¿Quien?

´¿Quien?´is Spanish for ´who?´As you could guess from the title, I´m gonna share about the people and the events that I find exciting in the past week.

* Through the Spanish classes, I got to meet two people that I´d like to share with you. The first one is Mia. It´s a long story, but I got to know her because I catch on Mexican ´curious´culture: I kept asking my teacher about her until she introduced me to her. Mia has Asian appearance and she learnt Indonesian back in Uni. She came from Brisbane and she is here to teach English. Wow! I shared to her what I do here in Mexico and it turns out that she is a Christian, too. It´s exciting to meet another Christian from Australia who looks similar to me (Asian), not to mention how I could identify myself with her free spirited outlook on life. It turns out that she is thinking about doing mission work with a church here, so I invited her over to my church this Sunday and introduce her to the people here. I don´t believe in coincidences, I believe that the meeting is arranged by God to connect her to a mission org, Christians, and evangelical churches here in Mexico.

* The second person is Maricela. Maricela is the teacher in some of my classes, but I first got to know her at Global Grounds. According to her, she has been taking English classes here at Global on and off for 3 years. She is not a Christian yet. But she was asking me in the class what I´m doing here in Mexico and I answered her with my limited Spanish. Then while she was in the English class at Global last week, she asked Justin (the long-termers here) about what they do here in Global. Justin got to explain to her a bit more about God, Christianity, and what compels them to do ministry (the love of Jesus). Then this week, I asked her if I could take a private Spanish class with her and if it´s better to take it in the school or outside the school. She quickly answered that we better meet up outside the school and do an exchange study between English and Spanish. Wow! It´s an answered prayers (I´ve been praying specifically for her since I got to know her a month ago)! It opens up so much opportunity to get to know her and to share the gospel to her. Then after school today, I heard from Lluvia (Justin´s wife) that Maricela agrees to do meet up with Lluvia to learn more about Christianity while Lluvia comes back from the US in June. Please pray that the meetings would be happening and that I would use the opportunity wisely to share the gospel and for her to accepts the grace of God through Jesus.

* The third exciting thing this week is Compa (Mexico´s IFES/Perkantas). Because of my schedule, I could go to their Wednesday´s Bible Study and this Bible Study is happened to be lead by my friend whom I met through the café, Alvaro. All the Bible Study was in Spanish and I got my turn to read the passage and to answer the questions in Spanish. That was daunting and exciting at the same time! It´s very encouraging to see them studying the Bible and be faithful to what it says. The way they study the Bible is very similar to how we do it in church in Australia: they´re going through the book of the Bible and answer the questions related to the passage. Please pray for my Spanish to get better and please pray that despite my language limitations, I could still be an encouragement for the students in the Bible Study. I´ll go to the monthly Compa meeting this Friday. There´s gonna be spiritual and physical food there. I´m really excited about it, too!:) I´m gonna share the photos and the story afterwards.....

* I had an encouraging conversation at work today with one of the Christian girl who´s working with me, A. She is the only Christian in her family and she´s currently struggling, because the missios who look after her spiritually have just left to go back to the US. She felt quite lonely and unloved. We talked (in Spanish) about what it meant to have a relationship with Jesus, what it meant to be a good Christian, and from Romans 8 when Paul told the Christians there that there´s nothing that could separate us from the love of God through Jesus Christ. Please pray that she would be reminded of God´s love for her shown through His Son, JC. Please pray that she may stand strong in this difficult time and that God may have provide good Christian friends to encourage her in the faith.

* Praise items:
- Thank God for His Son, JC that through Jesus we could have hope and eternal relationships with Him.
- Thank God for his wisdom, love and sovereignty in carrying out His plan for this world. And thank Him for using imperfect people, such as us, to take part in His wonderful works and plans in this world.
- Thank God for the answered prayers, for the wonderful week, and for the people He connects me with.

¡Bajan!

I couldn´t sleep, I had too many things on my mind, I´m too excited about my week, and I had too much energy in me....So I´d better do some de-brief by writing a random blog entry on taking a camion (bus) in Qro.

+ Taking a camion has been one of an interesting experience here in Queretaro. A special skill is needed: to get on the bus, make a payment, and take a seat while the bus is moving!

+ The way the drive drives the bus and the shocking jumps everytime the bus is bumping on the speedbumps, makes it impossible to maintain your balance if you´re standing on the bus.

+ Even though there are bus stops, but the camion could stop anywhere the drivers wants to stop.

