What the Students and New Converts Have in Common…

While my family was here, we visited a nearby Ingidinous comunidad called ¨Zinacatan.¨ As part of the tour, they showed us many of the traditional clothing they make and wear there (remember that each indiginous community has its own attire). Since José Luis and I were about to get married, they asked us to model these traditional bride and groom clothes. I look fat because they wrapped so many layers of heavy fabrics around me!

After a hectic December, I feel like my January has been a slower mes of getting settled into the new casa, getting used to being a housewife (I´m still working on that one!), getting back to old routines, and just taking things easy.

Sleepover in the School (Pijamada en la escuela)

To start, I hosted a slumber party for the girls from church. It was something I had wanted to do for a while, and just hadn´t been able to. Most of them were still on vacaciones from school. Eight girls came in all, and six decided to spend the night. Some of the girls 1. honestamente acted like they had never spent the night at a friend´s house before. I had told them to bring a blanket and pillow, and none of them did. They also told each other when they arrived that they were just going to stay until 11 o´clock or so. But two of the older girls showed up later with their sleep gear, and the rest of them started to change their minds. At 2. medianoche they finally decided that they would stay, and some of the girls who live closeby went to get more 3. cubijas and 4. almohadas for everyone. They wanted to play game after game after game! We played every one I had prepared, and some I had to quickly think up on the spot (that I was remembering from the sleepovers of my preteen days). Oddly, none of them were interested in seeing peliculas. We did not go to bed until 5 a.m. I think all of the girls really enjoyed it (including me!), and some have even asked when we can do it again.

Girls from church racing down these huge slides at a local park (muchachas de la iglesia que estaban teniendo carreras en estas resbaladillas en un parque)

School Visits (Visitas a las Escuelas)
I have also been taking advantage of this month, before I start teaching Inglés on los sabados again, to go and visit each of the preaching schools. First I went to Ocosingo. About 15 students were present, and Antonio, the director has been giving the students preguntas to help them think critically about the passages they read. Many of the students in Ocosingo started out in other religions, so they are not entirely familiar yet with the 5. doctrina of the 6. Nuevo Testamento. Antonio let me know, however, that just about all of them have gotten baptized since they started taking the classes.

Students from Ocosingo eating lunch together after classes (Estudiantes en Ocosingo comiendo juntos después de clases)

Last Saturday I travelled to the coast of Chiapas to visit the schools in Tapachula and Cacahoatan. The students in Tapachula also appeared to be very 7. motivados. They have several good instructores who attended preacher training schools in other parts of Mexico. I am a little worried about the situation in Cacahoatan, however. Fransisco, the director, was telling me how stressed out he feels trying to balance out the demands of the school, the church, and his family. He has cut back on teaching in the school and has not been able to recruit new estudiantes because of it. Although most preachers here earn little to no salary, they work at another 8. trabajo during the day and devote nearly every noche to Bible studies, house visits, and worship services. Francisco was telling me that he works from 7-2 every day in a middle school, goes home and grades papers, conducts worship services for the church in Cacahoatan every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday night, and spends every Monday and Thursday night in visits or Bible studies. Now he feels like being at the school all day Saturday has taken away the only time he has to spend with his familia. I think he also felt a little discouraged that he doesn´t earn more dinero from the other miembros for all his hard work.

Students having classes at the preaching school in Tapachula, Chiapas (Estudiantes durante una clase en Tapachula, Chiapas)

Unfortunately, his discouragement has rubbed off on the entire escuela. When I arrived on Saturday, there were only 5 students (all of them between 13-15 years old and family members of Fransisco), and they finished classes at 12 :30. The first time I visited this school, there were about 20 eager students present, they had four different classes and four different teachers, and they did not finish until about 4 p.m. (the ideal ending time for them to receive 9. credito). This problema—that many of the students quickly get burnt out and for some razon don´t want to continue studying—is one that has affected all of the schools. In Ocosingo, some of the girls got married and then didn´t come back. In Tapachula, some live far away and just didn´t want to pay the weekly transportation fares. In Cacahoatan, many of the teens graduated from 10. la preparatoria and left home to study in other universidades.

