Coming to a church near you - FBC

I got some great news today. We have been offered two of the Missionaries that will be attending the World Mission Conference here in Connecticut in September. They will be available to come and lead worship here at First Baptist Church on that weekend. I immediately accepted her offer.

So on September 21 Doris and Ricardo Mayol will be with us. They are professors at the Baptist Seminary of Mexico. Their primary task is to bring theological education to the poor in the remote villages in the southern tip of Mexico in conjunction with the Mayan Intercultural Seminary at Chiapas, Mexico. This is a regional center of the Seminario Bautista of Mexico, the headquarters of the Mayols’ ministry.

Here is a letter they wrote about one of the first trips they took when they started this ministry.

Cal

Ricardo travels a lot to reach the indigenous communities. Sometimes it takes four to seven hours to get to the places where our brothers and sisters live. Whenever we can, both, Mari­a and I go along with him but due to Maria's schooling it is difficult because she will miss too many classes.

However, I want to tell you about our first trip to El Jardi­n (Garden), a town in Simojovel which is around six to seven hours from our place. To get there you wake up early (around 6:00am) and take four vehicles. If you delay you will miss the truck from Simojovel to El Jardin that usually leaves around 11:00am! Some brothers came to Simojovel to meet us and escort us. We will have our first session on a Liturgy course at El Jardi­n. The last vehicle is the most interesting one as it is an '˜adapted' old cow-carrying truck with pipes over your head, so that you may be able to '˜hang onto something' and not fall during the traveling. It took us three and a half hours to get to El Jardi­n on a road literally paved with rocks! Imagine the jumping! We were 27 souls bumping into each other, but basically we were able to keep our places. We passed corn fields (milpas) ready to harvest and rivers. The sun scorched us pretty good and the bottle of water lasted until half the way.

Finally, around 3:30pm we arrived. They received us with pozol, a watery crushed corn mixture slightly fermented. It was cool and sweet and we gave thanks in Tseltal and Tzotsil, Wokolawal! As you know we work with the Baptist Seminary of Mexico that serves around 40 indigenous churches throughout Mexico. In Chiapas there are 26 churches speaking two Mayan languages '“ Tseltal and Tzotsil. The community of El Jardin speaks Tzotsil.

During the afternoon other pastors came. They walked for over nine hours to get to El Jardin because they didn't have the money (around $5 dollars) to cover their trip. We spent the next four days with the pastors and leaders giving the course and in the afternoons and nights with the brothers and sisters of the hosting church. We had activities for the children, bible studies and of course we preached. Mari­a our daughter helped us with the children showing them how the creation story called us to be caretakers of creation through songs and dramas.

It was beautiful to share with the women in the kitchen. I learned to 'tortear' (to do almost perfectly rounded tortillas '“ and I emphasize 'almost perfect') with my bare hands! While I did one, they did three!!! We shared about our children using corporal language but once in a while I had the help of one of the young men that translated for me. We laughed a great deal (more they than me, I guess I was funny in my attempts to communicate!), but we did understand many things about each other in spite of the language barrier. To be a missionary you do have to relax, make fun of yourself once in a while and enjoy the moment!

It always impresses me the way our brothers and sisters give themselves to us, sharing the little they have in gracious giving of love. Our brothers are coffee growers and you know that the prices have sunk so much that it is not even worth to pick the beans. For every pound of coffee beans they receive 40 cents! Intermediaries will sell each pound for 2 dollars getting 4 times what they paid to the growers! These families do not have enough to eat, and life is difficult. Yet, there is always a plate of fried beans and tortillas. There is always a space to sleep, be it the soil floor, the hammock or the church's bench. There is always a genuine prayer that embraces you and makes you deeply feel the presence of God. The children have a loveliness, an innocence far more beautiful (far more sad) when you realized how small they are because of malnutrition or why they run to embrace you barefoot due to their precarious life. They caress you, tenderly striking your hair, inviting you to play or to sing endlessly, and above all they truly make you feel part of the community. For Antonio, Pascuala and the rest of the church at El Jardi­n, living is the greatest gift, not possessions, nor investments, nor fashions. These barefoot children are testimony of both, our lack of justice to the world and the people's resilience in spite of the need, of illness, or war, to live, to dream and to share the joy with those who dare to come closer.

In the midst of a world shaking with birth's pains the look in the eyes of those who are different, and who suffer because the links we have built greatly benefits us, clearly reflects the eyes of Jesus. We hope that in this Christmas, we could be able to build new links of hope. We count on you to do this with us.

Rios sko'tayat! God bless you!