+ There are 2 ways of getting of the bus: to press the button from the back door or shout ´bajan!´(let me off!). Today the bus driver didn´t stop the bus even after I pressed the button several times, I finally have to shout ´bajan!´100 m from the place I wanna get off. (I don´t like shouting ´bajan´ for 2 reasons: I find it a little bit rude to ask things without saying ´please´, but that´s how Spanish works. And my accent would cause so much attention and turning of heads from the rest of the passengers:P)

I think I´ve gotta at least try to sleep, I´ve got a full day tomorrow and the day after....Buenas noches!:)

Strangers in the world - 1 Peter 3:1-7

I´m currently going through the book of 1 Peter for my devotional. The title of this blog: ´a stranger in the world´is taken from this book. This book was addressed to Christians at that time who were dispersed throughout the regions: what is their standing before God (His elects), what is their standing before the world (aliens and strangers), how are they to act in the light of their status, how are they to cope with the sufferings, how are they to relate to the people around them. We could definitely draw a parralel between us and them. Just like them, we are in this world but we are not to be part of this world. Just like them, we are God´s elect. And just like them, we are struggling to live as God´s people on this side of heaven.

I believe it wasn´t a coincidence that I came accross John Piper´s article on submission for Christian women that is taken from 1 Peter 3:1-7. Here are some excerpts of the article:

(A Christian woman) does not put her hope in her looks. She puts her hope in the
promises of God...She looks away from the troubles and miseries and obstacles of
life that seem to make the future bleak, and she focuses her attention on the
sovereign power and love of God who rules in heaven and does on earth whatever
he pleases...She does not fear the future; she laughs at the future. The
presence of hope in the invincible sovereignty of God drives out fear...That is
what Christian women do: They entrust their souls to a faithful Creator. They
hope in God. And they triumph over fear.

The article goes on talking what submission is and is not. To read full article, click here.

Ministry Updates - April 2007

*The crews @ Global Grounds Café*

Five more weeks before I leave Qro. So far, four weeks have past since I´ve been here. The past 4 weeks that I´ve been here, I spent most of the time getting used to the life here in Mexico, trying to get to know people in and outside church, helping around the house, helping out in the cafe, and learning the language.

Having been here for 4 weeks make me realise the importance of doing a long-term mission work. I think coming as a short-termer, my roles are mostly as a learner and observer. It´s quite hard to build on ministry and relationships when I´m only going to be here for 2.5 months. Relationships and ministries take time. Knowing these facts, I think I have to adjust my expectations accordingly.

The things that I´d love to do for the rest of my time here are as follows:

1. Supporting the long-term ministries and workers here.

In the next couple of weeks, Jessica, one of the long-termer, will have a surgery while the other long-termers, Justin and Llluvia, will go back to US for a couple of weeks in May. During their absence, I´m sure they could use a bit of my help at Global.

The English classes at Global have attracted quite a few non-Christians, thus it provides a tremendeous opportunity to share the gospel. One of the student in Jessica´s class, Pati, is a non Christian, who came to join the English class @ Global. Jessica invited her to come to a women´s event at church and she came! After the event, she said to Jessica that the talk touched her heart so much that it felt like it was spoken especially for her. Because of the Uni holidays, etc., I haven´t got much chance to be involved in the English classes, but I´m quite grateful to be able to observe how the English classes are really helpful in building relationships with the non-Christians and in sharing the gospel to them on a personal level.


2. Meet up and encourage the girls from church that I met through Bible Study and Youth Group.

I think it´s really hard to be a Christians here in Queretaro. Evangelical Christians are minorities here. The girls in the youth group don´t usually have any other Christian friends at school. Some of them are really struggling to live their lives God´s way while everyone around them don´t. And most of them are struggling to share the gospel to their friends because they don´t have enough support and encouragement to do it.

In the church where I serve, Iglesia Horizonte, there´s also lack of female youth group leader. Imagine 1 staff worker following-up all the girls plus following-up the non-Christians. It´s just impossible! So while I´m here, I really hope to encourage the girls and the leader as much as I can by meeting up with them to pray and read the Bible. (Even finding time to meet up with the High Schoolers here could be hard, especially when they don´t have that much resources to travel on their own)

3. Get involved in the Student Ministry with Compa (IFES in Mexico)

Because of the Easter holiday for the Uni students, I could only arrange the time with the Compa leader this week. Hopefully, I´ll have a chance to get more involve in the Student Ministry at the Uni that is situated opposite the café.

Prayer Points:

* Please thank God for the non-Christian contacts that the staff here are able to make. Please pray that through this relationship, the non-Christians could get to know Christ and come into relationship with Him.

* Please pray that I may make use of every opportunity I have while in the remaining 5 weeks I´m here to minister to the people God has placed around me.

* Another prayer point is for my uncle in Indo. Please thank God for the second surgery on his brain on Saturday that went well. Please pray for his recovery and most importantly, please pray that he may use the opportunity God is giving to come to repentance.

The Aguas Calientes´adventure

´Be careful of what you asked for, because you might just get it.´ Just when I thought to myself: ´how could I learn to trust God if everything is going so smoothly here?´, God put me in a situation where I could learn to trust him and to let him look after me.

