Huichol Villages and AWANA - Day 4

The team - along with the Hunttings. Clif was flying, but Kari, Sean, Haley and Kylie came to the village with us.

Hola!

Yesterday morning we went to the Huichol village.  Debbie Mellberg (our host, who has been in country for nearly 40 years) shared their history with us.  This particular village is mostly Christians who had been relocated by the government several years ago.  Many of them came under persecution by family when they accepted Christ.  They are painfully poor, but spiritually rich, and you could see it.  The women do not speak Spanish, only Huichol, but most of the men do speak Spanish.  When Debbie was explaining the Gospel bracelets to them, and had them recite John 3:16, nearly all of the older children and most of the adults recited it.   

Debbie Mellberg, Chris and

The village is up the mountain, about 45 minutes from Dave and Olivia's - think about as far as Mt. Lemmon.  But to get there, we had to stop about five city blocks or so further down the mountain and go the rest of the way by foot, on an unpaved red clay road.  It had rained, and started raining while we were up there, so you can imagine the fun we had slipping and sliding our way down the hill back to the vans when we finished!  

Walking down the mountain after the rain.

They loved the games!

Debbie explained the Gospel bracelet and had the children raise their hands once they had their bracelets on.

Awana flag ceremony

Group time

When we got back home, we had lunch of leftover tamales, and rested a bit, then it was time for AWANA.  Their AWANA program gets 48 children consistently each week.  You could have picked it up and taken it to just about any other AWANA program - the same pledges to the flag (Mexican, of course), the same games, the same group time, the same council time!  It was wonderful seeing all those children huddled in groups with their leaders (they have 30! leaders, most of whom grew up in their 20 year old AWANA program!) working on their verses.  

When AWANA was over, we went back to Dave and Olivia's for dinner, and a rousing game of King and Pauper :)  

Today is church, lunch out and then to the park and cemetery to experience some more of the Tepic culture.  

Some prayer requests, in addition to those mentioned above for Jasson and Clif - Tom P, Brenda and Tom K, and Chris have all been hit with Montezuma's Revenge.  Please pray that it passes quickly and doesn't linger around, and for protection for the rest of us.  

Short update after church.  It was wonderful to fellowship with other believers even when we don't have a common language.  I knew all but one of the songs.  The pastor preached from Colossians 4:7-18, and while I couldn't understand what he said, with the slides (in Easy Worship, which I immediately recognized from my job!) I was able to follow along and get the basic message.  Erik gave a short testimony and sent greetings from El Camio, thanking the congregation for their gracious welcome.  We came back to the house to find Tom K up, and sort of functional.  Chris and Brenda both are up, but they still don't feel very well, so prayers are most definitely appreciated! 

Missionary Kids and other things - Day 3 in Tepic

At the  mall. 

Friday was a great day. It rained most of the day, and the mountains were socked in with fog for most of the day.  That meant that Clif and Jasson could not fly, and our plans changed as well.

A great bunch of kids! So much fun!

When we got up, Debbie had baked banana bread and made coffee, which we enjoyed before we headed to breakfast at Dave and Olivia's.  After breakfast, I spent some time  updating the blog while Chris and Brenda made cupcakes.  The guys, in the meantime, were busy trying to figure out why we could smell gas.  While we were gone, Dave had left the house closed up, and when we returned the odor was even stronger than before. It wasn't until the end of the day, when they pulled the tank out, that they discovered there was a good sized crack in the very bottom on the back.  Thank the Lord that Tom P discovered where the leak was and it could be dealt. And we mostly thank the Lord that it was discovered before something horrible happened.

Kylie and me

We met the Hunttings at Pizza Hut for lunch, where they turned over the kiddos to us.  Each of us was assigned one child, my assignment was 8 year old Kylie Huntting.  We decided that we were going to have an alphabet scavenger hunt, taking pictures of the things we found in order.  Kylie had a ball running around with my phone snapping pictures here and there.  There was a sort of science, environmental type display set up with pictures of several animals that Kylie took pictures of. We stopped at Starbucks (where the clerk spoke perfect English), and went to the toy store (again, a clerk with perfect English, who, it turns out, grew up in Mesa!) where I bought Kylie a small digi-bird.  I think she had a good time :)

When we gathered back in the food court, we heard everyone's stories about their adventures in picture taking.  Erik and Sean were told not to take pictures, as were Tom K and Noah.. But the rest of us had no problems.  I think it was just one of the guards who wanted to be difficult.  The pet store had a large parrot or macaw who kept people entertained.  While Chris and Haley were there, the parrot decided that he wanted some of Haley's Starbucks, and proceeded to help himself to her straw! 

