26
Mar
And You Shall Be My Witnesses
I ended my last post rather abruptly after having returned to Cd. Valles from our missionary travels into the Pame region to the west of the city. We now realized that we still had many things to attend to before our leaving on the early morning of the 17th, only seven days away.
Because of the smashing success of Theresa’s baking classes in Buenos Aires the previous week she was asked by the women in the Solidaridad church to give an encore performance for them. It was decided that we would use Javier and Cristiana’s kitchen for this and that, as in Buenos Aires, the goal would be to teach how to make everything on the top of the stove in fry pans only, avoiding any use of an oven which many of the women would not have. Cristina’s little kitchen and living room were filled to standing room only as over a dozen women and two men attended and interacted with Theresa in her baking class. Even Pastor Javier got involved in the hands-on class. In the end the baked goods were all proudly displayed and photographed before they disappeared with much smacking of lips and satisfied comments from the participants.
Theresa was also blessed to be able to involve herself again in the sewing program that Cristina and Alicia and several of the other women continue to be very busy with. Although the regular sewing classes that Cristina once held have changed, several of the women continue to take on custom tailoring and repairs and thereby are able to earn an income through their sewing. While we were in Cd. Valles Cristina and the women had an order for 32 costume skirts and 2 dresses for one of the schools. After barely finishing these on the short timeline, they immediately received another large order for bee costumes from another school. Much of their work involves making school uniforms and taking on custom renovations and repairs for individual clients. Although their workshop is small they are very busy. Cristina had a new trainee join the work team while we were there. Theresa and I were also blessed to be able to deliver four used heavy-duty sewing machines to Cristina for the workshop on this trip.
Thursday the 14th marked a big day for me because it was the culmination of many years of prayer for us in that we were to have our first real eye clinic. As I mentioned in my March 6th blog, although this was to be a day of hands-on training it was also Isaias’ and my first time to set up an actual eye clinic with real clients. Obviously it is very different to move from the theoretical and training into having a real person sitting in your chair looking to you as the expert.
When we got to Huichihuyan on Thursday morning we found a very large adult missions team of Ukrainians from Minnesota as well as an accompanying group from the Mexican tent ministry called “Cristo es la Repuesta” (Christ is the Answer) already there and taking all of Isaias’ attention. Although unexpected and somewhat disappointing to me because I had arrived focused and primed for “my big day”, I calmed my disquiet with the realization that God was 100% in control of the situation. And, as I said to Theresa, I have learned long ago (or at least have tried to learn) that if one is to be involved in mission work they need to be completely flexible because things rarely, if ever go completely according to plans on the field.
Isaias had set up an adjacent building to their house and church in Huichihuyan as a designated eye clinic. One of the rooms was earmarked presently for the clinic, and other rooms will be utilized later as the eye ministry grows. The space is excellent for this purpose being well situated and easily accessible, as well as being well lit for the needs of the eye clinic. In fact, the paint was still drying in the designated clinic room when we arrived in the morning. It was a good thing that it was fast drying paint and that it was about 100° F making drying even faster.
At about noon the clients began to arrive and we still had not fully set up the clinic, let alone had time to talk over plans with Isaias. But God worked out every detail. Shortly after the clients began to arrive the missionary teams also returned from ministering in the village. We had a time of prayer and blessing together in English, Spanish, and Ukrainian and the clinic was officially kicked off.
We saw less than ten clients as was my request to Isaias in setting up his first clinical day. While I guided Isaias in the screening and testing of the clients for distance vision and writing up individualized prescriptions in the clinical room, his teenage son Pablo made the glasses as prescribed, as well as distributed correctly selected reading glasses inside their own house next door. It was a slick operation and worked well. Inevitably of course by the end of the day we realized that there were some kinks that will need to be worked out, but what else can one expect on the very first run?
All in all, it went extremely well and I believe that Isaias and his team will do excellently. Already he is planning on expanding and buying a second tester so that he can develop the eye clinic into two testing rooms in order to see more clients. He has big plans and I believe that it will be the evangelistic ministry tool in his hands that it was always meant to be. He held his own independent eye clinic on Friday the 22nd. I have yet to hear how it went, but I am sure that it will have gone well.
As I mentioned in my February 27th posting God has also opened the door for us to establish a second eye clinic working with a Christian brother and nurse named Javier Salazar Rodriguez in one of the extremely poor colonias of Monterrey. This is a city in northern Mexico where I have never worked before. I am excited to see where God leads in this, and it looks like I may actually be returning to Mexico without Theresa within a month or two in order to deliver the supplies and to assist Javier and his wife (not to be confused with Pastor Javier in Cd. Valles) to set up their new clinic.
