October 31, 2005

Dear Friends, Colleagues, and Family,

Yahui! (Greetings!) It has now been a week since I left Tamazunchale and my brothers and sisters of the Presbytery of the Huastecas. After getting myself resituated and the office back in order, I can now allow myself the luxury of sitting down to update you on all on what transpired. This is not an official report, but just my way of letting you know how things went.

So, after a week, I miss those homemade corn tortillas! Since I have not yet verified whether the most common brand of corn tortilla mix is gluten free, I cannot eat the corn tortillas here in Piedras Negras. So, after three weeks of eating at least five tortillas with every meal, I am back to none. Agh! Now I know how our Mexican brothers and sisters feel when they eat without tortillas—it’s as if you haven’t eat anything at all! I am also missing the royal service I received in the Huastecas. Everywhere I went people put food in front of me (and all gluten free at that!) and expected me to eat (yes, I finally put on five of those ten pounds I needed to gain!). After all, I sometimes ate five times a day, and for cultural reasons I had to clean my plate each time! I told everyone there that when I got home to Piedras Negras I was going to sit at my kitchen table and wait for the food to arrive and be sorely disappointed to discover that if I wanted to eat, I would have to prepare it myself! And so it was. Last Wednesday, I opened my refrigerator and found nothing to eat! How depressing! Pray that I can keep the weight on with my own cooking!

I also miss learning Náhuatl. It is amazing how quickly the words stuck in my mind, and if you ask Roberto and Kassumy they will confirm that I am a walking Spanish-Náhuatl dictionary (albeit a very limited one). All sorts of odd words like “one-eyed,” “smooth,” “cat,” “it’s raining,” “featherless or buck naked,” are what come to mind (among more important expressions like “God bless you”). Much of what I learned, I took from a child’s bilingual reading book, so in addition to standard conversation words, I also picked up infrequently used adjectives. One day I hope to put this knowledge to work in full sentences. In the meantime, be glad you live very far from me. Ni tekipanoa para timohuicase de ume altept (I work for the binational ministry Amistad). I have a feeling I will become very irritating after awhile, much as I was for my college friends after I spent a semester in Guadalajara and fell in love with Mexico—it’s all I talked about for months!). Of course I also learned helpful words and phases related to the weather, eating, and sleeping. After all, is that not what matters most? Ni neki tacuas! “I want to eat.” I bought a book on how to learn to read Náhuatl, so hopefully I can keep learning a bit.

In the meantime, I keep memory of them alive in prayer and by talking and writing about them. I ask that you join me in prayer for two people in particular.

• Alfreda, a woman who was to have a hysterectomy a couple of weeks ago and for whom surgery is particularly dangerous
• Adrián, a young man who appears to have a digestive disorder not unlike mine. Doctors there have no clue what is wrong with him and his family has no money to go to specialists. You can literally count his ribs!

Among the people I particularly miss is the Oaxacan missionary, Raquel, who served as my host the first week I was there. She has been working in the Huastecas since just before I was born! And she is truly one to be admired. And it is between us that God truly did a good work (your prayers were answered). She was among those of the presbytery who expressed concern about the negative influences that a partnership with U.S. churches (mostly due to cultural differences and a fear of U.S. takeover of local plans and programs) could have on the presbytery and their indigenous way of life. The way she sounded in August, I fully expected her to test my “missionary worthiness” while I was with them. I told Kassumy before I went that I was sure this lady was going to put scorpions in my bed at night and make me walk hours and hours through the Sierra Madres—just to see if I was Huasteca missionary material. Well, she didn’t put bugs in my bed (she didn’t like the tarantula that made its way into her kitchen any more than I did) or make me walk (if a truck is available she prefers the 20-minute ride to the two-hour walk as much as I do).

But she did put me to work! In 20 days, I preached and taught 22 times (19 different messages) and visited and prayed for the sick and the homebound in every community I visited! Everywhere I went the churches organized a worship service just because “the missionary” (yours truly) was there. At one service I was even given the opportunity to put together the order of worship (as the prelude was being played!). At that time I was informed that I was going to preach on Exodus 3. Ha! God is good. (“Tuhueyi Toteco.”) And the Spirit is certainly a very good friend in such times (all times). The preaching experience was so very good for me, as it taught me to lean not on my own understanding and prep time, but simply on the Lord and His guidance. It also proved encouraging. I was pretty impressed with what the Spirit put together! I wish all preaching opportunities came at me that way. Much less stressful!

