-All the people I love
-The spirit of their church
-Extended times with God every morning*
-Tacos
-Our magnificent casita
-Nights on the patio/courtyard
-The way Don Ismael talks to other cars when he drives
-The way Henry tells stories
-The way Savannah cared for the team
-The way Rachel kept us praying
-The way Rose kept us laughing and encouraged
-The way Eliana kept us on mission and served the church
-The way Alexis shared insights and encouraged sustainability
-The way it feels to be in Monterrey
*Why miss it? Just keep doing it, no?
Monterrey STM
Saturday, March 19, 2022
Day 9b: What I Will Miss About Monterrey (don't read into the order)
Day 9a: Travel Update
Day 8 (Friday): Uncertainty Avoidance Index: shook
Last day of outreach means I felt very conflicted. It would be easy to phone it in, but I felt confident God had plans for us today, so I was very excited to get on campus. We left late and had bad traffic and some things had me caught in my head, so I felt kind of discouraged by the time we actually got to campus, but we got there right around the time we wanted to start doing outreach.
WAIT, THERE'S A HOLE IN THAT PART OF MY NOSE TOO? It was weird, amigos, they didn't stab me in my brain up the nose, they went horizontal. Like above my pallet. I think they may have flossed one of my teeth on accident. It was weird.
PRAYER
-for the universitarios here to keep doing outreach and follow-up
-for the people we met to see the love of Christ in the people of this church
-for safe travels and good debriefing for our team
-for wisdom and discernment for Savannah and I
-for the future
Thursday, March 17, 2022
Day 7: A Prayer*
We went on campus, we talked to some people.
We talked about how to engage with culture as believers with Hugo (hopefully helpful)
We went to a futbol game (the Tigres women's team). We had a new person come! Ramiro came to the game! (thank you for praying!) Also, I don't think anyone was sick today!
We thought about how it was interesting that in a church where there aren't a lot of strong up-front women leaders, we came with team of powerful women of God, and we came during a week of on-campus protests for women's rights to be respected.
We had some excellent tacos tonight after the game and it seemed like a really sweet time for Ale.
Spark notes version because I think I mostly want to use tonight for some prayering blogification. I haven't done this before, maybe it'll be weird, maybe it'll be cool. I'll throw in pictures and prayer requests at the bottom. Feel free to skip it, it's mostly for me.
Father,
I feel incredibly grateful today. You know and you see my heart, but there's something good about writing it out anyway. Thank you for a chill day today; for easy conversations and good weather and for letting us see some fruit. Thank you so, so much for putting it on Ramiro's heart to come to the futbol game tonight and thank you that it was Roberto that did the follow-up and Hugo that connected best with him. Thank you that Eliana and Hugo and Alexis got to spend some time having a second meeting with the girl they met the other day. Thank you for making tonight so sweet for Ale and letting her and Quintin really shine.
-for us to dependently walk in step with the Spirit
-for more of our new friends to come tomorrow (friday) night
-for our church friends to do connection and follow-up well
-for God to lead us to anyone he has left for us to meet in our last day at Mederos
-for energy for my team
-for negative COVID tests tomorrow afternoon so we can come home :D
Day 6: It Was Actually My Blood.
or: I have not been Identity Stolen-ed
or: Another Good Day
or: We Didn't See Any Bears
or: Just Left of Center
It's been brought to my attention that I had a lot of typos yesterday. I almost just went in and fixed them all, but it seemed better to me to leave that for history. I stopped counting at 7 typos.
I am fine. Don't worry, I haven't been kidnapped, it's not a secret cry for help, there's no hidden message in the typos. I think I'm really tired. I think I'm really language tired. Here's a photo of me (with a date-stamp) from this morning to prove I am alive and well.
I don't feel tired. Like, at all, but I had a billion typos last night and I can't even function today.
So, I woke up, got a shower (because our water comes back in the mornings), and spent time with God.
I read some in Luke, had a brief crisis of understanding about the wine/wineskins thing (which we got over with some help from the team), read some in Proverbs (instead of two wolves inside of you, he talks about two women calling out: Folly and Wisdom), and read some in 1 Corinthians (in 12, he says we have been given the Holy Spirit to drink. Idk what that means, but I like it. I welcome your thoughts). I'm kinda all over the place in the Bible right now.
