Thursday September 29th 2011

Buenos dias por la ultima vez de los montes de Mexico. Wow! I can’t believe that this will be my last post on my missions trip! I leave Mexico in just 2 short days, and it seems like just last week that I was speaking in front of you all telling you about the trip I would be going on. It’s quite amazing how fast the time flies when you are really enjoying something. Saturday is my day of travel. It starts out early in the morning with a ride to Cuernavaca from El Monte, which is about an hour away. Then a 2 hour bus ride with my buddy Elliot who is flying home to New Zealand within an hour of my flight, to see his sister get married. That’s at least a 2 hour bus ride from Cuernavaca to Mexico City. Then all the fun of going through customs and getting everything situated at the airport. My flight then leaves for Sweet Home Chicago at 3:30 and arrives a little before 8 at O’hare. Pray for travelling mercies for me this Saturday as that is what I will be doing the entire day.

Since my last blog, a lot has happened. I mentioned that we would be celebrating the Mexican Independence at the church here in Ticuman, and what an event that was. It started out with a couple hour long service then we all ate dinner together. There was all kinds of great food, Mexican trivia (which I was horrible at, as you can imagine), a costume contest, fun of cracking eggs over peoples’ heads that had been filled with flour, and a contest to see who could belt out Viva Mexico and hold it for the longest. They had about 20 people participate and of course I was one of them because they kept egging me on. So I got up in front of the church and belted Viva Mexicooooooooooooooooooooooooo and held it for 35 seconds! Well, in the end I was the winner and the pastor made a joke that an American beat them at their own tradition and that they needed to find something to beat us in on our Independence Day. It was a lot of fun, even if I was a little light headed at the end from holding that note so long.

Our work team that was here from the Quad Cities left us last Thursday and made great progress in making sidewalks up by the pool and palapa area and painting the bathhouse down by the soccer fields. The bathhouse looks great and really stands out now, and so do all of our clothes to match the bathhouse. The fun of working with others is sometimes you get painted along with everything else. But we all really enjoyed their company and were sad to see them go.

Since we have our weekends off to recuperate from the weeks activities here at El Monte, a friend asked me if I’d like to go with them down to Acapulco last weekend for short little getaway. I, of course, accepted the invitation and got to spend a little time on the beach, for a nice weekend away. The first day was the only bad weather day we had because a hurricane went through just to the north of us, which was cool, because we had some huge waves to hit. Later that night we had a 4.8 magnitude earthquake rock our hotel. So within the first day of me being there, I experienced my first hurricane and my first earthquake. Needless to say, I was really looking forward to what day 2 had in store. I think one of the coolest things that I have ever witnessed happened our last night in Acapulco. We were walking along the beach in the dark when all of a sudden we saw this big rock in the sand that started to move. Curiosity drew us closer to what we discovered was a giant sea turtle digging a hole in the sand to lay its eggs. Wow! As you know sea turtles are endangered and it was such a cool thing to witness. We were the only ones there with her as we laid a few feet away from her in the sand, watching her lay her eggs. It was a good thing we were there because there were guys walking up and down the beach looking for sea turtles and their eggs so they could sell the eggs and kill the sea turtle for money. It’s very illegal to do this, but it doesn’t stop them from doing it, and unfortunately these guys do get a hold of the turtles and the eggs sometimes and by the time the police arrive, they are long gone. So we stayed with the turtle until it was able to safely lay its eggs and return into the big ol’ blue. For some reason I kept thinking of that turtle from Finding Nemo and him saying “The little dudes are just eggs, we leave 'em on a beach to hatch, and then, coo-coo-cachoo, they find their way back to the big ol' blue.”

Sunday evening was the start of the missionary conference we hosted here at El Monte. We hosted missionaries that are serving all over Mexico for this 4 day conference. It was nice to meet a lot of different missionaries serving in a lot of different capacities in Mexico. We had missionaries here that are originally from all over the world. From France, Belize, Korea and the USA to Singapore, Canada, Germany and of course Mexico. It was a very cool experience filled with great messages, worship, fellowship and fun. I was in charge of all the missionary kids while the parents were in meetings. So us short termers entertained a group of about 25 kids with crazy games and fun activities. The conference ended Wednesday evening and El Monte is back to a tranquil, relaxing site. At least for the time being.

