Miguel Juan Cosi and ministry team in our home in Cd. Valles on Boxing Day
For my American friends who are scratching their heads right about now and wondering what the title is all about – read on…
According to an article in Time World, although no one is actually sure of the actual origin of Boxing Day the best clue can be found in the song “Good King Wenceslas.” According to the Christmas carol, Wenceslas, who was Duke of Bohemia in the early 10th century, was surveying his land on St. Stephen’s Day (Dec. 26) when he saw a poor man gathering wood in the middle of a snowstorm. Moved, the king gathered up surplus food and wine and carried them through the blizzard to the peasant’s door. The alms-giving tradition has always been closely associated with the Christmas season – but King Wenceslas’ good deed came the day after Christmas, when the English poor received most of their charity.
The article goes on to state that although King Wenceslas didn’t start Boxing Day, the Church of England might have. During Advent, Anglican parishes displayed a box into which churchgoers put their monetary donations. On the day after Christmas, the boxes were broken open and their contents distributed among the poor, thus giving rise to the term Boxing Day. So there you have it – well, maybe (as if you really cared anyway).
I hope that you have all had a wonderful, family-filled, and joyous Christmas. Most of all though, I trust that you have
Christmas Eve Breakfast with Javier and Cristina and the boys in their home in Cd. Valles
had a Jesus-filled season where the reality of his incarnation has become true to you in a renewed way. Over the past couple of days Theresa and I have been enjoying the unbelievably beautiful words and music of Handel’s Messiah and my heart has been filled once again with the wonder of Immanuel – God with us – God become flesh. What a profound mystery!
What a travesty that Satan has surrounded the season where we should be in reverend awe at the incarnational birth of our Savior with Santa Clause, consumer madness, and overspending. He has completely distorted the season to the point where, even as Christians, if we don’t enter into the madness of the world around us we feel as if we are cheated somehow, and have lost out somehow on what we have a right to.
I sometimes wonder what Jesus thinks of the mockery that we have made of his birthday – the day that we have set aside to honor his entrance into this dreary world as a man – flesh and blood – in order to become our High Priest, as the writer to the Hebrews refers to him. I have doubts that he is often honored in what he sees.
But onto other things…
Javier and our host with rabbits. Perhaps an idea for the farm?
On June 22nd of last year I posted a blog which I titled “A Day in The Life…”. I suspect that this present posting could be titled “A Day in The Life Revisited”, or “Stretch Them Again Baby”, or some such thing.
Theresa and I returned to Cd. Valles on December 14th after a rather frustrating and extended stay at the border trying to bring the tractor into Mexico. I am sure that I don’t need to elaborate on this episode though, as I suspect that my last blog made my frustration and impatience rather obvious. We arrived back to Cd. Valles on Wednesday with the hopes, and full intentions, of taking things slowly and allowing Theresa to get “back in the groove” and readjusted to Mexico again at a nice, slow pace.
While our suitcases sat still unpacked on our bedroom floor on Friday morning I had a visit from Javier Santos, our good friend and manager of the farm Training Center. He asked me if we are ready to go with him and his family (actually, to take them) to a small mountain village close to Cuernavaca (south of Mexico City) – a 12 hour drive away – as I had promised before I went up to Houston to pick up Theresa several weeks earlier. At that time I had no idea that I would be gone so long, or that we would waste so much time at the border with the tractor, and it seemed like a slam-dunk situation without any complications. Actually, to tell you the truth, I had completely forgotten my promise to Javier. The purpose of the trip was so that Cristina, his wife, could spend some time with her family whom she had not seen for many years. Her father had passed away one year previously, and the family was getting together for a memorial service. Javier and Cristina had not been able to go to the funeral the year before.
Theresa and I discussed the situation, and we both had to honestly admit that the only good excuse that we could come
Now, that is a lot if tomatoes!
up with for not taking them down as promised was that we didn’t want to do so, and that baking cookies, and putting up the Christmas tree, and “kicking back” before Christmas was more important than relationships. We came to the conclusion that if we really were servants, as our Master before us had modeled, then we had better put a figurative towel around our waists and begin to wash some feet – even if we didn’t really feel like it, or if it didn’t feel comfortable to do so – that wasn’t the point anyway – obedience and servanthood was.
