Doctor Carl Heinlein standing on church roof (where VitW staff housing now stands). Circa 1998
This past weekend Theresa and I had the opportunity of going on a rather grueling, twenty hour each way trip with Ezequiel and several of the people from the local church. The objective was a men’s retreat in Villahermosa, Tabasco. The actual distance was a mere whisker under 650 miles to the south east of us, putting us about 1,000 miles into Mexico. The reality of the trip though, was a bone-rattling, vertebrate-crushing excursion over at least one million “topes” (speed bumps), and more suspension-destroying potholes than can be numbered. The totals most certainly demanding one to move into exponential figures.
There is much that could be written about our time in Tabasco as it is a state of beautiful coastlines, Mayan ruins and verdant tropical vegetation. For me it was a return to friends from previous visits, all relatives on Veronica’s side of the family. However, there were several things which left an impression on me which I choose, rather, to relate. I do so none-the-less with hesitation, fearing that I will sound as if I am trying to exalt myself in the process. On the contrary, I am very keenly aware that all of the glory belongs to God, and anything accomplished, any visions, any dreams, and any forward movement comes from him alone.
First of all, I was impressed throughout the long drive home how God has given us the privilege of being in critical, and perhaps pivotal locations in his plan over the past months. I believe that the men’s retreat that was being attended by Ezequiel and the others was much larger in God’s radar than I understood when we left. It was a part of weekly inner-healing retreats which are being organized by a local church in Villahermosa. This church is the epicenter of a powerful revival movement which is shaking southern Mexico, changing the lives of men and women and transforming them into Jesus’ image.
Although I did not attend the retreat myself I did get an excited rundown of the weekend. There were about 160 men in attendance. Only a handful of these men were Christians, the vast majority of them were there only because their wives, uncles, girlfriends, or someone else had either paid them, threatened them, or coerced them into attending. Many of them came with the accouterments of their sinful lives clinging to them. Some arrived so drunk that they could not stay awake the first sessions. Many were profane, violent, haters, and vocal. There were two hundred men around the outside of the camp who were in prayer non-stop for the full weekend. There were another one hundred plus men who were in minute-by-minute attendance inside the retreat center. There are two months of prayer before each weekend retreat, specifically for it, and 24 hour a day, 365 days of the year, non-stop prayer going on at the church for the last several years for revival.
The reports were astonishing. During the first evening session many of the men were booing, heckling, and profane. Fights broke out across the campus. As the sessions continued, as teaching was given, and as the Holy Spirit began washing lives clean of the strongholds of the Enemy, lives were being transformed. The same violent and vile men were weeping and confessing the stranglehold of the Enemy in their lives, publicly renouncing wife abuse, child molestation, bestiality, homosexuality, and every other perversion under the sun. Instead of the blasphemous men that entered the doors, there was a sweet spirit of repentance, forgiveness and worship which permeated their lives. According to the reports of Ezequiel and the others who went, the change was 100% across the board, and every man’s life, down to the last, was changed.
The amazing thing to me though was to hear of what then happened when they arrived back at the drop-off spot at the church on Sunday night. There family members waited for their men to return. All longed for change. Many felt that their men were beyond all hope of changing. As the transformed new believers began to step off of the buses they spontaneously began to ask their wives for forgiveness. Many of them publicly begged their children to forgive them for the abuses of the past. Many of the couples were not married and were living in a common-law relationship only. These publicly begged their women to forgive them, and to marry them. The men were so radically transformed, and the Holy Spirit moved so strongly there at the pick-up spot that three hundred family members gave their hearts to the Lord that evening.
The purpose of the whole trip to Tabasco I learned, was to bring the techniques learned there back to the Huasteca.
Something curious is happening for Theresa and me. I don’t have answers, but I do have questions, and I have my eyes open. Why is it that God is leading us into relationships with men and women such as Allen and Aase Owens who run OSY camps south of Mexico City, or men such as Pepe and Israel Quiros who have a passion for youth of the streets – the very “castaways” of the world? Why has he specifically brought us into relationship with Hector Sr. and his son Hector, both from Puebla, who jointly founded ECO and who have a passion for training others how to evangelize through an age-old, but often neglected method – story telling, or orality?
All of the places where God seems to be leading us over the past months seem to be “outside-the-box” in thinking. On one hand he seems to be blocking the “normal” doors for us, and we seem to be pushing against deadbolts. On the other, he appears to be leading each of us, Theresa, Ezequiel, Veronica, and I, into new places. Is it possible that He is desiring us to think in other directions than the “normal” Bible Institute and Vocational School which we all believed to be His will? I don’t have the answer, but we are all praying, and will continue to do so.
Then, somewhere around hour sixteen of the nineteen hours that I drove home, Ezequiel began telling a story. It began with bitter-sweet humor in the retelling of how he was given a car by an Hispanic American. This was his first car, and ended up being a curse rather than a blessing to him. The account of how they finally got it to Cd. Valles and its rather ignoble demise was funny in the retelling, but he stated that it was one of the strongest testing that he ever went through. In the end he was broken and beat-up, wondering where God’s love and provision were.
