We went to church this morning at Obra Nueva, the house church some of our friends are starting here. They invited me to speak at the Easter Egg hunt they had for the families of the neighborhood. It was an interesting concept to have an Easter egg hunt here in Mexico, where it’s not that big of a thing.
I shared the Easter story and how important it is that Christ is no longer on the cross. I’ve been thinking about that a lot. Without the resurrection, the crucifixion doesn’t really mean anything. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says that if Christ has not been resurrected, our faith is in vain. The weird thing here is that Good Friday is more important than Easter Sunday. For me, Easter Sunday is the power of God over the stronghold of death. Like the Bible says, “Oh grave, where is your victory? Oh death, where is your sting?” He lives! Why do we seek the living among the dead? He is not in the tomb. He is no longer on the cross. He is risen!
Last Monday, we took off from Veracruz to go to COJUBASUR, a youth conference in the state of Tabasco about 5 more hours away. The campground was out in the middle of the jungle, and we drove through about 20 minutes of banana tree fields to get there. The place itself was beautiful. But it turned out just like we have always pictured youth camps here in Mexico, very, shall we say, rustic. There were 4 port o poddies for 250 people. The young people were all staying in tents (we didn’t know it would be like this; thus, we brought nothing to camp in). So, we went looking for a place to stay and ended up staying at a “water park” place about 2 km off the main road through cow pastures and bumpy road. We survived the night and made it to the next morning.
We took off to Veracruz on Sunday morning, stopping there on our way to a youth camp in Villahermosa. Veracruz is a beach town on the east coast that’s really popular with Mexicans, especially during Semana Santa (the week before Easter). It takes about 5 hours from Mexico City, and you get to pass through all sorts of cool mountains.
We stayed at a hotel with a great view of the Gulf of Mexico, but we were right on a main road, so the view was surpassed by the noise. Nathan loved the pool, though, with his cool new bathing suit.
We got a chance to go downtown, see the zocalo, or main downtown square. This is my favorite part of visiting most places in Mexico. The buildings are always so cool looking, and it’s a great place to get to see most of the culture of a given place. I even had the lucky chance to get pooped on by a pigeon. We also visited the Malecon, or the boardwalk area where there are lots of vendors. We topped off the evening with dinner at a restaurant on the beach.
Today I got lots done. I finished up the grades for this quarter at the seminary. My students finally turned in their work, and I got to finish grading the papers and give final grades. It always feels good when you finish something like that. The highest grade was 95 and the lowest was 83. Those who turned the work in almost on time got much better grades than those who didn’t, as was to be expected.
I also had lunch with a friend who is working with the youth group at Capital City Baptist Church. I went downtown to meet with him, and we had some good conversation. I’m looking forward to seeing what God is going to do at that church. A crazy thing is that he works about 2 hours away from where he lives. I’ll have to post about that another day.
I also finished up the syllabus for next quarter’s class. It will be a continuation of this past class, and we will be covering some things in more detail. I got my schedule, and I’ll be teaching on Wednesdays and Fridays from 9:25-11:10. That’s a pretty good schedule. Anytime there’s no class at 7 am, that’s a good schedule.
Janell also bought the tickets today to go to Florida for Kelle’s wedding. We’ll be going there the end of April, right around Nathan’s first birthday, so we’ll be able to have a family birthday party for him.
Since yesterday was exams and the weekends are busy with people, we decided to take the day off today and head off to the Mexico City zoo downtown in Chapultepec Park (Click for pictures). It was really fun, and Nathan had a great time looking at all the animals. They have pretty much every animal you can think of. They also have McDonald’s dessert stands. I had never seen that before, but they have them at the zoo.
There’s a cool art exhibit going on here, too, called the cow parade. There are a bunch of fiberglass cows that they have put up all over the city, especially downtown (Click for more pictures). They have been sponsored by different companies and designed by different artists. I was hoping to get to see it, and today after the zoo, we got to see a bunch of them.
We also ate lunch at Hard Rock cafe, which I like a lot, but never get the opportunity to eat there because it’s downtown. So, it was a good day with animals, art, and good food. Of course, the best part of the whole day was getting to spend time with Janell and Nathan.
Check out the “Vaca of Independence” and the “Paris Hilton Cow.”
We just got this picture from Janell’s sister Kelle. Our nephew Andrew plays soccer back in Florida, and his team got runner-up in a tournament recently. I sure wish we could have been there to see them play. They tell us that he scored 5 goals in one game. Amazing! The picture reminds me of when I coached YMCA soccer and basketball in college.
Congratulations, Andrew!!!!