So we packed up the van, Theresa prepared some travel food, and we picked up Javier and his family at 5:00 o’clock a.m. on Saturday morning and headed south.
Now is when the “Stretch Them Again Baby” part kicks in. We left with the intention of returning on Monday, or at the latest Tuesday (you can probably see where this is going already). We had a pleasant weekend with the family – sleeping in a borrowed bed while the host slept on the couch. On Monday Javier arranged for us to meet with some other people a couple of hours further south who had a tomato-growing greenhouse. Our intentions were to see if this is something that could be incorporated on the Training Center land site. We had a very interesting, and extremely informative visit with them.
From there we looped north again and passed through the city of Cuernavaca in order to spend the night with an evangelist friend of ours. The driving in this city, which we hit at rush hour mayhem, was like bumper-car madness. Absolutely unbelievable!
On Tuesday we returned to the mountain village and to Cristina’s family members. There had been a meeting set up for us with some quite high-ranking political people by Lucero, Cristina’s sister. As it turns out, Lucero has some close friends in political circles and set up a meeting for us that might make a huge difference in bringing in the tractor, as well as for the future status of the non-profit itself. So, what was there to do but wait?
On Wednesday, December 21st, very cognizant of the fact that the clock was ticking down very quickly toward Christmas, we headed into the core of Mexico City to meet with Lucero’s friends.
If I ever thought that the traffic in Cuernavaca was “interesting” on Monday night, the traffic in the heart of Mexico City was “incredible”. Multiple lanes converged into nothing, horns blared, pedestrians walked at will, cars followed no known vehicular laws, and carnage reigned supreme. But we made it, and we were only hit once – a rather vigorous bump into our rear bumper. No apparent damage done, so all is well.
The meeting went well, and it looks like things will move forward with the tractor and with the non-profit. Thank you Lord.
On Thursday we needed to wait for a follow-up call from Victor, our new politician friend. This came through at about 1:00 o’clock p.m. By 2 o’clock we were on the road for Cd. Valles again. We simply needed to get back. Javier and Cristina, pastors of a number of small churches, needed to get back to their congregations because Christmas Eve activities were happening almost immediately upon our return.
We made good time to Mexico City where we were promised we would have no problem following the bypass – the periférico – through the city and simply zooming through to the other side. Hmmm…famous last words.
We did a valiant bumper-to-bumper wonder through the heart of Mexico City – never having found the “perfectly obvious” periférico. But we made it through more-or-less unscathed (except for some emotional and mental scars) and lived to tell the story.
We arrived back in Cd. Valles at about 3:30 in the morning on Friday and had an emergency meeting with the Board of Directors of OUpC after a very short 3 ½ hours of sleep.
Jicama harvest
After a somewhat less than relaxing Saturday – Christmas Eve – we enjoyed a Christmas Day spent Mexican-style. But it was all good – somewhat stretching sometimes, but all good.
Today, Boxing Day (now that you know what it is), we had an evangelist friend, along with his team of five young men from Chiapas, the southern most state of Mexico at or place for “lunch” (actually the 2:00 o’clock meal which didn’t start until after 3:00 o’clock because the young men didn’t show up for about an hour). Theresa outdid herself cooking up a wonderful Italian meal, much to the delight of the gang.
God is good, and he is on his throne. He is Immanuel – God with us. It is good to be stretched. Seldom fun, but always good in the end.
Tomorrow we have a Board of Directors meeting again. It looks good for the acquisition of the tractor and for the future of the non-profit. God may even have worked out a rather “cool” surprise through the whole incident of our meeting with, and subsequent friendship with Victor, our politician friend. But sometimes I tend to count the chickens before they fully hatch. This time I will make you wait – got you wondering!
I am off to bed. May you truly have a wonderful Christmas season, and a blessed new year. Thank you once again for your love and support. Without your prayers and financial support we could not continue the work here.
With all of our love and prayers,
Steven and Theresa