Well only a couple more days until I see all of you in church on Sunday morning. This has been such an amazing experience filled with awesome adventures, amazing people, lots of good, hard work and a chance to see God do some amazing things both in El Monte itself and in the people affected by it’s ministry. This is truly a beautiful place and I have been so blessed to be a part of it for the past 3 months. I will miss all that is El Monte, but a return someday is possible, if it’s God’s will. And maybe YOU will accompany me on a week long work team adventure to the mountains of Mexico. Thank you all for your support and prayers over these past 3 months. I am so blessed to have a church family that cares so much and I am very grateful for all of you. Love you guys, miss you all and I will see you Sunday!!

Dios Les Bendiga….God Bless You

Billy

Thursday September 15th 2011

Buenas tardes! Well I have moved places yet again. Last week I finished up my language classes in Cuernavaca with my host family, the Piñóns. It was sad to leave them after spending so much time with them over the past few weeks. But they are an awesome family and we hope to see each other again someday in the near future.

And now, I am back at El Monte for the last leg of the trip. I have been back since the beginning of the week and getting adjusted to waking up and seeing a beautiful, gigantic green mountain out my front balcony. It’s really very different than the city life of Cuernavaca but its a good different because it is very peaceful. We have another work team with us from the Quad Cities that arrived on Tuesday. I have been working with them scraping, finishing and painting the new bathhouse down by the soccer fields. It’s coming along very good and we should have that finished soon. We also will be making sidewalks up by the palapa (the pavilion where camp meeting times are held) to connect it to the pool and other cabins. Pray that my back holds up as I have been having sharp pains in my lower back this whole trip and have gotten worse over these past couple days. I only have a little over 2 weeks left here and I really want to give 100% of myself to these weeks. “I can do all things through, Christ who strengthens me”

Today and tomorrow is the celebration of Mexican independence down here. Many of you probably thought that Cinco de Mayo was the Independence Day but it is actually today/tomorrow. Cinco de Mayo is Mexico’s independence from France, but today, El Grito, is the celebration of Mexico’s independence from Spain. They have a 2 day long celebration that starts today with the actual Independence Day being tomorrow. To give you a little history lesson, in the early hours of September 16th, 1810, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a priest in the small town of Dolores, Guanajuato, rang the church bell to gather the townspeople. He called for the people of Mexico to rise up against the Spanish Crown, thus initiating Mexico's War of Independence. The country did not achieve independence until 1821, but it is this event, known as the Grito de Dolores which is commemorated every year in town squares across Mexico. So we are heading to the church in Ticuman tonight for a 6 hour service/fiesta to celebrate Mexico’s Independence. It will be interesting to see the difference between our 4^th of July and their Grito.

You know you’re in Mexico when…. You stick out like a sore thumb, because not only do you look like a snowman (a mythical creature to them) but you are taller than 99.9% of the people here.

Ok, well that’s all from the mountains of Mexico.

Dios bendiga a Mexico. Viva Mexico!

Billy

Saturday September 3rd 2011

Buenos dias y saludos del corazon de Mexico. I have been on a roller coaster these past couple weeks (both literally and figuratively speaking). A couple Saturdays ago was the wedding of my roommate Gerardo up in Mexico City. I really didn’t know what to expect, being as I have never been to a foreign wedding before. Gerardo told me a little of how the wedding would be, but I was still looking forward to seeing if it would be any different than what I was used to. The wedding was at a normal church like one we have in the States. Everything was very elegant and the ceremony actually wasn’t that different than a normal American wedding. The message of the ceremony was a great one, because not only did they have the normal marriage passages, but also made the Gospel message the main point of the service. Since most of Gerardo and Elsa’s families aren’t saved, it was a perfect way to reach them. One thing that I had never seen before at a wedding was when Gerardo got down on his knees and washed the feet of his bride during the ceremony. This was a very emotional moment and an act of love, servant hood and humility that Christ first demonstrated to us on the last night of His life.

