It's a Boy!

Sunday night Rosa gave birth to her first child, a healthy baby boy! He was born at the Birth Center of the Tarahumara mission hospital in Samachike. We are so very thankful for the thoughtful and careful attention of Shelley, the midwife, and her family. New life is such a miracle!

Rowerachi

Yesterday afternoon, after the Bible study in San Luis Majimachi, Jose Luis and a group of men went to the remote village of Rowerachi to visit. It was a very quick trip, but Jose Luis said that it was good that they went. They took coats and knitted hats that were donated for the Tarahumaras. Rowerachi is off of the more-travelled roads and therefore the people there are always very appreciative of anything they get. There are about 100 people who live there and it has its own kindergarten-elementary school. And although I call it remote, it is not really that far from Creel - 21 miles - but the road is horrendous and it takes close to 4 hours to drive those 21 miles! What makes this trip so special to me is that the Christians in San Luis Majimachi see Rowerachi as their mission field. The Christians would like their friends and families to experience the life-changing love of Jesus.

Don Santiago

Yesterday as we arrived in the village of San Luis Majimachi (SLM), we saw Don Santiago working in his field. What a great example to show how the Tarahumara, at least in our neck of the woods, work in their fields - plowing, planting, weeding, etc. Jose Luis' uncles and mother us donkeys or horses instead of bulls. But I could not resist this opportunity.
Don Santiago has been a Christian for a couple of years now. He had cataract surgery at the mission hospital in Samachike before that and the Lord touched Santiago's heart through the ministry of the eye surgeons, hospital staff, Christians in SLM, and Jose Luis. So Santiago invited the Christians to his house to teach both him and his wife from the Bible. Please pray that both Santiago & Felicita will continue to grow in their faith. Also pray that they have a really great harvest this year (physically & spiritually).

A finger, hatchet, & socialized medicine

I know that health care is such a big issue in the USA these days. After living for the past 14 years in Mexico without health insurance, I have come to appreciate socialized medicine. Now, sometimes it can be very frustrating to wait 4 hours to see a doctor at the government clinic in Creel. I must admit that many times I use the advice of Where There Is No Doctor: a village health care handbook instead of going to the clinic. However, after my experience yesterday, I have a new appreciation for the government clinic in Creel.

My story really begins on Sunday afternoon. I was chopping firewood trying to get some smaller strips of wood cut to use to start the fire in our wood-burning stove (our only source of heat in our house). Winters in the mountains of northern Mexico can be very cold and even now in early March the temperature drops below freezing at night outside. So, anyway, I was chopping wood using our hatchet. Jose Luis always tells me to use leather gloves when I do anything with the firewood, and on Sunday I actually remembered to put the gloves on. I was just about finished with my chopping, but decided to chop up 1 more log into smaller strips to have extra for this week (Jose Luis is in Samachike working on Bible translation this week). Then I did something really stupid - I held the log with my left hand while I chopped with the hatchet in my right hand. YES, I missed the log and got one of my fingers! I am so very thankful for the leather gloves - but the hatchet slashed the first finger of my left hand. I went to the neighbors' house to ask them to check out the cut to see if they thought I should go to the clinic. They said that it didn't look very deep. So I went home washed the gash with hydrogen peroxide, wrapped my finger in a wet cloth, and put ice on it for about an hour. It kept bleeding, so I wrapped it tight with a band aid and tried to keep it elevated. Jose Luis had gone to visit the Tarahumara pastor in San Luis Majimachi when all of this occurred. When he got home, he was not very happy with me (to say the least)!

On Monday morn it was still bleeding and I was getting a bit worried. Jose Luis took me to the gov't clinic and I walked into the emergency room. Jose Luis was still not very happy with me and said that hopefully I would get a BIG shot. When I mentioned to the nurse in the ER that I had cut myself with the hatchet, I was immediately taken into the exam room. The dr. checked it out and said that it had already started to heal - I should not cover it with a band aid. The nurse put a couple of strips of tape to hold the gash together and said that they should stay on for 2 or better 3 days. The strips lasted about 24 hours and now the gash is looking very purple with a bit of red ooze. The dr. gave me antibiotics and sent me for a tetanus shot. Jose Luis would get his wish, I thought. But, I went to the other part of the clinic for the shot and discovered that I was due for 3 other shots - Hepatitis B, H1N1, and seasonal flu! So, I had 2 shots in each arm to go along with my cut finger - yikes! And, I have to go back in a month for 2 more shots.