Back at Hunttings for dinner. The guys were watching the World Series in the man-cave.  :)

Dinner was back at the Hunttings house - marinated grilled steak, wonderful guacamole and salsa, beans, and tres-leche cake that was to die for.  Clif made some coffee that was incredible.  We then heard their testimony and prayer requests and spent time praying for this precious family. The major prayer requests besides favorable weather for flying were for their children. They have the older kids - Sean (15), Haley (12) and Kylie (8).  They asked specifically for prayer for homeschooling, but also for good, Godly friends for the kids.

Today we are going out to the village, and then helping with Awana this afternoon.

More to come….. 

Thursday's Adventure

Editorial note  -- some of these pictures should go with the post from earlier this morning.  We don't necessarily have the best computer connections here, so I am doing what I can! 

After a wonderful lunch of chicken tostadas and fresh fruit, we took off for some adventures.  When the harvest in the mountains is not good, Dave and the other missionaries purchase rice and beans, so Dave took us to the market area.  We drove past piles of cocoanuts, pineapples, tomatoes by the kilo, cucumbers by the kilo, cases of cilantro.  After stopping off for dessert (ice cream!) we headed to another part of the town so Dave could get some tools that they need.  While he and the guys were looking for the tools, the ladies went into a bead shop. Oh my. The incredible artwork these ladies do with tiny seed beads!  It's a shop we are going to return to when we have more pesos! 

Erik and Dave finally found the wheel barrow, but, as you can see by the picture, it's a "Mexican wheel barrow" - no wheel!  Actually, the wheel is in the box inside the body that Tom and Erik are carrying.

David buying rice and beans for the Huichol villages

Raising the windsock

From there we went to the home of Dave and Olivia's co-laborers - Jasson and Kim Farmer.  There we enjoyed a wonderful dinner of pozole (a soup with chicken and hominy - need to find the recipe for it!) and whole grain corn tostadas. They have four children - Kaleb, Noah, Micah, Katie Sue, and one sweet little pooch - Nacho.  They home school their children, and discovered that Kaleb has pretty significant dyslexia.  They asked specifically for prayer for that; it is a challenge to figure out just the right way to teach him and encourage him.  I know that from personal experience, but I also know that the Lord can and will be with them and encourage them every step of the way. 

Jasson talked about their journey and one thing that really impressed  me what when he said that they were really struggling with where the Lord wanted them.  After talking to their home church  elder board, they took several different turns, but found the church was totally behind them. They just reminded us of the importance of home churches.

Carrie and Cliff Huntting were there also, along with their children.  We found out that they are both MKs from Indonesia, and it is likely that their parents know or at least know of Arny Humble.  We will hear more of their story tonight.

The team - Hunttings on the left, Farmers on the right.

Jasson and Cliff shared a major ministry request.  In addition to safety while flying, they see a very real need of a helicopter.  Recently, they had a request to fly into a village to pick up a sick child, but could not get there, and sadly the child died.  Helicopters can land where there is no runway space for a plane, and in weather that a plane cannot fly in.  Cliff also mentioned flying another missionary, who looked down at villages they were flying over.  Those villages are unreachable by plane, and while they can be reached by land, it takes a very long time, time that could be more effectively used in sharing the Gospel.  Their project and major ministry request is for funding for a helicopter so they can meet these medical needs and further spread the Gospel to those who would otherwise be unable to hear it.

Tepic Adventures

Well, we made ​​it.   The flight was uneventful after we finally got in the air. The delay was really only about 10 minutes, while we waited for all the other jets to clear the runway.  Customs and Immigration were a breeze they were both empty and we whipped right through.    Dave and Olivia were waiting at the exit to pick us up .

Dave has an old van that used to belong to Mark Brians. Those from El Camino would know that name. It seats eight, but it was very tight, even though no one really noticed or complained.   The guys had fun trying to get all our luggage in; Dave had a roof top cover where we put some of the suitcases.   Watching three engineers and  a pilot strap it down ... :)

 We had dinner at a wonderful seafood restaurant! The huge portions of shrimp were delicious, and the pico de gallo was to die for; I need to make mine more like that from now on - less tomatoes, more onion, more cilantro, more lime.  They had an appetizer of a seafood soup with a meatball that was very good, as well.