New Ideas (Nuevas Ideas)
Nonetheless, we continue to do everything posible for the students who really do care; who really are working 11. duro to finish the 12. programa and graduate. We are planning to have a 13. graduación for the first grupo of students in Mayo. The escuelas in Cacahoatan and Tapachula are only about 40 minutes apart, so I think I will suggest to Global Missions that we combine the groups into one to keep the students from getting discouraged by the small numero. David attended a different preaching training school also, and he says he is the only one in his class of 20 who is still preaching. But David also reminds us that for just one person, the school is worth it—like the one student we have right now who is preaching full-time for the congregation in Cintalapa, Chiapas.

Although we have had similar results in San Cristobal with the asistencia, David recently started up the clases 14. otra vez with a new group of students—most of them jovenes from church. The original idea of the schools was to train young men who want to be predicadores, then send them out to start new congregaciones in other partes of Chiapas. But there really aren´t very many muchachos who want to be preachers full time—mainly for the reasons I already mentioned, that they receive no 15. sueldo and feel constant 16. presión tending to the necesidades of the church and their family at the same time. There are a lot of men who LIKE to preach…but they view it more as an occasional actividad than as a job, filling in when needed and volunteering to go and preach in newer congregations every now and then—as long as someone gives them money for their 17. gasolina afterwards. With the exception of David, very few manage 18. recibir the funds necessary to dedicate themselves to the obra 100%. Anyway, for the first few años, the directores tried and tried and tried 19. persuadir men to come to the classes—all to no avail. Somewhere along the away the focus seems to have shifted from young men to teenagers. I think as long as the schools can keep a group of students, that´s better than 20. nada. I have not been able to attend any of the new classes in San Cristobal yet (since they also decided to change the 21. horario to only Saturdays), but so far between15-20 have been coming. Let´s hope and pray that the schools will continue and that those of us who play a part will not feel so 22. facilmente discouraged.

Teens from church and I at one of the girls´house to celebrate her 14th birthday (Yo con algunos jovenes de la iglesia en una celebración de cumpleaños)

Struggles of New Converts (Obstaculos de los Recién Bautizados)

The problem of poor attendance is prevalent with new conviertos, as well. Back home, when someone gets baptized it´s pretty likely that they´ll stay in church because a.) they grew up in church and their whole family is Christian or b.) they have a good group of friends at church who can 23. constantemente 24. estudiar with them and encourage them. Most of the new converts here, on the other hand, have no ¨support system¨to keep them going strong. David told me that there have been cinco baptisms since the start of the year, but of those I think maybe only one of them is still attending. So many of the gente here seem to have the idea that bautismo is something they do only to be saved and don´t seem to understand that their Christianity is a 25. carrera and could come into jeopardy at anytime. Many never attended church before in their lives and have a hard time developing the habito of going to church every Sunday morning—much less the other times there are worship services. From what I have seen, the biggest reason that new Christians don´t come back is family. Those who have close amigos or familiares at church participate more and stay motivated, whereas those who come by themselves and barely know the other members start to drop off 26. poco por poco. So many of the converts we have had in the past year never came back simply because their family members from another religion pressured them and caused them to question our form of 27. adoración.

