Team Mexico 2011 Video

Sounds of Mexico

Continuing reflections on my recent visit to Nogales, Sonora, Mexico.  Here are some of the sounds that marked the trip. 

Wake Up-Call
When settling into our stay in Nogales, our team was instructed that breakfast would be at 7:30 AM.  We started to talk about what time to rise and shine.  I set the alarm on my phone for 6:55.  There would not be a day when we needed the phone to wake us up - it served as a call to depart the warm sleeping bags and get ready for the day.

At 6 AM, or there about, the sound that pealed back the blanket of sleep was the sound of trucks buzzing up and down the street.  Roger Brookens and Brian MacDonald both have experience driving semi-trucks.  On Monday morning they described hearing a Peterbilt struggling to climb the hill in front of the church. The precise make of trucks didn't make an impression on me, but the sound of traffic dramatically increased compared to the rural setting we're used to. 

Truck Mounted Advertising
To go along with the the vehicles there was a sound that cascaded over the mountains and filled the valleys, a sound that emanated from certain vehicles - it was the sound of advertising.  We heard it at the church, but saw it up close on our trek to Blanca's store.  Coursing the roads were small pick-ups, Ford Rangers, Dodge Dakota's, Chevy S-10's, Nissan's, etc - with bull horn loud speakers mounted on their hoods.  It was reminiscent of the Blues Brother's film when they mount the huge loud speaker to the top of the car.  In Nogales, the trumpeting trucks advertise a host of products, most of it was lost on our English ears, however one truck was obvious - it's bed was filled with bottled water.

Laughter
Hearing and seeing such sights created a sense of surprise and joy at engaging in a different, yet similar culture.  This joy lead to smiles and then laughter.  Laughter was the predominant and central sound that filled the air.  Our team laughed with and at one another.  Our hosts laughed along with us, and on many occasions we provided them reasons to laugh.  Roger and Joel, our father and son combination, engaged in a conversation that was reminiscent of the "Who's on Third" bit, except their conversation wasn't made up.  Taking in the whole conversation was Pastor Juan Carlos.  Brian said he found the routine so hilarious he laughed hard enough to bring tears to his eyes.

The kids laughed at us.  They laughed when we played along.  They laughed when we, or I, tried to work with the Spanish language.  Damian, Jessica and Cynthia - three kids who were around during the week tried to teach me to say the word for drums, to no avail.  In their attempt they'd express frustration that I couldn't hear a certain sound and then repeat it, yet their frustration would eventually turn to laughter.  They really laughed when I said "freezo" for cold, when the word is "freo".  They weren't the only ones laughing, our team gave me some ribbing for adding O, to English words in an attempt to communicate. 

Though we stumbled some in our language skills, laughter proved to be an avenue to communicate above the barriers of Spanish and English.

No Laughter here
While we laughed much, there were some sounds that were disturbing.

On our arrival day we dropped our luggage at a missionary's home in Arizona and walked across the border to do a little tourist shopping.  We were told that before the current spate of border violence that we've been hearing on the news, these border shops would be brimming with Americans.  At about 5 PM on a Saturday night, they were not.  Some shops were closing down, others were about ready to open.  The one item most of us came away with from these shops was Vanilla.

Vanilla was not the main attraction or the main offering of these shops.  What I mean by offering is that, we didn't need to enter the shops, we were approached with questions from the owners.  They would approach you on the sidewalk, or in the street with questions or comments, "What are you looking for?"  "What are you after?"  "I've got good stuff."  These were mild compared to the other questions, which came from a world without the light of Jesus.  We found out in bold terms that women were for sale, and in the border shops at 5 PM, women were being peddled more than other wares.  One particular question that stands out was, "You like my sister?  You want to see her naked?" Not only were women for sale, but by our observations, so were young girls. 

In that place, there was no laughing.  My heart filled with great sorrow as I saw two older American males convey to a proprietor that "they wanted to see the pretty young ladies." 

This year in America we should begin the remembrance of the great civil war that ripped at our country and a central piece of that war was over slavery.  Listening in the border shops, we came face to face with a slavery that continues to this day.  The sound was not sweet, it was not encouraging, but I'm glad I was taken there, because we cannot ignore, or overlook the travesty, the evil that goes on in our world, that we ourselves have some form of participation in.

