Monday, 14 June 2004

• Currently Reading Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 1 By John Calvin see related

  Monterrey 2004

  This is a post from last March or April
  
  

  My wife and I made it back last night. After being in that last bus
  for so many hours, it felt so good to walk that we decided not to
  call a taxi but made the last 4 or 5 miles from the Mexican bus
  station to our house.
  
  

  We found a number of people who were quite willing to take Bibles,
  Testaments and Gospels of John, It is an incredible mission field
  right at our doorstep and I can't help but feel great burden for the
  need down there. Many, many towns - and cities even - have no
  established Gospel witness that I can see. I hope that I am just
  being unduly pessimistic -- but I think I am being reasonable. May I
  make a suggestion for any of you who are going to Mexico for
  vacation? Take along some Spanish Bible and Testaments to give out.
  If nothing else - if you don't feel up to using your rusty Spanish -
  just leave them somewhere. But a good tip is to leave them with
  someone you see reading something else, since that way you know that
  they are able to read.
  
  

  We went to San Luis Potosi (a capital of the state of the same name)
  and attended a very good Presyterian Sunday School. They were going
  over the Westminster Shorter Catechism Q46. This was followed by a
  Scriptural discussion of all the things that constitute sin, drawing
  from the various lists in the New Testament. My Spanish failed me in
  a few places, since they preferred an ancient translation, but my
  wife and I were really blessed by the lesson. Ironic that there is
  so much more Gospel truth going out from this little church (dwarfed
  by the giant cathedrals right next to it and across the street). We
  also actually found a small Christian bookstore in downtown Potosi
  (though it had a mixture of new age and third wave junk as well --
  and a book or two of the obligatory Left Behind series). In the other
  provincial towns we stayed in, like Rio Verde and Tamasopo, we didn't
  see any indication of any Christian work whatever. I was surprised to
  see that that last town actually had a tiny Internet cafe! Those
  things are springing up everywhere.
  
  

  We had a good time over all. I saw a lot of birds and plants. She got
  to swim a lot in the jungly waterfall streams of the Huasteca region
  - Puente de Dios - while I birdwatched.
  
  

  The most modern city, by far, that we visited was Monterrey. It
  reminds me of NYC. They even have a subway. A very clean one. Of
  course it is not as old as NY's. They had posters everywhere of the
  movie "The Passion" scheduled to be seen that very day, I believe.
  There is also a very strong tie-in with the local RCC. But that is
  not surprising - to me at least.
  
  

  The fields are so ready for harvest. I don't know about you, but I
  want my life to count for something. We are already planning to go
  again this Summer with more Bibles. You know what bothers me? A lot
  of sincere Christian young people - God bless them! - come over the
  border and do some good (but transient) work in one of the border
  towns. I have seen, during last year's Spring Break, where different
  Christian groups are cheek by jowl with other American Christian
  groups in the same dusty neighborhood. But how few go deep into
  Mexico to see that they also hear the message. According to the
  Mexican Government website, border regions have 20 to 40 times more
  of Christian exposure than some of the interior regions, places like
  Aguascalientes, Zacatecas, the Huasteca Region.
  
  

  Something else that bothers me is that many Americans, maybe out of
  guilt or something, I don't know - think only of giving Things to
  Mexicans (food, toys, clothes, etc.), but not of Bibles and
  Testaments. Or of their time or their mere presence. Some of these
  towns have Christians that surely feel like Lone Rangers, so isolated
  from other Christians.
  

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