Day 2 – 10 August 2014 – first full
day in Mexico
Nathan McDade:
Today we woke up after an actual,
good night’s sleep of seven hours or so, which was glorious after the
all-nighter and long travel day that brought us here. Most of the team was already staying at the
B.A.M. Center, which is a really cool local ministry with which El Pozo often
partners. (B.A.M. stands for Business As
Ministry.) But a few of us spent the
first night scattered about – some with El Pozo staff in their homes, and a few
others of us at the Casa Verde, which is the campus ministry house around which
all of our activity will orbit this week.
I (Nathan) got up early to work on the day’s sermon. I had been invited to preach at the local
church (a C.M.F. plant that meets in the El Pozo campus house) we’d be
worshiping with, Mosaico – which you may have guessed means “Mosaic.” After everyone arrived at the Casa Verde, we
had a simple breakfast (cereal, fruit, yogurt) and then did our daily “team
time” with a few announcements a morning devotional thought led by Chris and
Marcus. They read from Jeremiah 29 and
Chris brought up a cool point I had never thought of: In the famous verse 11, God uses the plural
“plans” instead of the singular “plan.”
This was one way that these guys reminded us this morning to stay in the
place of flexibility and expectancy and responsiveness to however God might
lead us this week. We sometimes get this
idea in our head that there is one perfect plan for our lives, but the truth is
that God allows us to make choices and “choose our own adventure” and works
with us to constantly craft a perfect plan for our lives from this point
forward. They homed in on the word
“obedience,” which was really cool, because if I were to boil the topic of the
sermon I had been working on to one word, it would be … obedience. Mosaico is going through a little Bible study
you may have heard of – it’s called La Historia (The Story). This week was chapter 10 – Ana (Hannah), Elí
(Eli), Samuel, and Saúl (Saul). I gave
‘em a Nathan/Spanish remix version of the great sermon we all got to hear at
Mountain back in December (preached by Ben).
Worshiping with a church that “gets” El Pozo and provides a great place
to invite college students to connect with a local church was literally a dream
come true and the answer to many, many prayers that we prayed during our seven
years in Mexico. Two of my other
favorite parts of the morning were being led in worship by our Mountain crew
and watching a video of Teo, a local guy who is supported by Mosaico as he returns
to China to continue the mission work he’s been doing there.
Gene Dobbins:
We had a wonderful worship service
at Mosaico church today. Nathan preached
a great service (or so I assume, it was in Spanish! J)
Worship was led by Mountain’s own, Chris, Rachel, Tamara, Kat, and Mr.
Marcus on the drums. Endless Light,
which is one of the songs we sing at Mountain in both English and Spanish, was one
of the songs they did (and the only one that included English). It was an amazing experience to see everyone
sing both the English and Spanish versions of the song. After church was over, we enjoyed a delicious
lunch of tacos, sandwiches, fruit salads, dessert and tea. Over lunch, we got the opportunity to sit
with the people in the church and converse with them about schooling, the
service, and their aspirations in life.
My favorite part of the lunch was
meeting Esteban, Angie, and Isaías. They
are siblings and have been attending Mosaico church for about three months, and
normally lead worship for the services (They were glad for the day off!). Esteban will be a junior at El Pozo this
year, and Isaías will be starting his first year at El Pozo on Monday. After talking with them about their studies,
Esteban is studying Actuary Science, and Isaías is planning on studying
International Commerce for his upcoming first semester. They also shared with me one of their
passions, being in a band, and showed me a YouTube link to a performance that
they had at a local restaurant (http://youtu.be/F8mlEuKpi_s).
After sharing with them a little about my background, studies, and what
I do for a living, we just began to talk about their lives, which led to us
talking about the day’s service. I told
them that I was of course unable to understand the service and if they could,
describe to me what the message was about.
They all were eager to (practice their English) and took turns telling
me a little bit of what they took from the service. I then began to tell them that it was Chapter
10 of the Story that they were in, and that we just completed The Story at
Mountain ourselves. So I got the
opportunity to tell them a little bit about The Story, its structure, and what
it’s meant to provide. They hadn’t been
attending lessons for The Story, but after hearing the sermon and hearing a
little more about what the next few weeks of The Story have to offer, they each
said that they were planning on attending and getting into The Story. So it was a great opportunity to be with a
few members of the church, and just share the word. It wound up being a great lunch experience.
The afternoon was filled with
activity after activity. We got the
opportunity to experience Cholula, and walk the streets of the city seeing all
of the little intricacies of the town.
Along the walk we passed an area called Container City, in which freight
containers line the sidewalks of the city, and have all been turned into local
restaurants and stores. It was pretty
cool to see containers of that nature being recycled and used for something
positive, and productive for the city.
The walk took us to the largest pyramid (by volume and base area) in the
world, called The Grand Pyramid of Cholula.
We together got the opportunity to walk thru the pyramid in a tight
little confined space. While the pyramid
was a great experience, it also gave us the chance to grow closer as a team,
literally and figuratively, and just share thoughts with one another about life
and travel experiences, including other mission trips that other members of our
team and the El Pozo team have been on.
At the top of the Grand Pyramid was a Catholic church. We just all gathered at the top (after a Very
athletic climb to the top!) and had a Perfect view of Puebla and Cholula. Nathan then shared interesting facts about
different parts of the city, and also where we were located. Overall, it was a very fulfilling day filled
with unexpected fellowship, team bonding, and great food (including chapulines
– in other words, Burnt Crickets!
:) They are a native food that is
affordable, but yet a delicacy. I was
personally expecting to bite into them and have this disgusting juice fill my
mouth, but they were actually a little better than that. While I didn’t thoroughly enjoy them, mi
esposa definitely did!)
Nathan:
After a very full day, we had dinner
at another local favorite place, right next to the UDLAP campus – Flautlán,
which is the best place for flautas, a.k.a. tacos dorados, a.k.a. hard-shelled
tacos that are round like a flute. After
that it was back to the B.A.M. Center where we all hung out and watched a movie
and some videos together. This team is
really coming together and everyone is showing great attitudes so far. We are looking forward to a great day
tomorrow of working at the Casa Verde – painting, cleaning, cutting grass,
doing repairs, and whatever else is needed to get this refuge for college
students ready for the first week of the semester!
Thanks for following along and, even
more, for praying for our group! We are
proud to be representing Mountain and to be joining with our brothers and
sisters who live and serve here every day for this great week of learning and
service in the name of Jesus!
The hashtag for our trip is
#MtnMX14. There are tons of photos on
Instagram and probably a few tweets and Facebook updates, too.
Nathan and Gene a.k.a. Nathene
a.k.a. Nalgene
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