A report on our weekend in Texcoco and Pachuca. I had to cut out a few clips here and there to make it under 10 minutes, but other than that I think it went all right (yes, and after 10 minutes I still left things out – busy weekend!). 😉 I actually recorded this this morning, but wasn’t able to post it until now, due to unforeseen (by me, not God) circumstances.
Also, I talk about something I got in the mail, and a creative way you might be able to touch a community here in Mexico City if you’re interested. Check it out…
As promised in my podcast from earlier today, here’s a little tour of the neighbourhood where we’re currently offering 10 weeks of English classes. You’ll see a little bit of what the area is like, meet the English teachers, and see some of the potential for more ministry in this area.
I failed to mention in the video someone who has been helping with teaching. Rod’s son Daniel has also been helping teach, and you’ll see him in the video in a green shirt with Allan.
In this video you’ll hear from both Rod and I, and even see a glimpse of the planning meeting we had just last night. Most of the footage from Jesús MarÃa was taken last week during the English classes on Wednesday and Thursday.
Edit:Rod corrected the population numbers for me. He writes: In the neighborhood of Jesus Maria, there are 3800 houses. Bordering it lies Los Heroes, Ixtapaluca, with 27,000 individual residences …Just beyond Los Heroes lies San Buenaventura, a huge, sprawling neighborhood of 22,000 homes … Figure 3-4 people per house, and just in these three neighborhoods you have approximately 200,000 people living.
Note that this is the immediate area – I also spoke about “hundreds of thousands” that were close – the municipal area has hundreds of thousands, and of course connects to the millions going further into Mexico City.
This past Friday to Saturday our church hosted a men’s retreat in the Paso de Cortés, the mountain pass between two of Mexico’s famous volcanoes, Popocatépetl and Ixtaccíhuatl. 16 men were there, not as many as we had hoped for, but I think everyone enjoyed it.
The night was cold and rainy, and the day was windy and cold, but we just kept moving and all was well. Rod Fry (see Rod’s take on the retreat here) put a lot of work into the weekend, and led some discussions on integrity which were really great.
Here’s a video to give you a bit of an idea what we did. For your viewing pleasure I’m posting the director’s cut, which includes the extended waterfall scene. 😉 I didn’t film what we had to eat on Saturday afternoon because I imagine we would soon have 20 or 30 people coming to Mexico to "help out" for all the wrong reasons. Boy, that was delicious. 😉
But here’s some better motivation for you. Besides Rod and I, I don’t think there was anyone there who had been in the Lord for more than 8 years – the vast majority 4 or less. So if you think it’s all been done in Mexico, or that God’s not doing anything, think of these first-generation believers worshipping God in the mountains…
Things are looking up. I found out today I won a waterproof Bible. Too bad I won’t have it before camping in the mountains next weekend (of course, it’s in English – too bad).
Yeah, it’s really waterproof, check out the video. You can read it underwater. If you had some good reason to do that. How about morning devotions in the shower? 😉
Of course, the contest is over, but Tim has a contest every Friday – so why not enter? Who knows? There’s a beautiful book up for grabs this week, if you’re interested in Lewis and Tolkien.
If you want to see how the locks work, take a look at this video (of course there are other types of locks – this is only one kind). Of course the video is edited to about 7 or 8 minutes – I imagine the whole process actually took about 20 minutes or so. Also, notice the storm that whipped through while we were watching…
Actually, there’s one more Canadian hero that we talked a little about over the summer. We’ve been learning a hymn by Joseph Scriven, who lived in Port Hope, Ontario (east of Toronto on Lake Ontario). The hymn is What a Friend We Have in Jesus.
Recently my Dad sent me this video telling the story of Scriven, so I thought I’d add it to make our list of heroes and uneven 3…
Read more about Joseph Scriven here at my Dad’s blog, and many more hymnwriters as well. My Dad’s book on Christmas carols, Discovering the Songs of Christmas: Meditations on Our Traditional Carols and Christmas Hymns, is scheduled for release this December.
here.