Update on Marisol
I´m worried that that´s exactly what´s going to happen with Marisol. The first few months after her baptism she attended nearly every worship service, but since then she has cut back little by little. Now she only comes about one Sunday morning out of the month. She is the only one in her family who is a cristiana. I know her family members have pressured her, because every time I visit her she has doubts like, ¨Such and such a person said they do x thing in x religion and why don´t we?¨ On one side she has devout Catholics influencing her, and on the other side well-versed Pentecostals. To complicate matters even more, she moved to another house a few months ago that is much farther away, and she often uses that as an excusa for not going to church. (I have not been able to visit her as much because of it). Her other excuse is always that one of her kids was sick. José Luis warned me that even if I visited her, that was no guarantee she would come back to church (because the same thing has happened to his family numerous veces). But I told him that it was at least worth a try. This time, rather than preparing a estudio of my own, I asked her ahead of time if there´s anything she wanted to know more about. Fasting. Just as I had expected, her Pentecostal family members told her that in their church they fast every Saturday and wanted to know why we don´t. I honestly didn´t know a lot about fasting before I began to prepare the study, but she told me afterwards that I explained everything really well and she understood it all much better. What a relief! I also left her a handout 28. leer and told her to let me know if she had anymore questions. Nonetheless, she still did not show up for church again on Sunday.

The situation with Marisol is similar to that of many new converts. Sometimes it´s hard to know when to draw the line. When do we stop visiting and calling and inviting them to come back to church? When do we leave them alone and move on to someone else? When do we feel like we´ve done 29. suficiente in helping them obtain 30. salvación? As José Luis says, ¨If we are the ones who are supposed to be encouraging the others, who is going to encourage us when WE get discouraged?¨

Thank you, as always, for taking the time to read this blog. Don´t be afraid to share your opinion about anything I have mentioned; I would love to hear what others think or hear about similar experiences.

My mother-in-law taking a bite out of her birthday cake, a birthday tradition in Mexico. (Mi suegra comiendo una mordita de su torta de cumpleaños)

1. honestly

2. midnight

3. blankets

4. pillows

5. doctrine

6. New Testament

7. motivated

8. job

9. credit

10. high school

11. hard

12. program

13. graduation

14. again

15. salary

16. pressure

17. gasoline

18. to receive

19. to persuade

20. nothing

21. schedule

22. easily

23. constantly

24. study

25. race

26. little by little

27. worship

28. to read

29. enough/sufficient

30. salvation

Our Big Day--AmeriMex Style

After a long absence of planning for the wedding, spending time with my familia, going on a honeymoon, and moving out of the school, I am finally settling back into my normal actividades.

The Pelfreys come to Mexico

My family arrived on Dec. 9. It was the first time I had seen any of them since Junio, and it was really great being able to spend tiempo with them, if only for a few días. It was also their first time to meet their new son-in-law/brother-in-law! We spent the first three days of their viaje waking up early and visiting various tourist 1. locales in Chiapas. We were able to see Palenque, (the Mayan 2. pyramides), two 3. cascadas, two indigenous comunidades, and the cañon del sumidero ( big canyon), as well as a few things here in San Cristobal. We contracted a 4. agencia de viajes ahead of time, who provided us with a 5. horario and 6. conductor for everything we wanted to do. My family stayed in the school. (Actually, I spent the week before they came cleaning up in the school, setting up more 7. camas, etc.) Of course, they had to get used to sleeping in the cold without heat and throwing their toilet paper into the trash can…but I think other than that they really enjoyed everything. I also really appreciated having them here to help me with last minute wedding 8. detalles. Without them we would have never gotten the reception hall decorated in time!

All of my family eating supper with part of José Luis´extended family in their restaurant

My brother-in-law Joe, sister Amanda, nephew Nathaniel and José Luis inside a cave

