Mexico Mission: Saturday

Departure.
Return to life-as-I-know-it: Changed.
Aware.

Miscellaneous Memories

Mexico Mission: Friday

What a treat to explore the capital city of Mexico. There is such a strong sense of culture here, and it is beautiful to experience it. Part of me battles the feeling that we are wasting a day sightseeing that could be spent serving where we are needed. A big part of me, in fact. But I was encouraged to think of it as an opportunity to embrace all this country has to offer and to receive in addition to giving.

Rapidly, I was enamored with the history of this place. The National Cathedral, the ruins of the Templo Mayor (Great Temple of Tenochtitlan), the Zocalo. Group dynamics can be interesting. I could care less about making it to our restaurant early when there are still museums to be explored and signs to read. Adjustment of expectations.

For dinner we ate at the iconic Cafe Tacuba, a converted convent. Mariachis and mole. I was a happy girl.

Sights of Mexico City

Mexico Mission: Thursday

Last day in Xoxocotla. A shortened one.

We saw some of the same people come back for second helpings of vitamins and pin worm medication! Others that didn't get seen yesterday due to the long lines. We had a family of Nauhatl indians. Only the young mother spoke Spanish, the grandparents and children spoke only an ancient Aztec dialect that was not even remotely similar to Spanish!



The church had a huge party for us last night. Lots of speeches and prayers. Beautiful gifts presented to everyone. I felt so blessed in the midst of everything. What a gift from them to us, especially considering that a couple in the local church lost their very sickly, 3 month old baby earlier in the week. Joy in the face of mourning.



I still feel like I haven't connected with God the way I expected. Perhaps my eyes simply aren't open enough to see the face of Christ in each and every person I encounter. I think also God is teaching me to be open to Him and HIS expectations. To stop projecting the way I think things should be.

Help me to see and feel you everywhere, Lord. To be open and surrendered to you and your vision for each and every situation.

Mexico Mission: Wednesday

Today we setup for two days of clinic in the local school of Xoxocotla. The standards of the facilities were low compared to even the poorer schools in the states: cracked glass windows, dirty concrete, rickety desks. But there were roofs and it is a place for children to learn. That is better than nothing. We walked right through the local marketplace to get there. Piles of fruit, fresh and rotting. Bundles of taquitos. Ropes of fried, cinnamon-sugar coated dough. Tortillas. Gorditos. Raw, plucked chickens with their feet raised awkwardly in the air in feeble surrender to rigor mortis. Flies sampling the wares everywhere. And people: talking, walking, laughing, pushing wheelbarrows, playing, selling, buying.



It was supposed to be our busiest day, but apparently there was a mandatory meeting for anyone receiving government aid for school, so that eliminated a lot of people. Still, many came through, patiently waiting their turn. Beautiful babies and wee tots. One little 11-month old girl, Paloma Rubi, with the biggest, blackest, most beautifully inquiring eyes I have ever seen. She was so alert, watching Dad like a hawk, curious to know what was going on! Lots of diabetics and high blood pressure cases...a few previously undiagnosed. There is so much chronic illness. Can they even afford the constant medication they require to avoid the complications associated with each disease?

We had lunch at the house of one of the local church members. It's a lesson in humility to accept such generosity from people you know do not have much.

Lavish like grace.

Mexico Mission: Tuesday

Today we set up in the neighborhood village of Miguel Hidalgo. There was a doctor at this little clinic, but he had no medicines to distribute. How frustrating that must be as a professional. When we got there, he was pouring bleachy water of the concrete, open air rooms and rickety metal benches to get everything ready! Welcomed and disinfected! Thanks, Lord!

We became the local event of the day. People seemed to simply come and stay for the day. Carts drove up and began selling fruit and clothes just outside the courtyard!