Then we were finally on the road.   It took about four hours to get to Tepic, driving along the coast for the first hour or so, with glimpses of the ocean off and on.   We turned north into the mountains, and were greeted with beautiful views of the hills and valleys. It was a cloudy day, and I was in the back, so I did not get too many pictures of the drive. We passed through numerous villages that really do not look much different that Nogales. Stopped for gas and a potty break at an Oxxo station - think Stop and Go or 7/11 type store   Prices are surprisingly low; a 20 oz coke rough that would cost $ 1.75  in Arizona is $ .75 here.

The road, which is the only road between Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta, is a two lane, winding, well paved road.  They were working on part of it, so we did have one construction delay; other than that the drive was uneventful.   When we were within five miles of Tepic, we encountered an accident that stopped us for roughly 40 minutes. 

We arrived at Olivia's co-worker, Debby Mellberg's house.   It. Is. Beautiful.   Think colonial Mexican hacienda.   The yard is beautiful. As I sit out here on the porch writing this, there are birds chirping,  hummingbirds feeding, a light breeze blowing.   So very restful! 

Debby shared her story - we have something in common - she graduated from Southwestern, Matt's alma mater!  I really think that she needs to write down her story for others to read; certainly God's hand orchestrated things for them to begin their ministry to the Huichol people. 

Today's plans -. The men went with Dave to a village (flying!) to fix a runway and install a windsock.   We ladies are going to go to Olivia's for breakfast, go through the things we brought for Awana and begin assembling the goodie bags, and meet my friend from CHF, Mary Jo Hansen, for coffee.

Afternoon update:


The ladies spent the morning packing 80 goodie bags.  The things for the goodie bags were provided by Jan Coleman, Teri Wood, Dana Adams, and Jill Field.  We also put wordless book bracelets with explanatory tracts in Spanish, that were provided by El Camino Missions Fellowship.


The guys in the meantime flew out to a village where they dug holes, painted rocks, did runway maintenance, and installed a windsock.


We all met back at Dave and Olivia's for a wonderful lunch of chicken toastadas, fresh papaya, watermelon, and tomatoes.  The guys loved the "valentine" sauce, that apparently is available at Fry's, so I have a suspicion that we will be getting some of that.

More to come.......

Hurricane Patricia

Morning update:  I wasn't planning on writing today, but circumstances dictated otherwise.  
Yesterday, the west coast of Mexico was hit by Hurricane Patricia.
It was the largest hurricane that has ever formed in the Pacific.  
It was heading straight towards Puerto Vallarta and Tepic.  

It looks like it avoided both of them, however, and they received minimal damage.  
It sounds like our job now will be one of relief.  I just read an update that the Wolfs are safe,
but I don't have a clear picture of any damage they may have received.
From what I've read, it doesn't sound like they got more than rain.
I do not know what the conditions are around Puerto Vallarta yet,
as far as the resort we were going to stay at. If we end up staying in Tepic, then that's what will happen.
I hope to have a clearer picture this afternoon.  Please continue to pray.

Mission Trip Preparations!

We are getting ready to head to Tepic, Nayarit, Mexico for a short term mission trip.  I've kind of been elected to chronicle our journey.  Luckily, I've been taking notes for a while, since I journal daily anyhow.  The following will be the rough notes I've taken, compiled into one post. 

Pre Trip Notes

Sunday, September 13, 2015

1:36 PM

Olivia and Dave Wolf 

We are beginning the preparation for our trip to Tepic, Mexico.  Our team consists of Tom and Brenda Kabel, Erik and Chris Bendgs, Tom (my husband, for any readers who may not know) and me.  The focus of the trip is to work with Dave and Olivia Wolf, missionaries with UIM (https://www.facebook.com/UIMAviation?pnref=story) who were the first missionaries sent out by El Camino when it was established as a church. Our focus is to encourage them in their ministry and develop relationship with them, their co-workers and Huichol villagers.  The nature of the work will not be completely defined until we actually get down there, but we know that we will possibly be working on runway clearing, working with children in the village, observing and taking part in AWANA.  Beyond that, it will be whatever the Lord leads us into doing. As Dave and Olivia are approaching retirement, it is a great opportunity for us to establish a relationship with the remainder of their team so we can prayerfully consider how we can continue our support of the work that they have started. 