Recently, I´ve been enjoying the resources from a church called Sovereign Grace Ministries (CJ Mahaney, Joshua Harris, etc). I´ve been reading their church members´ blog and found out about their new church plant in Aguas Calientes: Iglesia Cristiana Gracia Soberana de Aguas Calientes. I wasn´t sure if I´d be visiting the church because I couldn´t find the church address anywhere and I wasn´t sure if Carolyn, the blog´s writer, would reply to my request for the church address in time (because I emailed her at the last minute). But she did!:)

So when everyone went back to Qro after the conference, I stayed there by myself. I was really tight on money and I didn´t bring my credit/debit card with me. I insisted on staying despite my tight budget because I thought I´ve come a long way here, it´d be ashamed not to visit the church. When I rang the pastor´s number, I got to speak to his brother, Esteban, who is willing to speak English with me (pheww, what a relief not having to speak Spanish on the phone:)). When I tried to check the direction of the church with him, he offered to pick me up from the hotel and I accepted his kind offer.

On the next day, I was waiting and waiting at the hotel until pass 11 am (the service starts at 11am). But no one was coming to pick me up. It was really hard not being able to contact them and to be uncontactable. Not wanting to miss the church service, I decided to take a cab despite my lack of budget. The cab driver was following the address that Carolyn gave me, but we couldn´t find the church. Having told my situation to the driver, he kindly stop the taxi meter when it got to 30 pesos and went around for the next 30 mins to help me find the church. Finally I asked him to let me off at a hotel so I could ask around. After asking at the hotel, I went around the area and still couldn´t find the church. I asked another people and they kindly gave me lift in their car and helped me try to find the church. Still we couldn´t find the church......

I was stranded on the deserted street of Aguas Calientes with only 220 pesos. I don´t know how much it would cost me to take a bus from Aguas to Qro (It would definitely be more than 190 pesos). If I take another cab to go the Central de Autobus it would cost me at least another 30 pesos and I doubt that 190 pesos would be enough to take me back to Qro. At that moment, the thought of not being able to go back to Quetaro really scared me......

I tried to use the public phone to ring the pastor´s number, but the public phone around there needs a card different from mine and it doesn´t accept coin either. I have my Australian mobile phone, but I couldn´t ring the numbers because I need the city code to make a call from overseas phone. By God´s providence, I was able to contact Antonio, my tech savvy friend in Mexico City. He searched the city code and I was able to contact the people from the church - finally. It turned out that their car broke down and they´re only able to pick me up from the hotel 30 mins before I rang them. But I have already left the hotel and they couldn´t contact me.

By that time, the church service has already finished. But they have a special baptism event on that Sunday and they invited me to join them. So they finally found me and picked me up from where I was. It turned out that it was the first Sunday that they moved their church service to a new location - that´s why I couldn´t find the church!

It was such a blessed experience! I could see how God´s providence was at work in my situation:

- The kind taxi drive who is willing to stop the taxi meter and help me find the church.
- The family who is completely a stranger to me was willing to take me in their car and drove me around to help me find the church.
- Antonio who was happened to be in front of his internet and was able to find the city code for me.
- The kindness and the generosity of the Sovereign Grace family in Aguas: Raul Jaime´s family who picked me up from where I was stranded and gave me a lift to the central, Pastor Elias Reyes and the church family who let me witness their very first baptism and who invited me to have lunch with them, Esteban who welcomed me as a sister and insisted to pay for my bus ticket to Queretaro without him knowing my situation (Esteban kept reminding me to accept their kindness because that´s what the Bible is teaching us: to treat God´s people with that kind of hospitality).

I am simply amazed. God is totally trustworthy and He is always true to His promise to look after His children.

Relationships - A mess worth making?

I love this excerpt from the book ´Relationships - A mess worth making´:

The problem with relationships is that they all take place right smack dab in the middle of something, and that something is the story of redemption, God's plan to turn
everything in our lives into instruments of Christlike change and growth. You and I never get to be married to a fully sanctified spouse. We will never be in a relationship with a completely mature friend. We will never live next to a neighbor utterly free of the need to grow and change. We will never have self-parenting children. We will never be near people who always think, desire, say, or do the right things. And the reason for all of this is that our
relationships are lived between the already (Christ's finished work on the cross as full atonement for our sins) and the not yet (His return in glory).