Sounds of Hope in Darkness 
Mixed in with the sounds of the district was the sound of Missionary Brian Yost's voice, greeting shopkeepers by name.  Not all shopkeepers in the border area run brothels, some are there to market unique works of the crafters of Mexico.  Brian, who lived in Nogales for 18 months, and has taken many a team into this area has developed friendships with some of the shop owners.  Some of those owners are members of the Free Methodist Church in Nogales.  They live in a dark place, but it is not a place without a witness to the light of Christ, it is not a place Jesus has abandoned.  Reflecting on Brian's interaction and the Gospels, I recalled Jesus' eating with Matthew(Levi) in the Gospel of Mark.  Jesus took great criticism because he eats at a tax collector's home and among other tax collectors.  Jesus replied, I didn't come for the healthy, it's the sick who need a doctor.  Brian and the others are bearing the light of Jesus into a dark place, a place where Jesus calls disciples from and to.

Along with that sound of hope, was the sound I heard when I visited a federal prison on the south side of Nogales.  When I arrived at the chapel which rested within the prison yard, those who were inside were singing songs to the Lord.  Their songs were loud and filled with joy.

As I was introduced and preached to the assembled men, I heard proclamations of Amen.  I heard questions and comments from a group of guys who study their Bibles often, who take Christ to places in the prison that no chaplain or evangelist could go.  They sang, they prayed, they studied -  not for the exercise of it, or as a pattern of life, they worshiped and studied because in that place they had discovered the truth that we on the outside often fail to acknowledge, that their true protector is the Lord himself.

Bring on the Gas
Another sound of hope in the midst of darkness was the click of a gas heater being turned on.  The Church we worked at is located among a people that are working to create a better tomorrow.  Some are living in block houses, but hundreds live in shelters like one we visited, that is 15 feet by 15 feet.  Inside was a lovely family.  Throughout our stay the temperatures reached a 40 year low.  On Thursday night 4 of us were blessed to accompany Pastor Juan Carlos to this home and bring a heater where all the kids were piled into one bed in hopes of staying warm.  The sound from that home was one of thankfulness, blessing and prayers, for new day.

There are other gas stories, but I'll leave those to other story tellers . . .

Want A Sucker?
Shelly Miller, the lone woman of our team, has a gift for caring and connecting with children.  Before we crossed into Mexico we stopped at the Wal-Mart in Arizona.  Shelly picked up a big bag of dum-dum suckers, the kind you get at the bank.  Throughout the week one of her favorite refrains was asking, "want a sucker?"  She had great joy when we visited an orphanage home run by the churches in Nogales and asked if the girls could have a sucker. 

No complaints
With suckers, laughter, good food and amazing people, one of the things devoid in our hearing was complaining.  Oh we might have had a different idea or two about how the work was going to be done, or questions about things that we didn't understand, but they took the form of an inquisitive mind, of finding the similarities and differences in culture, of celebrating the creative work of God among people who have much to teach us and share with us - like how to clap on 1 & 3, while we clap on 2 & 4.  One of our team took a cold shower because the pilot light blew out due to the fierce winds; it was all part of the great adventure. 

Barking like Dogs
As a 20 year old I was hired as a Youth Pastor at Amboy Friends Church in Amboy, Indiana.  While there I heard stories from some of the old timers about how they would visit the Wesleyan-Methodist church on Sunday evenings in their youth, the 1920's.  They recalled the Wesleyan-Methodist's exhibiting interesting, if not strange, behavior when they were "blessed."  They described how they would run around the church building, run across the tops of the pews, or howl like dogs.

Saturday, on our way home, two of our guys who had a great time, who snored in concert during the night, were feeling giddy.  I'm not sure if they were giddy about going home, or thrilled to have experienced what we had gone through, but they began to bark like a couple of dogs.  I never thought I'd hear such a display in my years, but there it was, in the Denver airport, barking like dogs. 

If you think their barking was strange, you should have heard the attendant at the door who helped us board our plane.  United Airlines has a comic gem working for them, he received a round of applause following his instructions on how we were to proceed to our plane.  

These are some of the sounds reverberating, sounds of joy, of need, of hope.  Over all these sounds I am reminded of the songs of worship sung on Sunday, songs like we sing in America, they sing in Spanish; songs that unite our hearts to all those who sing to the Lord, and one day we'll all sing before his throne the great songs of the redeemed, and all things will be made new. 