These past couple weeks I have been living with the Mexican family and taking Spanish lessons. I have improved my skills quite a bit and am learning a lot of words they don’t teach you in school such as salvation, faith, mercy, love, sacrifice and many more words found in the Gospel. We also are going through a devotional book that is completely in Spanish and I read passages from the Bible in Spanish to familiarize myself with La Palabra de Dios en espanol.

Those were a few of the highs of the past weeks, but one low that I have grown very familiar to is being sick while here. I had gotten sick the morning of the wedding and this time it was the longest and worst it had ever been. I was having severe pains in my stomach and was taking medicine for it, but it wasn’t going away. So we ended up going to the doctor and he said that I had a bad stomach infection. He gave me a couple different medicines for the infection but said it wasn’t going to be an easy thing to get rid of, and it wasn’t. I was sick for about a week and a half with this problem which made daily chores that much more difficult, but through prayer and medicine, the pain and infection subsided and I am pretty much back to 100% now. I have really been challenged with sickness a lot while I’ve been down here. That last episode was about the 4th time that I have gotten sick while being down here. There are certain things you can do to avoid getting sick, such as not drinking the water, which I of course have not been drinking. But sometimes, it comes in things you eat or even the air you breathe in. I know through these hardships of sickness I am being tested and my faith strengthened. When my strength runs dry and my vision is blinded, will I endure this trial of my faith victoriously or will I turn back in defeat? Faith must be tested, because it can only become your intimate possession through conflict. The test will either prove your faith right, or it will kill it. Jesus said, “Blessed is he who is not offended because of Me” (Matthew 11:6). The ultimate thing is confidence in Jesus. “We have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end . . .” (Hebrews 3:14). Believe steadfastly on Him and everything that challenges you will strengthen your faith. There is continual testing in the life of faith up to the point of our physical death, which is the last great test. Faith is absolute trust in God— trust that could never imagine that He would forsake us (Hebrews 13:5-6).

During the week and a half there was a window of reprievement for my birthday on the 27th. I was so thankful for a temporary break from illness that I had been praying for which allowed my friends down here to take me to 6 Flags Mexico City, the literal part of "roller coaster." Although it wasn’t a completely pain free day, it was still an enjoyable birthday spent with some great friends that I have made in my time down here. I thank the Lord for allowing me to enjoy that day and also for the many many blessings He has given me over this past quarter century. Man, I’m getting old!

The Pinons, the family I’m staying with, have a friend, Raul, that comes for food or money everyday. He is not able to support himself due to something that happened to him when he was a kid. A few men mugged him when he was younger and as a result, it permanently damaged his brain. He now wanders the street, going door to door for money and food. It is very sad because he has nowhere to go and isn’t all there in the head to be able to even hold a job. So the Pinons have been helping him by giving him a little something everyday. He can be quite a character sometimes and has nicknames for everyone. When I come to the door to give him money he calls me “tio” which means ‘uncle”, even though he is probably twice my age. One day I was wearing shirt with a big Teenage Mutant Ninja turtle face on it when I answered the door. He laughed when he saw my shirt and called me Frederico. I don’t know why he called me that, but someone told me it was probably because he had a pet turtle at one time named Frederico. Now to him I am Tio Frederico, or Uncle Frederick. He is a character, but also someone that needs prayer. He needs somebody, like a relative to take him in. He has relatives that are pretty wealthy but won’t help him out. So pray that his situation improves both physically and spiritually and that God would soften the hearts of his relatives.

Well that was a long post but now it’s time for “You know you’re in Mexico when…” You know you’re in Mexico when you go to use a public restroom but realize there are no toilet paper and no toilet seat either because someone stole them, or they were never there in the first place.

Less than one month until I’m back.

Billy