September is my favorite month to live in Mexico. Since Independence Day is in September, there are vendors everywhere selling Mexican flags, and the red, white, and green is all over. It’s a very patriotic time.
This past weekend we celebrated Independence Day by going to a party with the director of the Seminary’s church, and our baby girl dressed up in her Mexican dress. She doesn’t look much like a little Mexican girl, but she is pretty cute.
I spent most of Saturday in the car. I was driving to Puebla, a city about 3 hours southeast of where we live in northwest Mexico City.
I was heading to an event in the “Disciples of Christ Bible Institute” at First Baptist Church Puebla. They invited me to participate in an event to promote the Institute and the new Certificate in Youth Ministry program that we are starting there in August.
I taught a sample youth ministry class and also shared a conference about “God’s Call.” The audience was mostly people who are interested in studying at the institute, so the topic of the conference was perfect for them.
The crazy (if not unusual) thing was that as I arrived in Puebla, I got lost.
We decided to only climb up the pyramid of the moon today. It was crazy because the steps are so big for Benjamin’s little legs, but we made it to the top.
It took us forever to come home. There was some kind of protest going on, so the whole highway was reduced to one lane, and the traffic was crazy (what’s new). Overall, it was a good day. I had fun hanging out with my boys.
This quarter I’m teaching an Professional Orientation to Youth Ministry class to the youth ministry students who will be graduating in June. There’s only 2 students in the class, and they had asked me if we could have class at McDonald’s this week. So we did.
We were sitting next to the indoor playground, and there were a few kids playing inside next to us who were starting to get a little loud. As we were finishing up talking about Personality types, Josue said, “It’s shaking. It’s shaking.” I felt it, too, looked around at the flickering lights, looked at him and said, “Yeah, I think it is. Let’s get out of here.” I think it took us about 15 seconds to realize what was happening and get out.
So we picked up our stuff and calmly walked outside. On our way home we saw people outside everywhere who had been evacuated from buildings.
We later found out, as you know by now, that it was an earthquake of about 7.8 on the Richter scale. By the time we got back to the Seminary, everyone was back in class, and my family was fine, but there were aftershocks the rest of the day, and it was certainly the talk of Mexico.
This was the second earthquake we have felt since we’ve been in Mexico City. Please keep praying for our family as we minister in this area, and pray for the people who were really affected by this earthquake. Most of the damage has been minor, with reports of water shortages and electricity being out in areas of the city.
Oaxaca is also a state in which opportunities for youth ministry training have arisen in the last few years. Juan, one of the graduates from the Seminary program in Mexico City, has returned to his home state, fired up his youth ministry at his local church, and has begun training youth workers for local churches starting with a certificate level program in Puerto Escondido.
When I was in Oaxaca at the end of December, Juan told me that there was an opportunity to start another certificate level course in the capital of the state, and we are looking into the possibilities to begin in February.
“Wa-Hock-a” is how you pronounce the name of the Mexican state that I visited this week (it’s spelled Oaxaca). I was speaking at a youth camp for the Baptist churches of the region.
Saul, the youth leader who invited me to speak at the camp, graduated last year from the Mexican Baptist Theological Seminary and is leading a certificate in youth ministry program in his city of Puerto Escondido.
