April 17, 2007

Greetings once again from the grand metropolis of El Frijolillo!

These past two and a half weeks have been full! As I mentioned in my March update, I was about to embark on a “tour” of the presbytery, showing the Jesus Film or the Passion of the Christ, preaching, and participating in special presbytery-wide youth and women’s events. In 15 days I was in 10 different communities. What a gift it was to visit brothers and sisters in each community, share the Word with them (either in film or through a sermon), and just enjoy their fellowship during this time of celebration. Of particular joy was the opportunity to show the Jesus Film in two communities that have been somewhat hostile to past evangelistic efforts, but where the Frijolillo and Huitzitzilingo churches are working to develop a base of believers.

I am now back home here in Frijolillo, catching up on sleep, letter-writing, and the like. I am also finally getting down to business in learning Náhuat. On Sunday, I celebrated my fourth-month anniversary here, and it jolted me. I can say phrases, but am still not speaking on a regular basis, and I need to be. My friend Amalia has now committed herself to teaching me a couple of hours a week. That is enough to get some basics and to give me material to try out on others during the week.

Here are two of tonight’s phrases:

• Nihualajqui nimitz paxaloa. I came to visit you.
• Na niyas Huejutla mosta. Tinequi tiyas nohuaya? I’m going to Huejutla tomorrow. Do you want to go with me?

In the coming weeks

Amalia and I are preparing the children of the church here to sing in Náhuat and Spanish during a special Children’s Day worship celebration on the 30th. We are also trying to organize the women so they can sing as well, though probably in Spanish this time. The ladies’ Easter hymns in Náhuat went over very well though. One brother even said that if we sang again, he would give us a standing ovation! Not because we sang so well, but because we were singing in Náhuat. The kids seem to really enjoy singing in Náhuat too. Amalia and I hope to encourage the congregation to sing in Náhuat more often and use the Náhuat Scriptures now that they are available.

On Thursday I will give the devotional during a home fellowship gathering here in Frijolillo. The topic will be on family worship.

On Saturday, a group of us from Frijolillo will join our brothers and sisters of the Taxicho congregation in an initial evangelistic effort in Segunda Petlacatl, about an hour’s walk from here. There are no Christians in the community. Pray that the Lord would go before us, preparing the hearts of those to whom we are sent.

Next Thursday-Saturday I will be in Taxicho again to help Sister Saret with special Children’s Day activities there. I will preach on the 26th, and on the 28th I will project Hermie and Friends and VeggieTales movies! Join us! But bring popcorn!

On May 5 and 6 I will visit the congregation in La Laguna, Hgo. I have committed to helping the lay pastor there with visitation and children’s Sunday school the first weekend of each month. I am excited to have a regular opportunity to do something with kids and be a “real” help in the building up of the church.

Then between May 7 and 20 we will be celebrating “the Week of the Christian Home” in most of our congregations. I have been invited by four churches to preach so, back on the road I will go!

Around the community

The men continue to work with one another, bringing in crops, spraying their orange trees with some kind of insecticide, cutting down weeds, etc. Yesterday the men participated in a community workday (faena), hauling rock from a nearby community to be used in building a gazebo-like community gathering area in “Barrio Abajo” (I live in Barrio Arriba).

The women spend their days preparing meals and taking them to the men in the field, doing laundry, hauling firewood, and attending meetings at the schools, the mill, and the government health clinic.

After two weeks of spring break, the children have now returned to classes and most of them seem happy to do so. One youngster told his uncle after the first week of vacation that he was “bored,” to which his uncle responded, “Well, tell God to take you ‘home’ then.” Suddenly, the 9 year old was not so bored with life! He went to visit his aunt in Mexico City instead.

Spring has sprung!

Really, it’s practically summer here. April and May are the hottest months of the year for us. We have hit 100 degrees about five times already in the past month, and at night it cools to about 85. But the flowers are blooming and the birds are singing. What a gorgeous world we live in! Because this is a “someone” protected area, it is illegal to take birds out of the area. Nonetheless, you can imagine that the promise of profit has encouraged some to go “birding” and take the catch to market.

Unfortunately, this is a time of year when we have little rain (average annual rainfall is 3-4 feet, just not this month!). This means that the creeks are dry, and three wells are our only water source. The pump which brings water to the community from the largest well (which I am told usually dries up) is turned on just three times a week and for some reason the water rarely makes it to a small group of houses around the church, so I now am holding water in a large drum outside my door in anticipation that the tanks on the roof will soon run dry. Please pray for rain, but also that the powers that be here in San Luis Potosi and San Martin would be moved to install a pump at the Tempexquititla River four kilometers away and pipes to bring water to us from there so we have a year-round water supply.