After the eye clinic on Thursday we returned to Cd. Valles and met with a Christian friend by the name of Alejandro (Alex) Altamirano. Alex is the one that we always go to for any computer or other techy work in Mexico. As I mentioned in other blogs, a little church in Wales, along with close friends of ours Stephen and Tracey Woolford gave funds towards the ministry with which we were able to purchase “Proclaimer” units – basically very upscale MP3 players – for the Pame work.
The concept is that Pastor Javier will record a complete multi-year Bible School onto digital format on his computer. It will then be loaded onto Micro-SD memory cards. In this way, after the difficult and tedious work of first recording all of the lessons, the whole of the Bible Institute can be offered to the leaders in the mountain villages by simply interchanging the microchips or “Proclaimer” units. Since internet is not accessible in much of the region and as no Bible Schools are otherwise available there, in this way the new leaders can receive theology and doctrinal training through the use of these MP3 units. Alex will assist Javier through the learning curve of how to record and then prepare the individual microchips for use in the players. This will be a great assistance for Javier since neither he nor I are techies. May God richly bless Alex for being willing to be a part of the ministry in this vital way.
On Friday morning the women of Buenos Aires whom Theresa had taught in her baking class the previous week wanted us to come to an early morning breakfast that they had prepared in appreciation for the training that she had given them. They served up a lavish breakfast in the children’s feeding center galera of palm hearts, cactus, and other delicacies from their kitchens that they had prepared for us with much love. After this they then presented Theresa with gifts of handwork that they had made. Theresa felt much loved, honored, and blessed, especially so realizing that these women were all very newly introduced to the saving gospel, and that all of them live with extremely difficult and hard circumstances in their lives.
On Saturday morning we joined Cristina and the children in the Hidden Manna Feeding Program in Buenos Aires and enjoyed their Bible lesson and shared a nutritious meal with them. After the children’s program we popped over to visit with Justina and her family who live in a little hovel on the edge of a hill in the village. We have known this family for many years, in fact from the time that their eldest son was a youngster. He is now married and has his own two year old son. The household consists of the two parents, the eldest son and his young wife and little child, as well as a second teenage son and three beautiful little daughters whom we have known since they were born. Sadly, the dirt-floored shack that they all live in is not even something that you would want to keep your animals in. Their situation is not unusual for so very many and my heart is constantly broken for them, as well as for everyone who must live in these conditions.
We are indeed so very blessed! Not because we deserve it and they don’t, but simply because of God’s unmerited grace in our lives. May we learn to stop complaining and instead be thankful and praise-filled people.
As I mentioned in my previous blog we are presently in Henderson, Nebraska so that Theresa can spend some time with her ninety two year-old mother who is in a senior’s home in the neighboring town of York. We plan on leaving for Manitoba on Thursday morning so that we will be able to be back for Easter with the granddaughters in Winnipeg.
Throughout the whirlwind of activity over the past weeks it is easy for me to lose the impact of the meaning of the celebration of Easter and Resurrection Sunday. However, I want to take a few minutes now at the end of this ministry report to focus my heart and thoughts on Jesus’ life and death; for this is indeed what any message of the gospel is all about.
If Salvation is not about the rescuing of lost souls from the horrors of eternal Hell than it is nothing at all. The whole of Jesus’ incarnational life and substitutional death only makes sense if this is true. If our message is nothing more than one of improving the living or social conditions of the lost, then we have done nothing; and have perhaps even made matters worse. For, as Jesus accused the teachers of the law and the Pharisees in Matthew 23:15: “You hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.”
March 16th is often called John 3:16 day because it is the 16th day of the third month. How incredibly grateful I am for the message of this passage – undoubtedly the most memorized verse in all of scripture: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
The danger however is if we do not take this beautiful message of God’s incredible love and His plan for our redemption within its context. Verses 14 and 15 of John 3, the two verses right before 16 state: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.”
Verses 17 through to the end of 21 complete the message of the Gospel and of our Redemption lest we fall into some kind of easy gracism and forget the cost of our Salvation:
“For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light lest his deeds be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been done by God.”
Can the urgency of the message be stated more clearly than this?
“He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.”
In John 12: 44 – 48 Jesus states this unalterable reality this way:
“He who believes in Me, does not believe in Me but in Him who sent Me. And he who sees Me sees the One who sent Me. I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness. And if anyone hears My words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. He who rejects Me and does not receive My words, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him on the last day”.
The immutable judgment of all unrepentant sinners is that it is the very spoken and demonstrated WORD OF TRUTH as revealed through Jesus which will judge him at the last day. Truth has come and love has been given, but if we reject this truth and love then there can be no other way of redemption.
So I will end with what I said above: The message of the cross and the celebration of Resurrection Sunday are all about the rescuing of our lost souls from the horrors of eternal Hell. If we try to dumb-down the message to anything less we are left with nothing at all.
May your hearts be filled with love and peace as you celebrate your redemption this Resurrection Day.
Your fellow laborers in the harvest,
Steven and Theresa