Sketches from clinic:

Desperation
A man came to Dr. Joe with a shoulder that had been dislocated for almost 3 weeks following an intoxicated motorcycle accident. Blood sugar 552, blood pressure 200/110. A walking disaster at any age, this man appeared relatively young. The shoulder was too swollen to be put back into the socket without putting him to sleep. We could give him medicines for his pain and other ailments, but without the use of his arm he could not work. His wife had left him, and he was there with his mom and sister who were trying to help him. What this man really needed, we (in our own strength and preparation) could not give him. Mom asked if she could pray for him. She said she had never felt such a strong anointing to pray for healing. It's not like in the states where we have many different avenues to pray for healing (Lord use the doctors, Lord use modern medical techniques, etc.). This man had no other hope than a miracle. The doctors he had seen told him there was nothing wrong (though there was obvious separation). Miraculously, a woman volunteering with us as a translator knew some people who worked at the hospital in Cuernevaca. She called them and told them she was sending the man to them and to look after him. We took up a collection for transportation and food. As we placed the money in their hands, all three began to weep and dazedly left in blessed shock. I don't know the ultimate outcome, but I believe that they experienced God's abundant grace through this situation.

Maira
The hardest part of the day for me was Maira: the 16 year-old girl, 5 months pregnant. A tiny little thing with big, shy eyes and smooth baby skin. Already uncomfortable, moving slowly, and having trouble sitting and walking, she was too young and too small to be growing a baby. I wondered how she got there. Consent? Rape? Did she really know how her life would change? How high risk pregnancies in one so young and small can be? My heart was so flooded with compassion that I very nearly lost it. Tears welled in my eyes as Dad examined her and told her where the baby's back, head, and feet were. Lord, touch her with your love and grace. Surround her with your presence that she might know she is your beloved daughter. I am helpless to intervene through any other avenue but intercession.

No Es Toxico?!?

A funny aside...

The clinic at Alpuyeca was set-up in an open air community center of sorts. During the day, a group of men began liberally spraying the outskirts for insects. Clouds of ominous looking aerosol chemicals began wafting through the area. As we pulled out exam masks, one of the workers ran over, removed his doomsday-looking gas mask and adamantly proclaimed:

"No es toxico! No es toxico!"



After making this declaration, he promptly put his mask on and went right back to work, and we were treated to a host of uninvited guests!

Mexico Mission: Monday

Today we were in the village of Alpuyeca. Ingenious setup of individual exam rooms. The youth of the mission church there made brilliant use of cording, vinyl sheets, duct tape, and paper clips.

Some people sketches from the day:

Clothilde

A tiny grandma with a long, thin, salt and pepper braid was having trouble with her eyes. Turns out she had pretty sizable cataracts in both eyes. We told her she could get a quick outpatient surgery that would give her back her vision, but that procedure was beyond our capability. Then, she proceeded to cry and purse her toothless mouth sharing that she lived all alone and there was no one to take care of her. She wasn't sure anyone could take her to the clinic. We listened attentively, held her hands, and asked if we could pray with her interceeding that the Lord would comfort her with His presence and cover her with His love. She gave hugs and kisses to everyone at least twice, and got some medicine for her "dolor" (pain). Mom gave her a big, stuffed bear from the box of toys that we were distributing to the kids. Now she's not alone.

The Farmer

A creased and weathered 73 year-old man with sensory neuropathy (numbness, weakness, pain, and tingling in the extremities) who wept on his cot because he was sad to be growing old. He wanted to keep working in the fields but his feet bothered him, and he couldn't work as fast or as productively as in the past. We listened. We acknowledged his value as a child of God. He was given something to help with his feet and pronounced fit to work as he was able. You'd have thought we had given him an extension on life. He tearfully and profusely thanked us. Hugs all around. He left in smiles.

The Griever
There was a man waiting to see the dentist. He could not read and did not know he had to sign in. Dr. Harry noticed something was wrong and sent him to our room. The man had recently lost his wife of 35 years. Severely depressed. Suicidal. Couldn't make eye contact. We spoke hope. We spoke love. We spoke truth. We prayed healing over him. I brought him a cup of water as we think he'd been sitting in the sun patiently waiting for his turn that wouldn't have come if someone hadn't noticed he was still there. "For whenever you gave even a cup of cold water to the least of these, you did so unto me."