"Thanks, Sam. Your etymological factoids are what keep me coming back to this blog."
-for our new friends to come hang out with us more and connect well to the church
-for more gospel conversations
-for our team to not be sick (literally 1(or more)/day since we started)
-for strength, focus, energy, willingness for us to finish strong
Tuesday, March 15, 2022
Day 5: Don't Stop Praying!
Fuimos al campus de Uni, and waitied for our universitarios to join us. We decided to save our training/discussion time until after lunch, since they aren't able to get there as early as we thought. While we waited, the team played cards and Savannah watched them with proud-mom face. I paced around, wanting to do something.
I've felt a weird push this week that my role is to create space and let the team fill it. I so want to DO the ministry, but right now, I think the ministry is layered. I'm creating space for the team. The team is creating space for our universitario partners. They're the primary ministry-doers. Which is exactly what's needed here. We're a spark, a push, a wingman. Ours is the joy of the friend of the bridegroom (John 3:29-30).
After lunch, Cristian se fue, and since he left, we came back home with Hugo and did our conversation there. It was really powerful. Alexis and Rachel shared some thoughts on our devotion to God. This seemed like it was a whole paradigm shift for Hugo. It was a good reminder to all of us (especially me (I am Martha)), but it was new to him. Ale joined us near the end, just in time for us to pray. Our prayer time was heavy with the presence of the Spirit. If you don't know what I mean by that, I pray you get to experience it in prayer or worship soon. It was powerful, there were some tears.
-for continued encouragement
-for our new friends to COME TO SOMETHING
Day 4: (Monday) - I Didn't Ruin Everything Today
Y'all. I am sleeping really well here. My bed is the perfect amount of firmness, and my back really likes it. I'm using a pillow, which is confusing, but not unpleasant.
Woke up, felt good, read some Romans. Prayed a bit. Sat outside and sang a bit. Had a couple of teammates come join me on our patio, which was nice :)
After some breakfast (banana this time), we had a team meeting and got ready for the day. Our team does a great job of sharing deeply and vulnerably in our times and praying together. I wonder how much of that is the fact that it's primarily made up of powerful Jesus-loving women, without any their-aged guys to make it feel some kinda way (if you're reading this and you're a woman and you go to FC, sign up for Women's Retreat fr though).
Anyway. We went to the UNI campus today. We arrived and waited for our universitarios from GranCo to join us so we could do a miniature heart/paradigm sort of training/conversation I had planned. They didn't come for a while, so we paired up and got started.
Rose and I walked around and saw a girl who looked unbusy and so we decided to talk to her. ...but she was inside a fence. So, we walked to where there was a sidewalk that crossed where the fence line went. ...but it was fenced, too. So, we followed the fence line and then walked around a building to get to the other side. ...but that was also fenced off. Who was this young women, and why was she so casually protected? (it was a very short fence, but it felt rude to step over it) So, we walked until we found a break in the fence. Oh! it was a COVID fence! We had to temperature check and get hand sanitizer before we could enter the department's area for its students. So, we got hand sanitizer and scanned our temp (36°, suckers). ...but then a guard appeared out of nowhere and asked us (en Spanish) what department we were from. I explained who we were, and he said "wait here." (again, in espanol).
Nervous. Were we in trouble? Is this where I get us banned from campus. We've been asked not to come to certain campuses before. Oh good, first day. So much plan changing (this is Uncertainty Avoidance, for those following on Hofstede). Blech.
A lady came out from the office; very professional, very no-nonsense. Then she smiled at us and offered to tell us more about their department and give us a mini-tour and maybe connect us to students.
Oh good, I Didn't Ruin Everything Today. (roll credits).
Oh yeah! Cool thing, before we paired up and went out: when we got to campus, we noticed that there were a lot of signs and graffiti and tents set up in their front plaza area. As we got closer, we saw that the signs were all very well made and taped in nice rows to the giant torch statue (la flama) in the front of the university. Also, the areas that had been graffitied had been wrapped in seran wrap first, so that nothing would be damaged. Wow, what a thoughtful, well-organized, yet powerful protest. We looked at the signs and the protest was the women on campus protesting against sexism, sexual abuse and harassment, and general badness directed towards them.