Visions of Mexico

I've been reflecting on my recent visit to Mexico and have been wanting to share some reflections.  I've decided to use the format of observations that come through the senses:  sight, sound, smell, touch, taste, hearing, and intuition/spirit.  Today I share some observations that came through the sense of sight.

Sight
- Variety of color.  One line of demarcation on our journey into and out of Mexico was the visual border of color.  Upon entering Nogales, we noticed a change in the color of buildings, and particularly houses.  In America, the predominant color was white and adobe brown.  In Mexico, the color changed to a wonderful and wild array of bright oranges, greens, purples and a host of others.  The signs on the shops were vivid, though often hand drawn or painted, the use of catchy color was abundant.  On our way out of Mexico our missionary guide told us one reason for the array of color in Mexico was a large paint giveaway a couple of years ago.  Whatever color one received, they put it on their house.  That's a wild and fun experiment, one that I think is paying great dividends.


- Cement Block buildings.  The Church we stayed in and worked in was a cement block building.  The buildings that surrounded it were cement block buildings.  Everywhere you looked, cement block was the flavor.  Cement block doesn't give way to termites and other little critters that like to gnaw on wood.  Buildings that didn't look like cement block, had stucco over top.  The buildings that were not cement were often constructed out of an assortment of wood pieces.  These were temporary dwellings.  Many still existed in the neighborhood we were in.

- Chinese restaurants.  Within 1/2 a mile in either direction from the church we stayed at there were 2 Chinese restaurants.  

- Dish Network.  It wasn't surprising to see Dish Network satellite gear installed on homes and businesses.  What took me by surprise was the dish that hung on a temporary home that was within sight from the church.  It reminded me of a statistic I heard in Kentucky in the 1990's. At that time in Kentucky 99% of households had at least one television, only 93% had indoor plumbing.  In the neighborhood we were in, my guess is the disparity would be greater.

- Mountains.  The place we stayed at was at an elevation of about 4000 feet.  Looking to the north from the church parking lot was a valley filled in with houses in some state of development.  On the other side of the valley a mountain careened into the sky.  We were probably near the summit of a short mountain.  The road in front of the church would have made a great ski hill.  When driving north on the road it descended for more miles than I could count. 

- Sunday morning street sales.  When we woke up Sunday morning, Brian MacDonald looked out the window towards the street and proclaimed, "Shelly's going to be happy".  Shelly was the lone female of our group and she has an affection for garage saling. Out on the street were vendors, a street full, offering clothes, old televisions, games, corn on the cob (not sweet corn), tools - just about anything you could find at a garage sale in your neighborhood.  On our trip from the airport in Tuscon to Nogales, Arizona we passed several pick-up trucks stacked about 10 feet high with used furniture and garage sale stuff - it was headed for Mexico. 

- Grocery store.  Up the street, but south, from the church was a grocery store.  It looked like a local grocery store in many of our small towns.  It had the offices up in the air, off to the side of the cash registers, like many an older store in the states.  We saw a lot of food and beverage that looked familiar.  The Pepsi and Coke beverages were in more slender bottles than in the states.  They had two and three liter options, which made a very tall and slender bottle.  The prices on food and other items in the store were not significantly different than what we would find in our grocery stores.  We would discover in a number of other places that the prices of material are similar, if not higher in Mexico.  The cheapest place we found to shop was on the American side of the border, in the shops that carry a host of goods imported from China.

- Trucks and Cars.  The church sat on a recently paved main thoroughfare.  The vehicle traffic was immense.  The vehicles ranged from old VW bugs, to new Chevy's.  The water truck that came to the church was a 1972 Ford.  Also working the street were new International semi-trucks.  The older cars looked to be in great shape, they had survived the speed bumps which kept traffic moving slowly on the street.  The speed bumps weren't solid bubble strips like in America.  They were more like upside down kitchen bowls, spaced out about every 6 inches across the street.  Word is they can bang up a car good if you hit them at a high rate of speed.

- Home Stores.  Sunday afternoon we walked to a store owned by Blanca, a lady in the church who came and helped prepare our breakfast.  Blanca's store was about a mile walk from the church, to the south.  Once we arrived at the crest of the hill we were on, the walk was downhill.  Along the way we passed a couple of parks, but mostly homes.  Many of the homes sat close to the sidewalk.  In many of them were little shops.  Most sold some kind of food; hot dogs, coke, corn.  One sold batteries.  The shops weren't big, but they were frequent.  You couldn't walk more than 30 yards without coming across another store.  It would have been fun to take a day and visit each one.

