dolores Claman, and it’s about to make a triumphant return in October.
In fact, a group of Canadians surveyed considered the song as much a national symbol as the Peace Tower!
Yep, it’s the Hockey Theme. Used by CBC for 40 years, it was "lost" earlier this year when an agreement couldn’t be reached for a renewal of the license.
But starting on the 10th of October, the theme will be on RDS, and then on TSN on the 14th for the Calgary Flames/Colorado Avalanche game. The Toronto Symphony Orchestra spent two days creating a new version of the song. According to TSN,
Led by award-winning conductor Darren Fung, 54 elite members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra participated in an exhaustive and emotional two-day recording session earlier this month. Using cutting-edge digital technology, the orchestra recorded for hours on end in an effort to lay down the perfect track.
Here’s a video with the full story, and a preview of the new sound:
