La Visita del Gran Jefe

Pictures from la reunion de jovenes at Rancho Nuevo Park (which I wrote about the last time). 1. Some of the girls from my Sun. morning class opening their secret sister gifts, 2. playing fun games together, 3. the whole group

Fotos de una reunion de jovenes en un parque. 1. algunas muchachas de nuestra clase de los domingos con sus regalos de hermanas secretas 2. cuando jugamos algunos juegos divertidos juntos 3. todo el grupo

I have some 1. buenas noticias: Global Missions will soon have two new escuelas de predicadores (preachers´schools) here in the state of Chiapas! J.C. Enlow (director of Global Missions) has just completed 2. una visita in which he made 3. muchos planes for the new schools. David and I met him at the airport in Tapacula on Wednesday night, a city of about 150,000 gente that is about 7 horas de San Cristobal. It took us over an hour to drive to the hotel because there was so much 4. tráfico, but we later found out that there was a fuego (fire) on the street our hotel was on, and all the calles surrounding it had been closed off. So we left the 5. caminoneta in a parking garage and set out on foot to find the nearest hotel that would not be too expensive. Luckily we met the owner at the first one we came to, and not only did she speak perfect English, but she negotiated with J.C. to bring 6. el precio of the rooms down to our price level.

Then on jueves, we met with some of the members of the Tapacula church. We had told David to set up a meeting with the hombres, but many of the mujeres also came. I have a feeling that anytime someone mentions anything about a reunión, the entire congregation feels invited because they expect it to be another culto (worship service). But since the women can help buy and prepare food for the classes each week, it was actually good that some of them came. One of the first to arrive was an older man named Pedro, who had been visiting the church there for about a month but still claimed to be Catholic. When J.C. learned that, he immediately started preaching to him about the beginning of Christianity while I translated. Then David and Humberto (the preacher of their congregación) shared some more 7. versos with the man and explained to him about 8. bautismo. The man doesn´t know how leer (to read), but he was attentive to what he heard. About 10 minutos despues (9.), he made his 10. confesión and decided that he wanted to be baptized right then. So the majority of us carpooled about 20 minutes to the river, the closest location to baptize him. Here are algunas fotos of David studying with the man, Humberto baptizing him, and the rest of us singing 11. himnos along the shore:

We returned to el edificio around lunchtime and had the meeting up until about 4 o´clock. J.C. also spent some time preaching to the men, urging them to start new congregaciones. He was a little disappointed that there are 10 predicadores (12.) yet only 2 congregaciones for such a big ciudad. But I´ve also noticed that the mexicans use the word ¨preachers¨ much more loosely than we americanos. Whereas we only refer to the two or three men who preach on a full time basis and receive a salary as ¨preachers,¨the mexicans may call any man who preaches or teaches from time to time a preacher. José Luis even calls himself a preacher, even though he never actually preaches to the congregation, just works with the young people. I´m not trying to say that there´s anything wrong with so many men calling themselves preachers, I´m just trying to explain J.C.´s initial confusion when he thought that if there are 10 preachers, there are probably 10 separate congregations. At the congregation in Tapachula where we had the meeting, there is one main preacher (Humberto) and two other ¨preachers¨that help him. Humberto will serve as director for the Saturday school there, and all three of the men are willing to teach classes. They are really 13. emocionado about the school so that they can train some younger men to eventually take the place of some of the older preachers in the area.

J.C. then explained more (through my translations) about el dinero y las clases. Each of the Saturday schools receives roughly $350 each month. $100 of that goes to the director, $50 to the secretary/cook (who is responsible for keeping good records, buying and preparing food each week or delegating others to help), and the remaining $200 goes to 14. la comida for each semana. The students typically have one class in the morning, eat lunch together, and then have another class in the afternoon. As long as they offer each class for the correct number of hours, however, the director of each school has some 15. libertad as to the schedule of classes. At the Saturday school in Cacahoatan, for example, los maestros agreed that it would be better to teach each class for two hours for four months rather than four hours for two months. Then the secretaries and directors and I work together 16. cada mes to send the necessary reports to the Global Missions office in Mississippi. I know I haven´t talked about the schools in my blogs much to this point, but if anyone has any 17. preguntas about how the schools work or how the money is spent, etc., please let me know and I will do my best to answer those questions.