As part of our preparation, we will be working through "Short Term Missions Workbook."  Hopefully, we will be able to meet at least a couple of times to work through and discuss some chapters.  Erik came home yesterday from North Carolina, and Chris will be home on Tuesday, so Tom is going to contact them to determine availability.  We also need to have a picture taken so we can print up and distribute a prayer card (we are behind on this, so it is imperative that it is done ASAP!)

Tepic, Nayarit, Mexico

One of the recommendations that the book recommends is a Trip Journal. I'm a journaler anyhow, so this is not a big deal for me, I likely would have done it anyhow. But now it has focus.

Team Meeting 

Monday, October 12, 2015

13:03

We agreed to ask Cindy Russell about polo shirts with the church logo, in royal blue.

I will also look for tshirts that I can put a vinyl logo on.

Joseph Aziz has offered his house for us to park our vehicles on the day we leave, and he will take us to the airport.  Tom and I will just drive from here, since we are closer to the airport.  

What time do we need to check in?  Our flight to Phoenix is at 7:00 a.m., so we will head to the airport at 5 or so.  Going to be a long day!  Tom needs passport numbers for the American web site to speed up check in, or they may do it.

Cash - each person should bring approximately $300 to pay to Olivia when we get down there for food, lodging and gas.  There are ATMs available, American voltage and American style plugs.  WIFI is available, Tom will give his work cell phone for emergencies.

Someone (likely me) needs to keep a journal or update a web page with pictures and information about what we are doing, and prepare for a post-trip debrief, both in the services (likely November 15) and with the larger GO Team.

Olivia's message to me:

There are 50 kids in the village we will be going to and another 50 in the Awana program. Olivia wants to give them gift bags and has the following suggestions:

¥ small treat/gift bags, fall décor, no Halloween pictures

¥ Pencils (2-3 each bag)

¥ colored pencils (2 -3 each bag)

¥ markers (2-3 each bag)

¥ stickers 

¥ Gummy bears, fruit snacks (individually bagged)

¥ Candy Corn

¥ M&Ms

¥ Caramels

¥ muffin liners – fall colors (for Awana, so only need 50 or so)

¥ big bag of chocolate chips

Olivia has been saving gallon ice cream containers, egg cartons and tp rolls and suggested we come up with crafts/games that could utilize them.  

Olivia also suggested that we get matching shirts.  They can be simple T-shirts that are the same color, or if everyone wants to, we could get a logo put on them.  I’ll work on a plan tomorrow and let you all know what I come up with on Saturday.  

We discussed our Spiritual Gifts and Talents  

Brenda - Exhortation, evangelism, gifts of mercy, helps

Tom K - Evangelism and teaching - willing to do a devotional for the Awana kids - carpentry work physical labor

Tom P - administration, prophecy, exhortation, helps

Erik -  Service, carpentry and physical labor

Chris - Mercy and Evangelism, physically able to do most anything

Teri - service, administration

Gifts? What is expected?  Also - if we find what the pastor's needs are, can we bring extra funds down to help?

Financial update from Toni

Friday, October 16, 2015

1:27 PM

Toni told me yesterday that each member of the team got a donation of $500. That's  $3000! I don't know who made the donation, she didn't tell me and I didn't ask, although I may ask her for a list of the donors (with no amounts) so I can invite them to the meeting on November 22.  Such a huge answer to prayer. In our case, that just about covers the entire trip.  I'm hoping we have some money left over so we can provide a gift to Olivia and Dave, along with their team members.

Cindy Russell called me yesterday as well, the shirts are in and coming along.  She will invoice the church, then each of us will need to give Toni a check for our part.  I have t-shirts that I bought yesterday that I'm getting ready to apply the church's cross logo to. I still need to get a shirt for Tom, as Michaels didn't have 2XL shirts.  Hopefully, I can find one in the next day or so. 

23 October 2015 Update

Friday, October 23, 2015

4:47 AM

I haven't written in a while, work has been very busy, but I'm putting this up as a slight update. Things are coming together for the trip.  Jan Coleman, Teri Wood, Dana Adams and Jill Field have all indicated they have things for us to bring down, and I suspect we will get more on Sunday.  Pastor Ron dropped off some Crystal Light containers for us to bring and use in some way as well.  I'll need to look at that today.  Brenda, Chris and I are going to divvy up all the things we are bringing down, so the packing will be a bit easier.  We also have a box of Gideon Spanish New Testaments that we need to divide among ourselves.  

I talked to Olivia a little yesterday.  She said that the villagers are extremely simple and would not understand instructions for a complicated game, but to keep them very easy. We can still use some of the other ideas we have with the team children, and possibly in AWANA. The key phrase of the entire trip will be:  go with the flow! We can't go down with any expectations, that way we won't be disappointed!  Fortunately, everyone is on the same page as far as that goes! 

