A trip South

                To start, I will say that I am sorry for missing my post from last week, the internet has been out since the day that I got back from my trip down south. Until today I have been unable to get online to update my blog.

                 As I was thinking about how to best share the experiences of this past week with you, I thought that perhaps the best way would be to simply copy some of my journal entries. Also, I have decided to take use both this week and next week to cover the trip simply because there was too much that happened to cover in one post.

                Just to fill in a little background information, Ramon, my brother in Christ and fellow missionary from Casa de Esperanza, and I recently traveled to Tepic Nayrit Mexico. Out purpose was to meet and document a mission to the natives of the area. The mission is operated by Pastor Waldo, a Hispanic pastor for Tepic Nayrit. Pastor Waldo reaches out to the Huichol people of Nayrit Mexico. The following is the first part of a two part post about and is taken from my journal of the trip. 

               

We drove all through the night From Guymas to Tepic. It was about 17 hr total. Pastor Waldo met us at the bus stop and took us to his house for lunch of fried fish. After lunch Pastor Waldo took us to see a mission which was just outside Tepic. On the way we drove past numerous sugar cane fields, 60% of Mexico’s sugar is produced here.  There are a lot of Mango orchards too.

                The mission was on the outskirts of a small native village. It consisted of several houses. By houses, I mean structures that looked like the forts that we used to build as kids using yarn and dead corn stalks. The walls were of cane stalks, (not sugar cane, some other type) lined up side by side so that you could still see through them with either tin or palm branches for a roof. The actual area where they have their church meetings is just a large open area that is partly shaded by several large trees. About 50 families meet here for Church. They have plans to build a roof over the area but haven’t been able to yet. They also have plans to build a brick wall around the south side of the property because the neighbor man doesn’t like their services and shoots his machine gun into the air to disrupt their services. There are about 7 families that live at this mission. The purpose of this mission appears to be to train native converts as missionaries and send them back out to their people. Later we met an old native pastor who is 86 years old. He used to be a witch and now he walks 3 days a month through the mountains to spread the Gospel.

                On our way back to the house we met with a man who is printing the Bible into Huichol dialect. Right now there are only 4 Bibles in Huichol. There were more that were printed earlier in the 1900’s but most of them were lost during an earthquake. Right now only the New Testament and part of Psalms and Proverbs has been translated. Many of the native people don’t speak Spanish very well, if at all. Even the younger generation, though they are bilingual are more literate in their native tong than they are in Spanish. Right now they need more money before they can start. I got about ten minutes of interview time with the printer and with Ramon translating. I which I could have known ahead of time that we were going to meet with him so I could have planned out an interview better.

Day 2

On the boat taxi

                Today we picked up several people from the mission that we were at last night. We drove for over an hour and came to a dam on a river. The driver, a man from Pastor Waldo’s church told us that the dam was dedicated 13 years ago. During the dedication ceremony the president of the Hydro Electric part of the government stood there and waved the flag while live children were sacrificed in the fire for the protection of either the dam or the people who worked on the dam…I had a little trouble understanding that part of the conversation… Apparently this is the traditional way for the Huichol to receive protection…

Part of the local congregation posing in front of their church. 

                We got in a boat taxi on the back side of the dam and went about ½ hour up river to a small community. There were 20 families who met there. Their church was a small hut, 12x12 with a roof for shade and no walls. Some of the families had to walk quite a ways to get to church. They have services on Wednesday and Sunday.  I asked several times how many people came to church here/how many people in the area were Christians, etc. Every time I was told that around 30 Christian families here. It appears that in this area there are no individual Christians, when one person gets saved, the whole family gets saved, and in this village, all the families are saved! There are several other villages many hours walking distance form here where there is only one Christian. People walk from here on a regular basis to do ministry there.

A Huchol house on stilts. 

                We had a short service while we were there. Pastor Waldo asked us to share something. I shared a story about orienteering and trusting the map and compass. I compared that to how we have to trust God and the Bible. I chose that story because I knew they would be able to relate to that and I wasn't sure what else they would….

A Huchol Boy posing in a traditional hat.

Day 3

                We drove 4 hours to a native community, 2hr on pavement and 2 hrs on dirt. Before the governor built the road, Pastor Waldo would walk on foot for three days to reach this community…. There was a fiesta in town. It has something to do with celebrating the corn. Apparently there is some demonic traditions that are associated this fiesta, it was unclear what those were however.

                We were shown to the church and met the Pastor. He owns a Huichol Bible. The church was different form the one we were at yesterday. This one is built of adobe. I’m not sure if we got a straight answer on how many people go to church here. I do know though that there are a number of people in the area that are not saved.

                For lunch we had blue, handmade tortillas. They were the best tortillas I have ever had. Along with the blue tortillas we were served chicken foot soup. I didn’t get the chicken foot, but saw one in the bowel next to me. It made me remember all the missionary stories form growing up, stories about missionaries who had to eat bugs, animal brains or intestines etc. in order to not offend their host. The chicken foot soup seemed to be a common appearance in those stories and now here I am eating it! …It was actually pretty good and seemed more normal than strange.

                On the way back we stopped in another village that a Church which is currently meeting under a tree. Their old building was too small so they had to take it down. They are in the process of building the new building. Someone donated all the brick for it, but it is still in Tepic and they need to find a way to get it to their village, which is quite a ways off the beaten path.

                On the way back to Tepic we passed through a village. Pastor Waldo told us that there were no Christians in this village. They had tried to build a church here at one point but had been shot at by either the witch or people who worked for him.

Me posing with a Huchol man who is dressed in his traditional clothing.