From the Wisdom of Pooh Bear

God is good!   And He keeps us busy!   This past weekend our fourth short-term mission trip came to an end.   We knew hosting trips would be grace-filled as we completed work projects, visited the home bound and shared God's love and preached the Gospel.   What we didn't anticipate was the depth of friendship that we would forge with the short-term missionaries!

As we reflect back over the our journey during these past two months, so many of your faces come before my mind.   Thank you for coming and stayed with us, playing with our kids, and working side-by-side with us building homes, repairing chapels, and beginning the construction of a gym.   Thank you for going on home-visits and meeting our friends and neighbors.  Thank you for your joy in helping with chores and for smiling when you heard, "I don't know, but it will be great!"   Thank you for diving all in, for being vulnerable, for an openness to be stretched, for praying with us, for serving with us, and for saying "yes."

This past year there have been a lot of tough goodbyes and see-you-laters as we left family and friends in Western NY and Southern Ohio and as we were sent out with our fellow new missionaries, literally around the world.   And this summer we learned of a new opportunity to say goodbye.   Even when our lives overlap for only a week, God can touch us in a way that stretches into eternity.  While you may have come to touch the lives of the people of General Cepeda, you also touched the lives of these American missionaries.  Winnie the Pooh probably said it best, "How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard."

Without trying to sound too much like a Hallmark card or some sentimental meme, it is said that people come into our lives for a season, for a reason, and a lifetime.   People come and go into our lives for different lengths of time.   It may only be for a couple minutes in the checkout line, or four years of high school or college.   Maybe forty plus years of marriage or only a week on a missions trip.   Our lives touch each others for a season.

Our lives touch for a reason.   Whether we mean to or not, whether we know it or not, we are learning from each other, teaching each other lessons.   God uses (or even plans) these opportunities to form and shape and teach us.   He reveals Himself in these relationships through these seasons.

And we take each other with us, in our minds and hearts for a lifetime.   The seeds that we plant, the impacts we make affect others for a lifetime.

Thank you for all of you that gave a week of your life this summer to journey with us!

 

Thank you Mallory for putting together the following video which captures not only your experience, but also similar experiences of so many others.

 

Even to the point of madness, I love you, Lord

This week during our third mission trip something changed in my heart.  We were on the final day of three evenings of prayer at a nearby community, La Hedionda.  This third evening was a Mass that was said by Fr. Mark who came down from Georgia with the amazing youth group that is here.  That night the tiny chapel was packed; there were over 50 people there!!  It is always absolutely incredible to me that without any warning we can show up on Tuesday night, ring the chapel bell, and so many people in the community drop what they are doing to pray with us.  Each night there was new faces, and more and more children around as well. 

Like so many other times in life, the Lord is able to change my heart through praise and worship music.  Here in Mexico we try to choose our songs ahead of time, have the words written on poster board, and have someone holding them up when we sing the song so people can see the words.  I often wonder if that isn’t more for us than for them though.  Usually they know the songs much better than the missionary leading the music.  But if they don’t know all the words, or the tune, they sing anyway.  (Dad if you read blog this I want you to know I think of you often…no particular reason.)  ;)  

Before Mass we practiced some of the Mass parts with the people.  By practiced, I mean they taught them to me so we could sing them a capella during Mass.  It was the best thing we could have done, because after that “practice” session they sang even more enthusiastically than usual.  For the other songs during Mass Josh played piano and I played guitar while Elijah held up the poster boards with the words.  When they are that enthusiastic I don’t feel like I am leading the music at all.  Really, when they are that in to it, it reminds me a lot of water skiing.  I am just holding on to the rope and hoping I can hang on for the whole ride.  There was one song I started playing and as a community they chose to sing in the tempo they prefer.  (Which I loved!  I’ll eventually learn to play the songs right).  There was another song where Elijah held up the song sheet and the congregation started singing before Josh and I started playing.  We just joined in with them and picked up the song where they were at.  It took a verse, but they eventually slid in to the right key for the song.  It was amazing and brought me so much joy.  (Yes, I was laughing as it happened, it was amazing.)

I have one song I absolutely love, and this Mass was the first time I actually played it at a rancho visit.  We played it as the meditation after Communion.  The song is called Hasta La Locura.  It is a beautiful song.

Here is a loose translation:

            I may miss everything in life, I may loose life itself

            But I never want to lack the desire to love you to the end.

            I am madly in love with you Lord

            There are no doubts in my heart anymore that I love you.

            I want to love you to the extreme

            Without reservation I want to give myself fully

            Like those who have fallen in love,

            I sing to you my beloved until the end

As I joined the people of the rancho in worship (because let’s be honest, they didn’t need me to lead them) the Lord did something amazing in my heart.  Up until now I have always had to focus so much on the chords I am playing or the words I am saying I don’t actually get to pray the songs.  But at that moment those things were not difficult for me and I was able to just worship like I am able to do with songs in English.  I was able to pray those Spanish words with all my heart.  For that moment I didn’t feel like the foreigner, but that I was able to truly worship with my brothers and sisters in Christ in that chapel.  For that moment there was no cultural barrier, no language barrier, just a lot of us together, in love with the Lord. 

It is moments like that where my heart changes.  Where I am learning how as a missionary I am just another pilgrim walking towards Christ with my brothers and sisters here.  It is making what I have know in my head a truth that connects with my heart.

Quiero amarte hasta el extremo,

sin reservas darme por entero.

Como los que se han enamorado,

yo te canto mi amado, hasta el final.

Hasta la locura te amo, Señor

ya no quedan dudas en mi corazon

de que te amo Señor

 

Rebekah with her new friend, Kenya, from La Hedionda.

Picture and video highlights from the week

 We just completed another busy week with a group of short-term missionaries.   The trip went great!   Here are some photo highlights...

Team of 7-10 year olds boys painting a house that we re-roofed the week before.

Maria and the girls doing a home visit at Chencha's.

Aron with Dora, a woman we meet during Intake.   Click here to hear her story.

Maria giving a teaching on the Parable of the Sower while carrying Rebekah in a sling.

Here are some video clips of this past mission trip and some snippets into our lives.

Susanna (Summers) VanVickle with some of the kids acting out the Parable of the Sower.

Rebekah's first laughs.

 Naomi getting into the hand-motions of Alabare.

 And Aron, well being Aron. 😀

For a future blog post we would like to have our kids answer your questions.   If you have a question that you would like to see one or more of our kids answer in a video, please email us or send a comment with your question.   If your question is selected, you may become eligible to receive a free flour tortilla in the mail!!

Prayer requests...
Summer mission trip number 3 begins on July 9 and will go to July 17.   The group is primarily comprised of a Lifeteen youth group from Atlanta.  May the Lord prepare their hearts in this week ahead!