Day 1: Some stories and a brief gospel tangent

Sometimes days with the least structure can be the most rewarding (this thought is a stretch for me). We went into today knowing we were going to do something involving volibol (let me know if you need help translating that) and a flagpole. We ended up doing... a lot of everything.

The church has procured a huge, 15-passenger van to transport their gringos from A to B; with our team of 13 + a driver + Sheryl, we pretty effectively fill it to the brim. I'm not saying we stand out when a dozen-plus Americans roll up in a giant maroon van...but...yea, we do. We've scraped bottom more than once on the hills here, and had to actually get out and walk a bit to get the van through into one of the parking lots.

Sheryl joined us today, she flew in from San Antonio to start her mid-term mission stint (8 months - a year) and will be spending the week with us. She was unable to come to Querétaro last year because she was getting ready for this trip, but her heart's been in Monterrey anyway, so it was a worthwhile sacrifice.

We started in the mall today, to change some dollars for pesos, then went to have a volleyball "tournament" in a highschool gym. *insert anecdote about van and scraping bottom trying to get into the parking lot* The tournament consisted of half our group jumping in and playing with some highschool students and the occasional adult from our church here (I use the designation "adult" loosely - including myself in this). Though team Duro somehow remained undefeated (way to go Craig and Kaylen), they were the only team with any semblance of identity or unity (hm...maybe it's not so surprising that they won).

So...that took three hours, then we went to Obispado (some background info: Monterrey sits in a giant mountain-bowl, the roads and buildings fill up every available space that isn't a mountain and start to crawl up the side as far as is practicable (sometime more so). This city structure has led some anthropologists to describe Monterrey as "Mexico's cereal" (I use "anthropologist" with all the gravity I previously used "adult"). Ok, back on track: Obispado. In the middle of the mountain-bowl, there's a large hill that has an enormous flagpole on top. We spent some time on top of the hill, playing and talking, then praying over the cereal-city.

My heart always gets overwhelmed when we visit Obispado. To see so much...humanity (oh! the humanity!) stretching out in every direction, as far as the eye can see, is sobering. To think how many people are working, playing, loving, hurting - living - without the "encouragement from being united with Christ, the comfort from his love, the fellowship with the Spirit, the tenderness and compassion..." (Phil 2:1 paraphrase) that we have as Christians breaks my heart. Jesus is our Hope (1Tim 1); he's the thing that has made me able to just hold on and move forward when the darkness in and around me makes me want to give up. And so many people don't have him.

But then I remember: Jesus is our Hope. It's been 9 years since the very first time I came to Monterrey; 7 years since my first trip with my church. And I can confidently say that there is a change in the spiritual atmosphere of this city. The students' hearts are more open; in the churches here (ours and others), people are beginning to seriously reconsider what it is to relate to God. People are starting to feel that no amount of going to the right church, praying the right prayers or doing the best they can to follow the rules is ever enough to rid them of the guilt they carry inside. They're realizing that their solutions aren't sufficient. And it's only from a place of understanding our helplessness that we can actually give control to Christ and let his sacrifice do the thing we can't - make us right with God.

So, there's the gospel. Yea, we prayed and then we went to dinner at Los Generales (it was flantastico). Summary: amazing food, even better people, laughing, snout-licking, salt-and-sugar-roulette...it was exactly what we needed to unite as a team before we dive into the week. 

Oh, so the words in italics are just words that happen in a Spanish accent in my brain (except italics, that's just for visualization).