- Dogs & Fences.  The place we went to had been described to us as a squatters community.  One of our missionary hosts told us that 40,000 people lived on the hill and the valley of this squatters community.  Resources are sparse and valuable in this neighborhood.  To protect those resources homes and business will have one and sometimes two means of protection.  A fence with lockable gates & or bars over the windows, and a good dog.  Those who can only afford one means, will have a dog.  I saw more Pit-bulls and German Shepherds in a week than I've seen in all my life.  They were almost always on a chain.  They looked like they knew what their purpose was. 

- Under Construction.  Many of the business and houses, the church we stayed in, were all at stages of being under construction.  We did see parts of Nogales where the building was "completed".  The first two Free Methodist churches in the city were at this state, and they looked from the outside, very attractive.  We visited a home for orphaned girls that the churches are sponsoring and it was finished with tile floors, stucco walls - all the amenities of a smaller home in the states.  But many of the neighborhoods we drove through, the place where we worked, was under construction.  It reminded me of tales of America as it grew as a country, going through many transitions - from forest to settled land, Mexico, or at least Nogales had a visual sight of being under construction, and wanting at some level to be similar to its northern sister city.  Of course when things are under construction, there is dust.  We had lot and lots of dust.

- Street clothes.  When I visited the jail I was very surprised by the lack of uniforms.  The only ones wearing uniforms were the guards.  The prisoners wore street clothes.  Those who came to the chapel for worship looked very much like the brothers and sisters in Christ who came to the church the day before. 

- Flags.  In the church sanctuary hung flags from a variety of countries; China, Egypt, Israel, Mexico, Columbia, USA, Spain.  That was the predominant visual as one looked on the wall.  No other symbols, but those spoke dramatically, in a church sitting amidst a squatters settlement, with needs a plenty, there was a vision for of the ministry of Jesus for the world.  The flags represented a global perspective and dreams that are closing in on being as big as God. 

- Junk pile.  On our first day of work, we began cleaning out a portion of the church building that had been storing lumber, wire, and pipe.  It was to become a new residence for Pastor Juan Carlos and family.  When we started to handle the material we wondered what we should do with the "junk."  The short pieces, the unusable scrap - as we thought of it.  A pile was in front of the church already existed and we began adding to the pile, aware that what many of the things we'd throw away or burn, was saved and wouldn't be put on the junk pile.  The pile grew on Monday as we cleaned.  By Friday, the pile had shrunk.  It shrunk not because someone set out the junk for the trash, or we'd made a little fire.  It shrunk because through the week we'd find ourselves needing something, and we'd head to the junk pile.  It had a short piece of pipe, a small piece of wood, styrofoam insulation that could be stuffed somewhere.  We used the junk pile, and discovered that we discard many things quickly in our culture.  In Nogales, they redeem the stuff, sifting it, sorting it, using it to its full capacity.

- People.  The most treasured sight of this trip were the people.  They smiled, they laughed, they loved.  One home we visited was very small, it was about 12 foot by 12 foot.  The home was occupied by people from the church and they had 6 kids.  Mother was 27 and the eldest girl was 12.  On the night we visited it was brutally cold, down into the teens.  The had very little insulation, no heater, one or two lights.  Five of the six kids were lying in a bed, snuggled under blankets trying to stay warm.  We went to their home to bring a heater and a canister of gas.  They were welcoming and full of joy.  On Saturday they were going to begin laying block for the next stage of their home, a block house.  It wouldn't be big, but it would be a vast improvement physically.  What we noticed with this young couple was something different, they had joy regardless of their circumstances.  The father is a hard worker, earlier in the day he showed our crew how to lay a block window in 30 minutes.  Our crew had worked a couple of hours on one.  He was skilled.  He was a good block layer.  Louis and Viki were like the vast array of people we saw, we came to call by name and love; they were gifted, talented, bright and loving, and full of love for Jesus.  They are a hearty people, with much to overcome, but they are industrious, amazingly creative, and many are living under the shadow of the Lord's wings, they are soaring and learning to fly.

These are some of the sights of Mexico.  I'll write more tomorrow.