The cost for all of this (including the antibiotics) was $68 pesos or about $5.50 US dollars. Not bad for a morning spent in the ER & gov't clinic, huh?

YWAM & DTS

I have been a part of Youth With A Mission (YWAM) for over 11 years. I must admit that when I met Jose Luis, I had never heard of YWAM before. However, since 1998 when we moved back to Creel to work with Jose Luis' pastor, Henk Kaemingk, at the local YWAM base, I have learned much about YWAM and now can whole-heartedly support this organization. Here is some information from the YWAM website (http://www.ywam.org/):

Youth With A Mission is an international volunteer movement of Christians from many backgrounds, cultures, and Christian traditions dedicated to serving Jesus throughout the world. Also known as YWAM (pronounced "WHY-wham"), our purpose is simply to know God and to make Him known. When YWAM began in 1960, our main focus was giving young people opportunities to demonstrate the love of Jesus to the whole world, according to His command in Mark 16:15. Today, we still focus on youth, but we have members (known as "YWAMers") of almost every age and many of our short-term efforts have grown into long-term endeavors that have impacted lives and nations. YWAM has a decentralized structure that encourages new vision and the exploration of new ways to change lives through training, to convey the message of the gospel, and to care for those in need. We are currently operating in more than 1,000 locations in over 150 countries, with a staff of nearly 16,000.

The Discipleship Training School (DTS) is designed to help you understand God more deeply, live more like Jesus, and identify your unique gifts and purpose to use in missions. DTS is an intensive, residential training course which begins with an 11 or 12 week classroom phase, followed by an 8-12 week outreach. DTS emphasizes cross-cultural exposure and global awareness, preparing students to answer the call to "go into all the world and make disciples of all nations" Matthew 28:19. The DTS is a requirement for applying as YWAM staff, and serves as a prerequisite to all other training programs. The DTS is offered at YWAM locations all over the world. Some schools have a special focus on particular areas of ministry or nations.

If you would like MORE information, please comment on this post or send me an e-mail. Have a great week!

School is on!

We have reached the end of week 4 of the Discipleship Training School - a big sigh of relief! Jose Luis, Jaynie, and I are all still adjusting to the change in our responsibilities and schedule. This explains the lack of posts during the past month.

To catch up briefly - our DTS began on Jan. 11 with 11 students. We are serving as staff for the school while Henk & Edith Kaemingk are the school's directors. As staff, we have some specific responsibilities (leading praise & worship 1 week a month at 6:30 am, Jose Luis attends all of the classes, I am responsible for the kitchen - menu, food purchase, etc, and we help with the discipleship of some of the students). Our day begins with praise & worship at 6:30 am and ends with the evening meal at 6:30 pm. Saturdays and Sundays are a bit different but still busy. We are so thankful for this opportunity to serve God in this way.

Jaynie decided to try to make her hair curly a few weeks ago. The result was one comb tangled in the hair on the top of her head! I could not get the comb loose and had to cut it out. Jaynie now looks a little like the punks of old, but I think that she is beautiful.

India is more than Bollywood!

I have to confess that I have really gotten hooked on watching Bollywood movies. We watch them in Hindi with English subtitles. I have begun to want to learn Hindi. For whatever reason, I feel this need or desire to be able to communicate in Hindi. Pretty crazy since I live among the Tarahumara people in Mexico (not a hotbed of Hindi for sure!).
Each month, our mission organization, Youth With A Mission, holds a day of prayer on the first Thursday of the month. As I was looking at the resources for this day in December (http://www.prayerday.org/), lo and behold I discovered a couple of articles about India - very interesting! Then, I went to the international website for YWAM, and there found an article about a ministry in Pune City, India (http://www.ywam.org/articles/article.asp?AID=756). This ministry, Vanitashray, seeks to practically serve women and children in this area. In reading the information on their website (http://www.vanitashray.org/), I have committed to praying for them daily during 2010. I would like to invite you to join me in this effort.