“For your sake, O Lord, look with favor on your desolate sanctuary. Give ear, O God, and hear; open your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears your Name. We don’t make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, listen! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hear and act!” Daniel 9:17-19
Even after 70 years of exile from Jerusalem, Daniel cried out for the restoration of God’s sanctuary and city. A desolate sanctuary- a desolate city- bleak, unhappy places.
Guadalajara is a city of numerous sanctuaries and the fall months her shrines are adorned for two major events.
On October 12th over 2 million of Guadalajara’s inhabitants follow their Virgen of Zapopan, affectionately known as the “Generala” (General), or the “Reina Santa” (Holy Queen) in a processional to her home, the ornate Basilica de Zapopan. As they walk, her faithful followers sing, “we worship and glorify you, Mary, our holy Mother of God.” This year the Archbishop prayed, “Mary our Queen, we thank you for loving and protecting us and for carrying our sins to God.” He assured the multitude that their 7 km. pilgrimage with their Virgin represented a dying to self - a journey toward eternal life.
December 12th the ceremony is repeated with Mexico’s Virgin of Guadalupe. This is the dark- skinned icon of “La Patron de Mexico” (the Boss of Mexico). Her native Nahuatl name means, “the one who stamps upon the serpent” and her image is worshipped as the goddess of Mexico. Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes once said, “One may no longer consider himself a Christian, but you cannot truly be considered a Mexican unless you believe in the Virgin of Guadalupe.”
Sandwiched between these two veneration days is November 2nd, Day of the Dead. People sit all night among the candlelit graves with offerings of bread, flowers, fruit or candy, hoping for a visitation from the spirits of their loved ones. Shoppers line up to buy pan de muerto (death bread), children are treated to chocolate or candy skulls and skeletons and homes are decorated with altars in honor of the dead. I saw a 3-tiered altar in a stationary store with a picture of Mother Teresa on the top tier, Elvis on the middle tier and on the bottom tier, Mexico’s former president, Vicente Fox. God’s words in Isaiah 65 seem to describe the people we live among. “all day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations - a people who continually provoke me to my very face offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on altars of brick, who sit among the graves and spend their nights keeping secret vigils…”
God has called us to this desolate city to begin a Mission Training Center (called the Matthew Training Center). We ask you to cry out with us: O Lord, listen! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hear and act! For your sake, O my God, do not delay, because your city and your people bear your Name.”
If God had asked us where we would have chosen to set up a Matthew Training Center, we may have suggested a city that was experiencing spiritual revival - where His Body was strong and mature - where government officials welcomed Christians and freely issued them visas - where people were begging to join in the blessing of giving, praying and training people to go out to the nations. It’s a very good thing that God doesn’t fulfill our utopic dreams! Instead, He invites us to Look! and Wonder! as He does something in our day we would never believe, even if someone told us! (Acts 13:41 paraphrase)
Yes Lord, because of your great mercy, do not delay!
In the next couple of days we will be sending you information about how you can get involved in the Matthew Training Center in Mexico.
Trever, Joan & Kenia Godard
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