Grace Notes

About eighty people from ten or fifteen families stayed three extra days at the camp to celebrate an early Thanksgiving together. It was a great time of fellowship.

In e-mail correspondence before coming to Mexico, we were told that they would be cooking the meat for Thanksgiving dinner in “a pit.”

Figuring it was some Mexican tradition, I imagined a 3 or 4 ft. hole in the ground and wondered how sanitary it would be. [smile] But, as you can see, my imagination was very wrong.

Most the pit had been dug with a backhoe. Nickie helped with that part. 🙂

Once the pit was prepared, bricks were used to create an oven at the bottom of the pit.

Gasoline was dumped into the “oven” at the bottom of the pit, and then everyone backed up 100 yards.

Fireworks were launched and bottle rocket on a zip line was sent into the pit to light a fire.

After a big explosion and more fireworks, we all walked back to the pit to see the big fire.

Since it would be difficult to put the pans of meat in there right now, we had to wait for the flames to die down and coals to get hot.

Great time for more fellowship.

Much care was put into preparing and seasoning all the different pots of meat.

Okay, it’s been several hours and now it’s 1 am. The coals should be hot and the pots ready to be taken out.

Of course it’s not easy to get the huge pots of meat down there.

After the pots were placed, the entire pit was filled with dirt again. It took a while.

And after the whole process, we came back inside, muddy and tired, and took a group picture. (Disclaimer: it wasn’t my idea to take a group picture at this point.)

About 12 hours later, right before our Thanksgiving meal, the excitement begins again … time to start digging.

As they removed more and more dirt, we began to enjoy the delicious smell….

The first pot is removed and it looks like it was cooked just right.

Pots are carried back to the camp dining area for our big meal.

Yep, that’s a whole pig in there! The other pans contained a duck, several turkeys, beef, and lamb.

The meat was so tender and had sooooo much flavor, maybe the best meat I’ve ever had.

Feast time

Yuri, Alma, and Elsa

Some of the smallest Mexico missionaries

Sarah mentioned how so many people take so many short cuts to avoid as much work as possible on Thanksgiving day. Not our friends in Mexico!!!

Wow, where do I begin? There are so many things to share about Mexico, but I thought I’d first share about the family camp that ran Friday night through Monday morning.

Rain had been predicted. Many of the families were staying in tents, so we were all praying for clear weather.

Thankfully, the weather was beautiful, and it only rained a little bit the first morning—just enough for us to see this beautiful rainbow! The Lord reminded us that He was in control.

In addition, the small amount of rain we did get actually caused one person to be able to come to the camp since he couldn’t do other responsibilities because of the rain!

The best part of Mexico was, of course, the people! We had such a good time with them.

This is how the dining area looked for much of the camp … bustling with lots of people enjoying fellowship.

My mom and a new friend.

The first night, after the main session and dinner (dinner is always from 8pm-9pm there) everyone was involved in a 2-hour prayer time from 10pm-12am. This picture is of the girls’ prayer groups. The moms, dads, and sons were in other rooms.

It seemed like I kept thinking each meal was my favorite until I had the next. [smile]

Priscilla Clark (whose family runs the camp) and my mom, talking to the ladies.

Throughout the camp, the sessions were divided in different ways. Sometimes fathers, mothers, sons and daughters were all taught separately, and sometimes everyone was together.

Monica, who did simultaneous translation for Sarah, praying with her in preparation for one of the sessions.

Alma, translating for Nickie during one of the girls sessions. Alma has been leading a Bright Lights group for two years and has translated some of the Bright Lights material. She also helped with translating Before You Meet Prince Charming . We are so grateful for her!

After my dad taught on purity and relationships, these three young men shared testimonies of how the Lord has recently led them in the area of courtship. Two are engaged and the other was recently married, and they all had neat stories and encouraging thoughts.

During most of the breaks, the guys would take down all 400 chairs so they could play volley ball, and then they’d set them up again for the next session. They are very fast! [smile]

It was fun how various families set up tables to serve snacks during breaks. Here they are making fruit cups. The one I tried was a combination of pineapple, mango, chili powder, and cheese (the kind of Mexican cheese that is white, salty and crumbly). It was really good!

Mexican sledding!

We are extremely grateful to the Clarks and their team for translating our materials into Spanish. (Click here to see the Spanish section of our online store.)

Nester did the graphic designing for the Spanish translation of our materials. We asked him to share a testimony about witnessing during our witnessing session. The Lord has really been working in his life in that area, and I think his testimony added a lot to the session.

Thank you to everyone who was praying for us. We saw the Lord bless in so many ways.

“Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His lovingkindness is everlasting. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He has redeemed from the hand of the adversary” (Psalm 107:1-2)

We had such a wonderful time in Mexico and I have so many reports and pictures to post that I decided it would be best to share reports in segments. [smile]

I’ll start at the beginning.

On our flight into Morelia, I heard my mom ask the Mexican man sitting next to her, “Could I practice some Spanish words on you?”

Good idea, Mom! I thought.

I turned to the lady next to me. “Could I practice a few Spanish words with you?” I asked her.

She readily agreed. Her English wasn’t great, but it was enough to get by. Then I remembered that I had a “Are You A Good Person” comic tract in both Spanish and English. I showed them to her, and she thought it would be a good tool to teach me Spanish. She took me through entire tract (it took about an hour!), comparing the Spanish to English and teaching me the key words.

It was interesting to me to see her response to the tract. At first she enjoyed it, but then when we got to the part about God’s wrath toward sin she told me that she disagreed. I tried to explain about God’s justice and love and gave her a God of Wonders DVD which I pray she will watch!

I realized later that this was a pretty accurate introduction for me to the mindset of most people in Mexico … they have a Catholic heritage and believe in God, but they don’t truly understand the gospel, God’s justice, or their need for salvation. I pray the Lord works in her heart, and I was so grateful for the way God provided to communicate with her despite her very small English vocabulary!

We had a wide variety of experiences in Mexico over the ten days we were there (which I will continue to post about), but one of the highlights of the whole time was a little trip to visit some of the local villages (called “Ranchos”) where the Clark family (the missionaries hosting us) has been leading Bible studies.

In the picture above we are standing outside of Alicia’s little home. About six or seven years ago Alicia began praying for someone to come and share the truth with her. JW’s would come to her little village almost every weekend, but sadly, Christians never came… until one day, praise the Lord, our friends the Clarks visited her village and shared the gospel with her. Alicia was saved and has been growing in the Lord through the Bible studies the Clark’s teach every other weekend in her village.

This is the little oven Alicia uses to make corn tortillias for her family every day.

Alicia told me, “I feel like I’m failing in so many areas, constantly convicted of ways I’m failing, but God shows His love in every area — and every one of these things leads me to look to the Lord more and rest in Him.”

To see Alicia’s joy in the Lord despite her very difficult life was very encouraging to us! Sarah had tears in her eyes as Alicia shared her testimony with us.

While talking with Alicia (through Mrs. Clark’s translation) I asked her what she would like people in the States to know. This is what she shared: “We’re not to become discouraged in this life because we have a great hope … I’ve learned that the most important things in this life are not the material things we have, but what is waiting for us in Jesus. We are for Him. In this life everything is very quick and in vain, but He has shown me that what He has promised me is way more precious than anything I could ever want in this life. And I’m so happy because, even though I don’t deserve anything, He has given me everything.”

Lucia, one of Alicia’s six sweet children, said that her favorite thing to do is read the Bible with her mom.

I know I’ll never forget meeting Alicia and the beautiful example she was of the Lord’s grace and power to transform lives.

“And the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus.” 1 Timothy 1:14