Here Comes the Bride…
The wedding also turned out really nice. We got married on December 14, Sunday, at 6 p.m. (Actually, the invitations said 5:30, but that´s only because Mexicanos are notorious for arriving at big eventos at least 30 minutes 9. tarde). First we had the ceremony in the church building. As I have mentioned before, this part is known as the ¨acción de gracias¨ (action of thanks) because 10. predicadores here don´t have the legal right to marry the couple. There is no music and no ushers, and it is basically just a regular worship service except with a sermon aimed more at 11. matrimonio. My 12. cuñado Gerardo preached. With the 13. excepción of David, who led hymns, only family miembros participated in the worship service, both fathers and all 4 of José Luis´brothers. The entire wedding was a clash of Mexican and American tradiciones. I had no bridesmaids, but we did have a flower girl and ring bearer. The tradition here is for the bride to walk to the church from her house, and she designates one boy and one girl who carry her train the whole time. I did walk to the church, but only from a short distancia; and the kids didn´t help with my train. Instead of marching in to ¨Here Comes the Bride,¨ the church sang a 14. himno that they reserve only for bodas. They also sang the same song for the recessional. All of the jovenes and niños lined up to blow bubbles at José Luis and I as we marched out. Mexican parejas don´t leave before their guests like we do, but I really wanted to have the traditional grand 15. salida with bubbles. So we decided to change the 16. orden a little and do it in the church. And we did not ask the adultos since they have never done anything like that (and there was little espacio). After the ceremonia, we left together in a 1956 car (pictured below), went quickly to a photo studio for our big picture together, and continued on to the hall.

The Reception

By the time we arrived, the other guests were already waiting for us, and several of them lined up to clap as we entered. The hall we rented had a really nice yard outside with a long brick sidewalk (where we walked in), benches, tall 17. arboles, and several playground activities for the kids. We were blessed that the weather was unusually warm for December. Mexicans believe that for any celebration they have to eat a big meal and get really full, and otherwise it´s not worth their time. So before we even started with supper, we first had to provide 18. botanas and 19. refrescos to every table. José Luis´family owns two 20. restaurantes (Mr. Taco), and we were lucky to have the entire staff from one of them to prepare the food and serve the guests. Our 21. cena was a Mr. Taco speciality. Before José Luis and I could even sit down, everyone immediately approached us to hug us, congratulate us, and give us the gift they had bought (another Mexican tradition). That entire proceso took 30 minutos or more! Then José Luis´ aunt and uncle (our ¨padrinos de anillos¨) presented us with our rings, we read a poem together in English and Spanish, and showed two photo presentations. We could not receive the rings in the church building because normalmente the exchange takes place after the judge reads the marriage 22. contracto (in the civil ceremony).

Odd Customs

Another costumbre here is for the guests to take all of the decorations afterwards (including everything that is on the table) as a ¨souvenir¨of the wedding. Our theme was ¨From now until eternity¨, and we worked really hard for months and months to make all kinds of star decorations to hang from the 23. techo and put on the 24. mesas. Also we gave star magnets with our initials on them as party favors. But just one party favor is not enough! After spending all day Sunday getting the hall decorated exactly how we wanted it, everything got taken down in less than ten minutes! We were planning on using some of the things again in our American wedding, but oh well! José Luis´dad, who is a welder, also made 40 ¨anafres¨--little miniature steel grills with an opening in the bottom to heat food using coals, and 4 grips to set a plate of food on top. We had known all along that he would either have to make new ones or that the guests would take all of the ones they use in their restaurants…but of course there was not one for each person, and some people were practically fighting over who was going to keep them! The waiters could not even refill the anafres at some tables because the guests refused to relinquish them!

Oh, and Mexicans also have the terrible habito of inviting people who aren´t actually ¨invited.¨ For example, their great aunt Tess comes to visit and they say ¨There´s this wedding that I´m going to…and by the way, you´re invited too.¨ Plus, you pretty much have to count on the whole church arriving here—including those who have been ¨missing¨ from services for two months. It´s not like back home where only those from church who know you the best feel comfortable attending. There were at least 15 people at the wedding whose 25. caras we had never seen before. Another 20-30 we kind of knew, but not well enough to invite them; and we have no idea who did. The church building fills up on Sunday mornings with about 100 members. And the hall we rented had seating for 200. Knowing how Mexicans are, we rented enough tables and chairs for another 30 people to sit at the reception—just to be 26. seguro. Well I don´t know how many came in all, but the church was more packed than I´ve ever seen it, and the extra tables and chairs did come in handy at the reception. Plus, the kids were outside playing the whole time and didn´t really have chairs. So I think at least 230 people came—and we only invited 180.