Raquel was very good to me, and we had wonderful conversations about everything under the sun, but particularly about the ministry and being in the Lord’s service as single women. I found myself identifying with her in many ways. As she was praying for me before leaving me with my next host family, I even felt tears come to my eyes. She said she wished she could accompany me on the rest of my journey and though I was certainly capable of moving on “on my own,” there was a sense of loss in seeing her walk away after leaving me with my host family in Huitzitzilingo. We had certainly “grown” on each other, and I look forward to seeing what more God does in my life through her and vice versa. Please join me in giving thanks to God for her faithfulness in service all of these years and praying for His strength to be hers as she continues to pastor the Santísima Trinidad Church of Chapulhuacanito and continues to be a very vocal member of the presbytery. (Like me, she has little real power in the presbytery, but she does not let that stop her from sharing her opinions, or the Lord’s, as the case may be.)

During my time in the presbytery, I visited 14 of the presbytery’s 16 congregations. I was able to meet with church leadership in each location, preach in most, and learn “the good, the bad, and even the ugly” surrounding the life of each church. In short, the mission for which I was sent was accomplished. The purpose was to learn more about the culture, the people, the language, and the churches of the area as well as let them learn more about me, the ministry, and the U.S. church. I think those goals were met and it appears that the Lord is opening the door for future ministry together.

At the end of my trip I met with the executive leadership of the presbytery. They are going to propose that the presbytery accept Amistad’s invitation to ministry together. I will return for that meeting on January 19-22. Our plans, then, are to put together one or two mission encounters in the area next March or April. The teams will be “mixed,” in that we are hoping to draw people from many of the churches with which we partner in the United States in order to give individuals the opportunity to make the trip even if their churches do not have such plans and in order to give the Presbytery of the Huastecas the greatest exposure in the U.S. church. Please be in prayer for these encounters, and if you are interested in participating, email me! I’d love to have you along! The only requirements are an ability to go, a deep commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ, and a willingness to eat “whatever,” sleep “wherever,” and shower “whenever and wherever.” In return you will experience the “goodness and pleasantness” (see Psalm 133) of the unity of the body of Christ and have the opportunity to walk alongside and support your brothers and sisters in their ministries.

I also invite you to keep praying for Amistad, its board of directors, and for me personally. As you all know, Amistad is going through a number of changes, transformations, and expansions, and we need the Lord’s guidance at each step along the way. In the coming year it is likely that I will spend more and more time in the area of the Huastecas (as well as in other presbyteries with which we are now partnering). Pray for my safety in travel and that I might be discerning in my listening to God as He moves not only the Amistad ministry, but me personally and ministerially “beyond the border.” We are excited about the challenges before us and about the opportunity to do new things, but we need your prayers and your support to do so.

We have much to learn from our brothers and sisters in the Huastecas. They have remained faithful in the midst of persecution. They are struggling with the realities of a globalized economy, which has forced those who were already marginalized into subsistence-living conditions. They are living witnesses to the power, love, and grace of Christ in communities struggling to maintain an indigenous identity while also living and working within political, social, and economic structures they did not create. They have a story to tell. And we know that as members of the one body of Christ, there must be something we have to offer them as well. We have our own stories, our own experiences of God’s faithfulness in the midst of challenges, hardships, and heartaches. Our own gifts to offer. Pray that the Lord would give us wisdom as we walk with our brothers and sisters and learn how to be the body of Christ with them. As I have said before, partnership is about relationship and the Lord’s uniting of two or more “parts” to create a greater “whole.” As the body of Christ, we are one. Thanks be to God for the opportunity He gives us to discover and learn (step by step) how to live our unity across our cultural, socio-economic, geographic, and ideological borders and support one another along the journey. Together, we are the hands, feet, and face of Christ to the nations. May we be found faithful. To God be the Glory.

In His love and by His grace,

Susie

The 2006 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 66