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Thiessen Newsletter April 2008 |
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Dear friends,
Here it's been two months since the last letter; sorry. The crazy thing is, a lot has been happening. Should have written two by now.
Harold and I made the trip to Guerrero to meet with church leaders there. About thirty five people showed up, from five churches, a good start. Then a month later I returned for the Easter celebrations, on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. We didn't get the invitations all coordinated, so some showed up the first day, others the second. One group showed up just as we were leaving to return to Oaxaca!
Three guys from one of the Ontario Mennonite churches came down again for the party, two of them for the third time. This speaks volumes to the Mixtecs, since first time visitors don't know any better, but after that, you come to "this terrible place" (as they see it) because you really want to. One of them, Rob, commented that it is hard to explain back home what these trips are about, since they aren't building anything, or running a crusade, or looking after orphans. He knows that the relationships being built are eternal and uplifting for the local marginalized believers, showing them respect they get nowhere else, and that he is being matured, but that is hard to communicate to someone who hasn't been there yet.
Once we got back to Oaxaca, the group did get the chance to work, and hard. The children's school, OCS, planned a work week of roofing a large concrete structure, and walling in four classrooms. I turned the work project over to Greg (an experienced construction manager) who with his team of about ten others did a marvelous job, and quicker than we had expected. The team had another three volunteers come through Wycliffe Associates, a big help too. Part of why I had to turn it over to him was that my sister, Kathleen, and her family, came down for a week to visit us. At one point we had seven extra bodies in our small house. Since most of the time it's just us, these are welcome intrusions.
With mixed feelings we saw Phil off, the young man from North Carolina that has been our apprentice for the past three years. We are proud of him. He has worked hard, shared Christ with many friends in Yolo, discipled people and seen them baptized, helped the church grow, supported the Mexican missionary family on his team, among other things, by making the adobe bricks for their new house, read a lot of books, written a lot of papers, and explained his ideas in a lot of discussions. We feel he is a worthy graduate of our apprenticeship program and ready to take on church planting in a new culture. We will miss him! But he has left here to join two Miskitos on a church planting team forming in Nicaragua. Phil hopes to put all his discipling skills to work as the "senior" mentor on this team! We look forward to his new venture.
Right now I'm planning my three week trip to India. I leave Saturday night, get in to Delhi Monday evening. I'll be traveling over there with two leaders of the church planting group I coach in Tlaxiaco (two hours from here). These guys want to explore what it will mean to reach out into the Hindu (and maybe Sikh) world in a discipling church planting effort, combined with missions training opportunities. They invited me to go along and help puzzle, plan and project. I also was elected trip planner, using contacts of Anne's father and some folks in our own mission agency. One set of RuthE's godparents have been over in Delhi for a dozen years now, doing much the same stuff we try to do here. It has been that long since we've seen them, so it will be wonderful to catch up with them and compare experiences.
Pray for Anne, as she holds down the fort for twenty four days. Pray for the new family that moved in upstairs, who have children the same age and sex as ours (Aime, Lluvia, Jacaline, Christian). Pray for the coffee shop family down the main road (Guillermo, Violeta, Guillermo, Violeta, Alexandra, Joquina). And our landlords (Tomas, Sofia). Pray for me and Grant and Chris as we travel, meet people, and explore the wonders of a different part of God's diverse world.
Blessings, Robert.
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