June 12, 2008

Dear Friends and Family,

Greetings from Chapulhuacanito, home of the Presbytery of the Huastecas’ Bible Institute. We are in the middle of our second day of classes and I have one hour before teaching my second session of church history.

Life has certainly picked up speed in 2008. I quickly adapted to the slower pace of the Huastecas during my first year here, but have also quickly learned that life is slow only for those not fully engaged in what is happening around them. What a joy those first months were. I needed them. And I needed to move slowly as I began to learn the ins and outs of life here. But 2008 has been a whole new ball game. Even Sister Raquel, my friend who pastors the church here in Chapulhuacanito, said recently that she feels as if she has been going nonstop since mid January!

One of the additional tasks is the new schedule of the Presbytery’s Bible Institute. Instead of meetings once every two months, we now meet for two full days per month. I am teaching two sessions of church history (to second- and third-year students) as well as giving the meditations during worship each morning. I am enjoying the classes and time with students and fellow professors immensely.

The spring also brought visits from two mission teams (Noreste Presbytery of Mexico with Northeast Georgia Presbytery of the PC(USA) and Westlake Hills Presbyterian Church of Austin, Texas); numerous visits to El Barco, the community and Presbyterian Church furthest off our “beaten track”; and several special events (Youth Week in February, special youth and women’s conferences in March, Holy Week, and Week of the Christian Home).

May was probably the craziest for me personally. My newborn nephew Henry (born in March) died May 8th in Omaha, Nebraska, after a two-month battle with defects in his heart, so I made an unexpected week-long visit home to Nebraska. I arrived back in the Huasteca in time for the second day of classes here at the Institute. But just a week later I was back on the road for planned trips to Cuernavaca, Morelos, for the National Convention of the Presbyterian Women of Mexico (May 19-24) and from there to Chichihualtepec, Oaxaca, (May 24-June 4) for vacation in Sister Raquel’s hometown.

While in Chichi, we made a trip to Puebla, Puebla, to accompany Raquel’s sister, who was to have a heart procedure. Unfortunately I fell ill as we arrived and Raquel ended up attending to two patients in two different hospitals in a city none of us knew. The typhoid and proteus bacteria that seem to have taken up residence in my body since 1998 came back to haunt me. Praise God I made a relatively quick recovery, but the experience was traumatizing for both Raquel, her sister, and me. As it turned out, doctors were unable to cover the hole in Raquel's sister's heart through the “artery procedure” they had attempted, and they have told her that open heart surgery is her only option.

Last Thursday we made the 11-hour drive from Chichihualtepec to Chapulhuacanito. A beautiful drive, particularly the last four hours through the high mountains of Hidalgo.

Since Saturday we have received a good amount of rain, which has created havoc on most of our roads since many are at various stages of being paved. Water flows over most bridges after heavy rains. So far, the rains have not threatened our activities. Tomorrow the Presbyterian Women of the presbytery have another Institute (a four-hour gathering with a special workshop). I am not in charge of the workshop this time, but I do need to attend. On Saturday I will attend a graduation service in Macuilocatl and stay for our presbytery’s youth convention there Saturday and Sunday. From there I will head to Chancuetlán to visit the Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church there. It is a congregation I rarely visit due to its distance, but several months ago I committed to visit them for 10 days in June. I am told that the women want me to teach them how to read, another new venture for them and for me as well!

That visit is why this letter to you is a “now or never,” letter as I may not be back on line until the very last days of June or early July.

July will bring vacation Bible school, a visit from another mission team (Buen Pastor Presbyterian Church of Castaños, Coahuila and Covenant Presbyterian Church of San Antonio Texas), and a series of graduations. I will be madrina for a 14-year-old girl from our church in Soledad. She is just finishing elementary school. I am also in the middle of writing a personal evaluation as part of my reappointment process as a mission coworker with the PC(USA). My current term ends August 31, 2009, and I expect to be reappointed to another term here in the Huasteacas, but there is always a process, a positive one thankfully. Nevertheless, it’s a process that requires time and thought.

I have five minutes before closing and delving again into the life and times of the Christian church between 100 and 600 AD. Thank you for your prayers. Despite the manic activity of the past few months, daily life is actually quite tranquil. I continue to make slow but steady headway on learning Nahuatl. Each day includes visits and chatter with friends, colleagues, and brothers and sisters in the faith. God has provided strength and calm in the midst of busyness, and I am grateful for that grace. But the past few months have also shown me that the time has come to begin carefully selecting my activities and responsibilities. Gone are the days of “trying it all.” I appreciate your prayers as I move into this new stage of life and ministry here in the Huastecas, that I might discern properly where the Lord would have me be and what He would have me be about.

A final word of gratitude to all of you who have also sustained me with your financial gifts. I have had thank-you notes addressed to each of you for over three months now. Mounds of good intentions, but little output. Forgive me. You will hear from me very soon.

In love and gratitude for each of you,

The 2008 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 256