Reflection

Life is good. I have been well and enjoying the many different opportunities the Lord sets before me. I am grateful for “activity” but also grateful to live at a more tranquil pace than I did while on the border. It is wonderful to be able to preach and simply live among the brothers and sisters here, helping out where I can and participating in community and church events.

And God continues to challenge me as well. The fact that I cannot travel anywhere alone complicates my travel schedule (from my perspective) but also puts me in a position where I cannot go where I would like when I would like—a lesson in submission to others, to God, and to His timing and ways. A hard lesson for this fiercely independent woman!

God is also challenging my supposedly generous, helpful heart as I face issues of what to charge people for rides, if and when to pay people for accompanying me in my travels, how to respond when people ask for things, etc. Self-initiated giving is easy, but true generosity is joyful giving when something is asked for or even when one’s giving is “supposed” by the other.

And finally, another area in which God is stretching me in my relationship with Him and in preparation for ministry is by stripping me of my self-righteousness and judgmental character and filling up those places with His mercy, that I might have and demonstrate His love and mercy for those who are spiritually lost or struggling along the road. How painful it is when God begins to show us our sin, but how grateful I am to see it, be able to turn from it, and be transformed. For if I am to be the “minister,” encourager, and exhorter I have been called to be, I must learn to encourage and exhort in Christ, in His judgment and not my own; in His perfect love and mercy, not my all too human, impatient and conditional counterfeits.

So, here I am. Enjoying the gift of new opportunities, new friends, new challenges and also the heartache of sin exposed and the hard work of “working out [my] salvation.” I am grateful to God and to each of you, for your gifts, your prayers, your encouraging words, and for your partnership in the gospel of Christ.

Please let me know how I can be supporting you in prayer as you live out your walk in Christ and minister where the Lord has placed you.

I get very little news from the United States, but today’s radio broadcast from Huejutla mentioned the death of 33 university students in Virginia, gunned down by a fellow student. Not exactly the kind of news I like to hear alongside the accounts of how many burned up bodies were found in various parts of Mexico that same day, victims of the drug trade wars that are quickly escalating here. We live in a very troubled world. The Word teaches us that we, in Christ, are the light of this world and the salt of the earth. Brothers and sisters, may we be faithful bearers of the Light of life and the taste of heaven to those within our sphere of influence. He is our and their only Hope.

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore to send out workers into his harvest field.”
Matthew 9:36-38

In His grace,

Susie

P.S. A cultural note. Did you know that here in the Huasteca, we open our bananas from the “other” end (end not attached to the tree)? We also hang our curtains “pretty side-out.” Just little and insignificant differences, but interesting ones nonetheless. By the way, feel free to send me your questions. I want to write about those things of interest to you, not bore you with what interests me!

How can you participate?

By praying

• For physical healing of Brother Marciano of Frijolillo who suffered a stroke a month ago.
• My health. I am well, praise be to God! But am ever in need of prayers. The demonic harassment at night seems to have diminished. Thank you for your prayers—the armor of God is a mighty projection!
• My language acquisition, that God’s grace would be upon my learning.
• Frijolillo’s water project.
• That God will raise up two or three mission teams willing to visit us in 2007 to join local congregations in vacation Bible school, evangelism, and construction activities as well as to enjoy fellowship in Christ and learn more about the lives of believers here.
• That my heart would be ever drawn closer and closer to Christ’s and I might be a faithful witness and example to our brothers and sisters here.

By writing

My email is: susannefrerichs@gmail.com

Snail mail arrives in 5-8 weeks. No packages please—their arrival is not assured.

Susanne Frerichs
Calle Aquiles Serdán 111
Col. San Rafael
Tamazunchale, SLP CP 79960

By giving

Gifts to support my salary and benefits should be sent to:

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Individual Remittance Processing
PO Box 643700
Pittsburgh PA 15264-3700.

Make sure “Frerichs, ECO#074044” is written on the memo line of the check. Or click the "give" button below:

You can also send funds to PBM, 319 Camden, San Antonio, TX 78215 and designate them for the Huastecas. They will be used to cover ministry expenses I have here in the Huasteca.

The 2007 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 66