Moving forward, during our mini-tour, Rose and I found out that Cristian y Hugo had arrived. So, we bailed and went to find them. Rose and Cristian paired up and I went with Hugo. He and I had a pretty chill conversation with a guy from a different campus, who was studying to be a nurse. He bit on 0% of the subtle things I put out, and when Hugo straight-up asked him, "so, do you want to learn about the truth of God?," he let us know he wasn't interested. I loved the boldness though.
Got lunch, tried to sit on the ground on the civil engineering side of the outdoor lunch seating area and were told we couldn't. When I told Rose, we decided that wasn't very civil of them. We all split up and ate at different tables inside. I sat with Cristian y Hugo, and picked up about 15% of the conversation. Whew, it was moving fast. We talked about guns in Texas for a minute, then I think it was mostly school stuff for them. But it was cool that we got to just chill in the same space.
A couple of other pairings had really good conversations! "I've been looking for a church to join and so has my boyfriend. I used to go to church, but have questions about a relationship with Jesus." wut. Praise Jesus.
We had a couple of people who we thought might be coming to our casita that afternoon to hang out, so we went home to rest a little and prepare the house in case they did. They didn't, so we hung out for a little while with Henry y Hugo, then we went back to campus and did more outreach that evening.
Our pairs in the evening had some good conversations with some strong Catholic students. One of our teams had people immediately redirect them to ask for their thoughts about Mary. I wonder if, for these students, this is the same thing as students at A&M asking about evolution or homosexuality. I think when we try to get access to deep spiritual things, or it gets too personal, people can try to move the conversation into a topic that is more of a theological/philosophical/whatever debate in order to distract from their heart. When that happens, I think it's good to briefly address the topic, but move back into the realm of the heart. It makes me think of John 4:16-24.
Hugo y yo had a great conversation with a Catholic guy who seemed very aware of the gospel, and was very open to talking. It was a whole mood though. A little ways into the conversation, he busted out his cigarettes and passed them around (our group grew a little while we were there). So we sat and smoked cigarettes and talked about the gospel and how God wants our hearts, not just our behavior (not "we smoked," (@mom) but you follow the mood i'm expressing, yea?).
Did you know that in Spanish you wouldn't say "no problema," but instead you would say "sin problema?" I learned that.
I think Monterrey is like Pittsburgh. It makes a lot of steel and very tangible things that are part of the foundation for Mexico's economy. DF, for example is mostly computers and politics. So, Monterrey: steels / DF: steals.
"Thanks Sam, your comparisons between the cultures of cities in Mexico is why we read your blog."
I thought as much.
We came home. Ale joined us (!) and Henry ordered us pizza and we hung out and talked. While, waiting for the pizza, all the women went into one room to play a game and encourage one another and all the men sat in the other room and talked about how toilets were made out of clay with plaster molds made from wooden molds. We also talked about the Bible. Again, it was a whole mood.
We ate pizza, we talked more. The hermanos left and our team debriefed the day and prayed together. I think we're feeling a little discouraged right now about our outreach. I also think that may be (at least in part) my fault (stronger word maybe than I mean) as a leader in the expectation I've inadvertently set. Our outreach and conversations are really, really encouraging to me. We're doing exactly what I'd hoped, but I think maybe our expectations for ourselves as a team are higher than they maybe need to be? Though the language barrier is more intense this year than I've ever seen before, and that can also be discouraging.
After our prayer time, I did get to have a couple of very good and encouraging conversations, and even saw some stars from our patio. In the middle of the city. Who knew?
Ok, pictures and prayers. I don't have any pictures right now, so it'll be an animal I imagine. Also, I think we're back to left-aligned prayers today:
-for us to walk in step with the Spirit!
-for us to have God's perspective on the work we're doing
-for God to connect us to people who are hungry for him!
-for protection from being sick and stuff
-for more universitarios de GranCo to do outreach with us
-for the students we are partnering with (Cristian, Ale, Quintin, Roberto, Diana, Hugo)
-for schedules to line up with the people we met today (Monday)