Not so Nice Surprises

It is very 27. obvio to me that Mexicans have not yet learned to respect the 28. deseos of the couple. José Luis and I worked so hard and spent so much money planning how to decorate the church…only to arrive one day before the wedding to discover that the ladies from church had decided to surprise us with decorations of their own! Surprise they did! What are we going to do now, I thought, and why did they have to use pink and red, of all colors??? Some of the ladies must have worked for horas sewing new 29. cortinas, so of course there was no way we could take them down. I know they did it out of the goodness of their hearts with good 30. intenciones; I only wish they had let us know about it ahead of time!

Also, I mentioned that the Christians here don´t use musica in their bodas. We respected their wishes by using only hymns in the acción de gracias and thought it would be okay to play some romantic English and Spanish love songs in the reception. Think again! We were careful to select only songs that had no profanity, inappropriate 31. contento, etc. and played the CD on a very low volume, but even so that was still just too much for some of our Christian 32. invitados. We left the hall for 10 minutes to go take pictures, and by the time we came back, one of the preachers had forcefully replaced our homemade CD with Christian acapella. Being in no mood to argue, we finally just gave in and ended up listening to hymns the rest of the noche. I have noticed that one problem of many of the Christians here is that they don´t understand when something in the Bible is literal and when it is relative. So evidently many believe that when the Bible says to ¨sing and make melody in your hearts,¨ it means all the time, whether we are in a worship service or not. Despite their old fashioned ways, José Luis and I wish they had held out and been more respectful and mature for dos horas rather than causing us to feel so angry and frustrated on our wedding day.

Lame Wedding Services

Another thing that really gets to me is that contracts basically don´t exist here. You know how every wedding book or wedding magazine ever made recommends to get a contract for every wedding service you use well in advance with dates, times, 33. condiciones and prices thoroughly accounted for? Doesn´t apply in Mexico. We ask for a contract, they shrug and say they can´t do that. It amazes me how uninterested some of the people are here in good money and good business! We followed the ¨advice¨of starting to search for a photographer and florist a few months ahead of time—all to no avail. The first time we went, everyone was nice and willing to help us, genuinely interested in our business. ¨We don´t work on Sundays, but we will make an exception!¨ ¨Sure, we can give you a disc, no problem!¨ ¨Yes, we will be here on that day and your flowers will be ready the day before!¨ But when we went back to ¨hire¨them, it was a different story; ¨Nope, sorry, we don´t work on Sundays…and we´re not going to be here that day anyway.¨ ¨Why don´t you just find a friend or family member who can take the pictures for you instead?¨ (Yes, the actual ¨professional¨ photographer told us that!)

To make a long story short, we ended up hiring a different photographer five days before the wedding, and a different 34. florista just a day before the wedding…all because everyone kept changing their word, and upping the precios. The first florist that we had hired actually forgot all about our order! They were going to give us all different flowers (all uglier) and charge us the same price because they had run out of the ones we wanted. ¨That´s the whole reason we placed the order in advance!¨ we yelled in astonishment. Frantic, we started walking through the mercado until we found another flower merchant (NOT florist) who had enough flowers that we liked. We weren´t even too concerned about the colors at that point, we just wanted to find some that looked good and be done with it! I was practically holding my breath the whole time since many of the merchants were left with only boring white flowers due to the Virgin of Guadalupe day just two days before. I think it was only luck (and God´s providence) that allowed us to get our flower arrangements in time with flores that we were happy with. But being so leary at that point, I bought individual flowers for my bouquet and made it myself rather than depending on one of those goons to do it for me!