Somewhere during this painful time he was rejected and blocked by leaders in the denominational church. However he was invited by an old pastor, a friend, to join him in ministering in another part of Mexico for several days. While there Ezequiel was introduced to two American men who faithfully helped the elderly Mexican pastor. While there Ezequiel prayed that God would allow him to also have missionary helpers who could assist him in the ministry in the Huasteca. The battle had been long and wearisome and he was tired.
Ezequiel then related how he had returned back to Cd. Valles, and somewhere around this time Dr. Carl Heinlein passed through with Mitch and Kathleen Medina on their way back to Texas from Campeche, in southern Mexico. Dr. Heinlein and I had arranged a rather large medical outreach there in 1996, and although most of us flew down, Doc and Mitch and Kathleen had driven down, taking with them many of the medicines and medical supplies for the several-day outreach. While returning north after the Campeche outreach, they stopped in Cd. Valles where Mitch and Kathleen had previously lived and ministered, and spent several days. Although most of their time was spent with another church, Doc was introduced to a little church on the “wrong side of the tracks” by the name of Esfuerzo Magdiel. They did a day or two of clinics with the pastors Ezequiel and Veronica, and then headed north. All of this time Ezequiel was asking God if this was an answer to his prayer for missionary helpers, but the answer seemed to be “no”.
Ezequiel then stated that a year or more later he and Veronica and the children were given an invitation, and their way paid to a vacation in Merida and the Cancun area of Mexico. While there, it was arranged for Ezequiel to preach for three nights in a church on the island of Cozumel. The island is beautiful, and the relatively wealthy church was actively praying for, and seeking a pastor. On the third night Ezequiel was asked outright to please consider coming as their pastor right away. He felt that God’s answer was that they were to return to Cd. Valles and fast and pray for God’s clear hand and leading for the next month. By the end of the month he would have a definitive answer for the church. Also, he needed to make arrangements back in Cd. Valles for another pastor to take over the work there. Besides this, they also needed to sell some of their things and make preparations to move. The plan seemed good, and the church happily sent them home, everyone confident that they would return the following month to pastor the work in Cozumel.
Meanwhile back in Houston, Texas, Doctor Carl Heinlein had only recently been operated on for what was assumed to be a mercy surgery to make his last struggle with pancreatic cancer less excruciating, and his death less painful. God had big surprises up his sleeve however, and to everyone’s surprise, most certainly the surgeon’s, Doc’s cancer proved not to be the fast-growing malignancy that it was first diagnosed to be, but rather a very rare, and slow growing tumor.
At about the time that Ezequiel and Veronica were fasting and praying for helpers to assist them in the work in Cd. Valles, Doctor Heinlein and I were looking at a map spread across his hospital bed – once thought to be a death gurney, now his recovery bed. In retrospect, God’s leading (at least in my life) has been very interesting. At this point our planning had taken a sharp turn. Only months before Doc and I had made plans that I would resign my work in one of the hospitals in Houston, and he would train me in “jungle medicine” in Guatemala where he had spent many years in mission work. Only shortly after these exciting plans were made, his son Carl Jr. called me and said that his dad was dying in a hotel room in southern Louisiana, and if I could help, he would fly to Houston and together we would drive out to get him and bring him back. This began the swift downward cycle in Doc’s health which culminated with the certain kiss of death that is imminent with late pancreatic cancer. As I have already stated, Doc then received palliative surgery so that his death would be less painful.
But God had surprised us all. Now we were planning where Doc would train me on the field. Guatemala was out of the question because he would continue to need to be able to have follow-up care at the hospital in Houston over the next years. However, Mexico seemed to be the obvious choice. But where? We literally had an atlas spread out on the bed. We looked at one possibility and then at another. One had a nice looking lake, and another had coastline or mountains to draw our attention. To me any place would work, I had no reason to pick one over another since I did not know the gulf side of Mexico at all. Finally Doc said “There is a place though that I think that we should consider. I was there last year on my return trip from Campeche and did clinics with the pastors of a little church there. I was very impressed with them, and I believe that they would be good people for us to work with”.
Shortly thereafter, in fact eight days into the time of fasting and prayer for direction by Ezequiel and Veronica, Doc Heinlein and I stood outside their door in Cd. Valles knocking. We asked them if we could join their work in the region by holding medical clinics.
I asked Ezequiel what went through his mind twelve years ago when the two crazy gringos were standing outside his door. His answer was a little laugh, and the statement “I knew that this was God’s answer to our prayer for his direction”. I suppose, as the saying goes – “the rest is history”.
In no way am I relating this story to you to try to impress you with how great I am that God should place me here in that way. Rather, I am awestruck once again at his mercy and his unmerited favor in my life. I feel like the children of Israel when God told them to set up markers and monuments at strategic places where great victories were won in battle, or where God had marvelously moved in some way. The reason was this – so that in the future when their children would ask, “What do these stones mean?” they could clearly give an explanation of God’s mighty acts. My only desire is to point to God’s mighty acts so that you also will be able to praise him for his faithfulness over the years.
I believe that we will be able to look back in another twelve years and see even more clearly where his hand is leading us. Things that seem cloudy now will be made plain as he continues to open and close doors.
God surely is the same yesterday, today, and forever!
By the way, for those of you who may be wondering where Doctor Heinlein is now – he is currently residing with his son and daughter-in-law and their family in El Paso, Texas. Due to his health he is no longer able to be actively on the field, but his heart is still very definitely in the work.