On Friday we left early and stopped on our way back to San Cristobal in David´s hometown, ¨Nueva Libertad.¨ Once again we had a groupful of hombres, mujeres, and niños eagerly awaiting our arrival (almost the entire congregation!) Most of David´s family still lives there, and his padre is the predicador 18. principal. However, the men were quick to explain that none of them ever received any ¨training,¨and that four of them (including David´s dad) volunteer to preach, but take turns. For precisely that reason we would like to start another school there! Nueva Libertad is a 19. pueblo of only about 2,000 people, but there is a much larger city about 20 minutes away where we hope to recruit a director, teachers, and more students. We still have some tiempo to decide who the director and teachers will be, where the school will be, etc. since J.C. does not plan 20. visitar them again until 21. el verano. He will first have to raise more support before we can know anything definite. The school in Tapachula, on the other hand, will start classes the first sabado in abril. After the meeting/worship service, we enjoyed eating lunch with David´s familia and a few of the other miembros at la casa he grew up in.

On Saturday we visited for a short time with the students who come to la escuela in San Cristobal from Larainzer, Sofi (la maestra de computación), and los estudiantes in Ocosingo. J.C. was especially pleased with what he saw in Ocosingo. He believes Antonio Sanchez has been working very diligently as 22. el director and as 23. el unico maestro for those students, as well. We have been averaging the highest turnout at the Ocosingo school, 24. normalmente between 20 and 25 estudiantes. Some of them, who live in the jungle, must first walk five horas the Friday before classes, then take a bus three more hours and spend la noche in a hotel. Because Global Missions does not believe in paying the students to study, these students pay for the majority of el viaje out of their own pockets. When la clase ended, Antonio invited us to stay and eat lunch with them. J.C. was ready to go, but David asked me to explain to him that if we didn´t stay and eat with them, the students would feel very offended. Another part of the cultura here is that if someone invites you somewhere (especially to eat), you regard that as a 26. privilegio and don´t make 27. excusas! Sometimes las mujeres spend all day preparing special food if they know that guests will be coming. It´s also not uncommon for 28. visitantes to stay at the host´s home for several hours, eating, talking, and drinking 29. café. Here is a picture of all of us eating together at Antonío´s house:

Los miembros in San Cristobal on domingo also enjoyed hearing J.C. preach about lost souls, 30. evangelismo, and 31. el principio of the church. We spent Monday taking care of some miscellaneous jobs related to the school here, and then he flew out early martes en la mañana. 32. Muy, muy temprano! We actually got to the aeropuerto in Tuxtla una hora before they even opened, and then J.C. had to wait another hora just to check in his 33. maletas!

By the way, if you don´t speak the same idioma as someone, screaming at them isn´t going to help them understand you any better! I had just gotten back to my hotel room on Thursday night when the 34. receptionísta called and said the gringo was saying something, but she didn´t know what. Well the whole time she was talking to me I could hear J.C. in the background yelling, ¨Wake up call! I need a wake up call!¨

Here are pictures from our worship service at ¨Larainzer¨(indiginous community) that I promised 2 or 3 blogs back. First, Dr. John is preaching to them in Spanish with one of their men translating into their dialect. As you can see, a packed house came out to see their new edificio!

The front of the church building, with some of the members leaving afterwards.

David speaking to everyone. Standing next to him are all the men of Larainzer congregation, who are outnumbered by the women about 3 or 4 to 1.

While we had the worship service, all the kids had a special class in the old church building (right behind the new one). Here is a picture of them singing some Bible songs for everyone afterwards:

Spanish words:

Title: ¨The Big Boss´Visit¨

1. good news

2. a visit

3. many plans

4. traffic

5. minivan

6. the price

7. verses

8. baptism

9. minutes later

10. confession

11. hymns

12. preachers

13. excited

14. the food

15. liberty

16. every month

17. questions

18. main

19. town/village

20. to visit

21. the summer

22. the director

23. the only teacher

24. normally

25. the trip

26. privilege

27. excuses

28. visitors

29. coffee

30. evangelism

31. the beginning

32. very, very early

33. bags/suitcases

34. receptionist