There is one MAJOR concern about the trip that has come up in the last few days - Hurricane Patricia! She's bearing down on Puerto Vallarta as a Category 5 storm.

http://www.weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/hurricane-patricia-mexico-coast.  We will keep a close eye on it and the airlines to see if there are any delays that we need to be concerned with. 

Our team commissioning prayer is on Sunday during both services.  We plan on wearing our new El Camino polo shirts. I need to make arrangements for someone to take a picture of it in at least one of the services. 

Prayer requests:

• That Patricia will disappear
• That we will have a safe trip down and to Tepic
• That we will have zero issues with our luggage
• That we may effectively minister to Dave and Olivia, their team and the villagers
• That God will strengthen us in all ways: spiritually, mentally, physically. We will be there over Halloween, which is a spiritually dark time in a land that still practices forms of Spiritism.

I have a personal request as well. About three weeks ago, I received a phone call that my father who is 85, was in the hospital.  He is home now, resting, but will be undergoing open heart surgery on November 16.  Please pray for this surgery, and for me that I will not let the concern I have for him distract me from what I need to do.  We are planning on driving back to Louisville, KY the week after we return from Tepic to be with him.  

We leave on Wednesday, October 28. My plan is to journal daily, along with pictures so our prayer warriors will know how to pray for us!  Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your prayers so far. 

Praising God for all things,

Teri

Doors

Doors.  Have you ever thought about doors?  We deal with so many doors every day of our lives.  There's the bathroom door, first thing in the morning. We keep it closed out of a sense of privacy; same as our bedroom doors.  When that door is open, it's an invitation to our children to enter and fellowship with us; when it is closed, It's a signal that we don't want to be disturbed.   We leave our houses through a door, making sure that it is securely locked behind us.  We get into our cars, closing and locking the car door, giving us some measure of safety against the elements as well as keeping us safer in the event of an accident.   

Arrive at work and encounter another set of doors, the door to our building, then our office.  Both of them are usually kept locked, unfortunately to guard against those who would harm us.  Once in our offices, our doors are either kept open (as mine is all day) or closed (as my boss's often is - when he needs privacy or to concentrate on the task at hand).  I can knock, and receive permission to enter, but there is still a door.  

  

There are other doors. We often talk of a door of opportunity and knocking on symbolic doors to see if there is something behind the door that we should do.  The door can crack open, showing us a glimpse of a new adventure, only to slam shut because God sees what is on the other side that we do not see and is protecting us from it.  The door can crack open a little further, inviting tentative steps in, or it can be swung wide open, beckoning us to come.    

God talks a lot about doors, but there are three that come to mind more than any other.  The first one is a warning found in Genesis 4:7 "Is it not true that if you do what is right, you will be fine? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. It desires to dominate you, but you must subdue it."    Yea. Subdue is probably too subtle of a word at times.  Just yesterday, it didn't subdue me, it grabbed me by the ankle and pulled me down into its abyss.  I saw it sitting there, crouching, with darkness in its eye, felt it grab my ankle and didn't even resist when it pulled me down into its deadly hole.  However, there was Someone on the other side, waiting to pull me up out of the pit. In fact, that Someone would let me have no rest at all until I dealt with the sin issue at hand.  So today, I knocked on a door, confessing my sin to the person I had sinned against, and received forgiveness.  It was the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life, but I did it.   

That leads to the second door that I thought about, Revelation 3:20 "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come to him, and sup with him and he with Me. "  For so long, I thought that this verse was an evangelistic verse.  I think now that it really is a symbol of Christ desiring fellowship with us. Do we have the door to Him open or closed? I definitely heard Him knocking on my door last night....all night... praying that He would just go away and let me ignore my sin, but He persisted in knocking, gently, on the door of my heart, until I gave in and opened it so He could come in and heal and forgive me.   

The last door is also in Revelation chapter 3, verse 8.  "I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name."   The door to heaven is open, and will not shut.  It's the door to the Throne room of the Almighty God.  Israel did not have the access we have to God.  The door to the Holy of Holies in the form of a curtain kept them apart from God, and the only one who could enter was the High Priest.  Today, through the shed blood of Christ, we have an open door to God that no one, not even satan himself can shut.  He can try to block it, he can trip us up and try to drag us down, but he cannot keep me away from God.