The Children

A shy little girl with yellow heart earrings. Exuberant boys. Two things are universal: smiles and babies that are afraid of doctors.

Mexico Mission: Sunday

We went to church today in Xoxocotla (p.s. I just had to pull off my t-shirt so I could remember how to spell it!) at the United Methodist congregation. Everything here happens on "Mexico Time" which roughly translates to "when people get here" or simply "whenever we feel like it." I felt so welcomed and blessed to be worshiping with everyone, and I LOVED singing in Spanish. I deeply wish I knew the language (or any other language for that matter).

During a moment of quiet prayer, I was so flooded with tearful emotion that the same God I know, love, and experience was present in this place where life, culture, and the very words spoken are so different. Yet He is here offering the same life-transforming grace and relationship with Himself...still sovereign, still loving, life-giving, and completely good.



They cooked an incredible lunch for us that included spaghetti. I wonder if they were trying to make something "American" for us! So generous...I wish I could converse better. We went to Xochicalco, ancient ruins of a pre-Aztec pyramid/temple/fort. Stunning, especially the Temple of the Feathered Serpent which had designs of Quetzalcoatl (the head honcho Latin American God) pressed into the base. They had places where stone pillars lined up perfectly with the sun on each season's equinox. How could they measure that and construct accordingly? Impressive. I'm fascinated driving around at all the roadside stands and businesses.



Life operates differently. Colorfully. Communally. Beautifully.

Tomorrow starts clinic.
Lord be in our hearts, and
in our hands and in our words.

The long and short of life lately.

I often feel like I have to have something profound to say before I can post. There's so much going on in my head right now, and none of it seems to make much sense...or rather...I postpone writing because I tell myself I don't have the time to sift through what's going on. And that's ridiculous. Furthermore, there have been times when I see in others the importance of making time to think in a focused fashion about situations that are difficult or uncomfortable. I see the detrimental effects of not doing so. Then...

Why is it so hard to pick through my own thoughts?

God is dealing with me on a lot of levels lately. Just when I think I've grown so much and painfully humbled myself to the lesson of my current season. Just when I think I can finally pat myself on the back for my good listening to him and relax into thinking I'm a pretty darn wonderful person...something ugly inside me rears its ugly head for pruning and transformation. I'm glad beyond words that God is faithful to keep working on me, but that doesn't mean I perpetually enjoy the revelations of the parts of me that aren't as wonderful as I'd like to think.

Delusions can be nice for a time.

But I don't ever want to stagnate...in my life, learning, relationships with others...and above ALL my relationship with my God. I think that's one of my greatest fears: stagnation, satisfaction with the status quo.

Work: I dread it. I'm overwhelmed. I'm not being faithful, productive, or diligent. I feel frustrated, incompetent, and wonder sometimes whether I've been deluding myself all these years of my "intelligence." I feel like God is getting at something big in there, but I don't know (or I won't choose to know) what root he's tweaking that's causing me pain. I need Him to help me figure it out though, or I'm setting up a self-fulfilling prophesy for self-destruction.

Relationships: There is grace (thankfully). Some pain and consequences of choices. But God is putting all the pieces back into place the way He wants them to be. And I am awestruck at where he's brought me. My prayer is that as God prepared Eve for Adam, so He would work in my heart to prepare me to be the partner of the man for whom I was designed. I feel like He's got a lot of work, but if He's not discouraged...I won't be either.

House: There is Love, Grace, Growth, Community, Family, and God weaving us all together in marvelous ways I could never have imagined.

Service: I'm leaving for Mexico tomorrow night for my medical mission. I've scarcely had time to think about it, much less prayerfully prepare myself the way I envisioned. I am deeply hungering new revelations, dreams, visions, relationships, inspirations, and above all...to be a vessel of God's unconditional, life-transforming love to the people we serve.

Be still my soul, The Lord is on thy side.