All in all the wedding was fabulous, and nothing to complain about. Click on these links if you would like to see more pictures:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2046931&l=d5a65&id=64506233
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2046989&l=f7e92&id=64506233

La Luna de Miel (The Honeymoon)

We spent our honeymoon in Hualtulco, Mexico, a spot on the Pacific Ocean about ten hours from here known for its nine beautiful bays. One day we took an all-day boat tour of the bays. We also got to snorkel, ride a banana boat, visit an ecological area, and go 4 wheeling through the jungle. Of course, we also swam a lot and ate a lot of seafood! The honeymoon was very nice and relaxing, and it was very hard for us to come back to freezing San Cristobal afterwards and resume our normal activities! Ever since we got back we have been busy moving things into the cabin we will be living in and getting it fixed up how we like it. (I will put some pictures on here once we finish with everything). The cabin is very cozy, the perfect size for two people, and just a five minute walk from the school. Also José Luis´family owns it, so we are very lucky that we don´t have to pay 35. renta. The only bad thing about it is that I have to get used to walking outside to use the bathroom and sink, and also to wash dishes. (We do have plumbing and the bathroom in not an outhouse; it´s just not directly attached to the rest of the house.) As my mom said, Mexicans built bathrooms ¨as an afterthought.¨ Even so, I am so happy living there just because I now have a wonderful husband who is always by my side, and who makes living in Mexico much more bearable. A Mexican Christmas

This year was the first time for me to be away from my family and out of the country during the holidays. As most of you already know, the Christians here don´t believe in celebrating Christmas. So my ¨Christmas¨was just like any old day. It felt really weird…but I really did not miss the gift giving and everything as much as I thought I would. I think I actually missed Thanksgiving more than Christmas and New Years! I missed my family, of course…but not as much as usual since I just saw them. José Luis´family did take advantage of the two nights they closed their restaurants, Christmas Eve and New Year´s Eve, for all of us to eat supper together (something they don´t normally get to do since they have to be in the restaurants every night).

I also got to experience the holidays from the viewpoint of another cultura. For Mexicans, Christmas is much more of a religious holiday (which is why the Christians here don´t feel comfortable celebrating it). Starting on December 1st, young people from Catholic churches all over Mexico run from church to church with a torch in honor of the virgin Guadalupe. At each Catholic church they come to, they leave one of the torches. They travel by truck and take turns running a distance of about 1 mile each on the 36. carretera. Each relay team decides what their final destination will be and finishes running there on December 12 (the Virgin of Guadalupe day). I really think they put more emphasis here on the Virgin of Guadalupe than on Christ or Santa Clause.

At midnight on Christmas Eve, families eat a big meal together. What they eat varies from family to family, but they do traditionally drink ¨ponche¨ (like punch, but hot). They start shooting off firecrackers in honor of Christ´s birth. Then, from what I understand, Christmas day is similar to our tradition of opening presents early and looking to see what Santa brought. The main difference is that instead of having another big meal together, they eat leftovers from the night before. Then many of the families like to go out and do something together (have a picnic in the park, go swimming, etc.) which is why a lot of 37. negocios here open on Christmas day (including Mr. Taco). It seems that New Years is not much different from how we celebrate it.

I was a little disappointed that the church did not do anything for New Years; but José Luis and I did at least go to one of the local 38. parques with some of the teens. We played soccer, kickball, volleyball, ate together, and also had races down huge metal slides. It was lots of fun.

Prayer Request

J.C. Enlow, who oversees the preaching schools here in Mexico, fell 14 feet from a hunting stand last week and is in critical condition. He has had several surgeries but has improved very little. Please keep him in your prayers.

1. locations

2. pyramids

3. waterfalls

4. travel agency

5. schedule

6. driver

7. beds

8. details

9. late

10. preachers

11. marriage

12. brother-in-law

13. exception

14. hymn

15. exit

16. order

17. trees

18. snacks

19. soft drinks

20. restaurants

21. supper

22. contract

23. ceiling

24. tables

25. faces

26. safe

27. obvious

28. wishes/desires

29. curtains

30. intentions

31. content

32. guests

33. conditions

34. florist

35. rent

36. road/highway

37. businesses

38. parks