Here's the point. The hardship of relationships is not just that they can be difficult. The hardship includes what God calls us to be and do in the middle of the difficulty. God
calls each of us to be humble, patient, kind, persevering, and forgiving. God calls us to speak with grace and to act with love, even when the relationship lacks grace and we have not been treated with love. Because of this your
relationships will take you beyond the boundaries of your normal strength. They will take you beyond the range of your natural abilities and beyond the borders of your natural and acquired wisdom. Relationships will push you beyond the limits of your ability to love, serve, and forgive. They will push you beyond you. At times they will beat at the borders of your faith. At times they will
exhaust you. In certain situations, your relationships will leave you disappointed and discouraged. They will require what you do not seem to have, but that is exactly as God intended it. That is precisely why he placed these demanding relationships in the middle of the process of sanctification, where God progressively molds us into the likeness of Jesus. When you begin to give up on yourself, you begin to rely on him. When you are willing to abandon your own little dreams, you begin to get excited about his plan. When your way has blown up in your face again, you are ready to see the wisdom of God's way.

I absolutely agree with the authors. I think relationships in this fallen world is a hard-work. And even when you have worked hard at it, you´ll still experience dissapointments. But I also agree with the authors that despite the mess and the dissapointments, it is still worth it! It´s worth it because God is using our imperfect relationships to mould us into the likeness of His Son. And not to mention God´s good gift of the joy, love, and good moments in relationships. Relationship really is a mess worth making!

One of the things that I love about Mexican culture is the close ties of the family relationships. During the conference at Aguas, I had a chance to spend time with the Cisneros family. The family consists of Snr and Sra Cisneros, Adiel (the youth pastor), Lluvia (the wife of Justin, the missio from US), Jonathan (he didn’t come to the conference), Daniel, and Brisa. Also living with the Cisneros are Axel (the nephew), Abuelita (Sp for grandma), and Tio (Sp for uncle). I love the Cisneros. Their love for one another that is very obvious. I love their generosity and hospitality towards visiting missionaries (they usually invited the missios to stay in their house). Snr Cisneros (se llama Gerardo) is a very kind and Godly father, who loves to listen to audio Bible on his MP3 wherever he goes. Sra Cisneros is a very warm person, who loves to give me a hug. I feel really loved and welcomed around them. And being with them makes me feel like being part of their family.

But as I get to know people more, undoubtedly, we will frustrate each other with our imperfections. The exciting & interesting quirks will become annoyances. We start showing our true selves. We become less patience with each other. That is always the case with any relationships. It is the time when God calls us to continue to love one another (1 Peter 1:22, Romans 13:8, Jn 13:34, etc), to bear with one another (Eph 4:2), and to forgive one another (Col 3:13). It is the time when God is using the relationship with its frictions, struggles, and frustrations to mould us. So yes, even at times like this when relationships are frustrating, they are still worth it!

Semana Santa

I was away from Queretaro for the whole week last week. In Mexico the week before Easter is called Semana Santa (or Holy Week).

We have church conference on Wed-Fri in Aguas Calientes. Monday and Tuesday were our days off before the conference, so Helena (the other intern from US) and I decided to go around and visit places. On Monday, we went to the pyramids of Teotihuacan (1 hour from Mexico City). On Tuesday, we went to San Miguel de Allende with Dani and Brisa. San Miguel is 1.5 hours away from Queretaro by bus and it is famous for being a ‘gringo- town’ because of the numbers of American and European tourists and residents there. I think the trips were a bit of overkill for both us. It was the combination of the tiredness and the bad food that we ate at a café that caused both of us (Helena and I) to be really sick on Tuesday night. I got up 5 times to go to the bathroom during the night and I had to take a 4 hour trip the next morning to Aguas Calientes for the conference. I took the medicines I have and I prayed that I could be healed the next morning - ‘God, I really look forward to go to Aguas for the church conference and to visit the Sovereign Grace church plant. I know you’re able to heal me, so please do so. But if I’m still not healed in the morning, I would be content resting and staying at home and not going. Amen’

The next morning, my stomach was still painful and I thought to myself – ‘I’m still gonna get ready and go to church. If I’m still sick by the time I arrive at church, I’d go back home, but if I feel better then I’d go’ When I got to church, Jessi gave me Imodium to eat and I was ok apart from the remaining little stomachache. So I went to Aguas Calientes with the church members on the Wednesday morning. I survived the 4 hour trip and the rest of the conference *yay! Praise God for healing my food poisoning and allowing me to go to Aguas!* (Poor Helena had to rest at home for the next couple of days, but thank God she is fully recovered now)


The conference went well. We were sleeping in a huge house that
no one is living. There is no bed, so we all sleep on the floor in the
different bedrooms. The conference consists of talks, testimonies, and singing. I still had difficulties in understanding the testimonies, because the people usually speak very fast (especially my Mexican brothers and sisters). But the talks and the songs are easier to follow. I recognized most of the songs from my limited Spanish praise and worship songs collections. The preachers were going through the book of 1 Thessalonians chapter by chapter for the bible talks – I could probably understand 75% of the talks.

After the conference, the church people stayed for another night to go around the city. Then when they left on the Saturday, I stayed another night by myself as I was planning to visit Sovereign Grace church there in Aguas.