Saturday, 19 May 2007
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La Barra, May 2007
Dear Children of Grace,
I thought I would write to you about a trip we took in Mexico a couple of weeks ago, partly because some of you ask if I’ve eaten any more chicken toes lately. Well it happened again. Let me tell you about some other things first.
We went to the village called La Barra de la Cruz. If you go from the southern tip of Texas straight south, all the way through Mexico, until you get your feet wet in the Pacific Ocean, you’ll be almost there.
We got there the day before they were going to have a fiesta, a big Mexican party for the whole village, and they were busy getting ready. So we went to another village called Chacalapa. (Don’t these Mexican places have great names?) We set up a dental clinic on the front porch of the village city hall. There were a dentist, a teacher of dentists, and five student dentists, so we could help almost anyone who had teeth.
There were also five other translators, so I mostly got to play guitar and sing Christian songs, and also talk to people. The people were very friendly, and some of them even took songbooks and sang along with me, even a man who had a very nice voice. I got to talk to them about Jesus Christ, and gave out some gospels of John.
That night we slept in our tents in a grove of papaya trees. The next day, the day of the fiesta, we had decided to not have the dental clinic. After all, would you rather go to a party or have your teeth cleaned? We went swimming in the ocean in the morning, and in the afternoon went to the party. There were lots of things to eat, a band playing music, people dancing in colorful costumes from that area, and a contest on horseback where the riders tried to spear little gold rings that hung from a rope across the street. Each gold ring had a girl’s name attached to it, and if her ring got taken by a rider, she got a prize. The littlest rider was probably about 10 years old, and his horse didn’t want to obey him. Everyone cheered when he finally got a ring.
The next day we set up in the new clinic building in La Barra. Once again, I got to sing and talk to lots of people. I gave one gospel of John to a boy named David (they pronounce it Dă-vīd′), and I told him I’d tell him more about it later. Some of us also read Bible story books with pictures to kids.
The next morning I was in the clinic talking with some men who were waiting for their teeth to be taken care of, and then I went outside to sing and play guitar. Every one of the men who was waiting inside came outside; that’s never happened before. I sang a few songs, and then David, from the day before, came along. I got out a gospel of John, and showed him why John wrote what he did. If you’re curious, you can find out in John 20:30-31. Then I told him about how John starts, by talking of Jesus as the Word, and the Light, and the Life, and what that means. Then I told him about how John likes to tell a story about Jesus and then gives some teaching that goes along with what happened. All the men were listening closely, and some who had been passing on the street came over to hear. When I got through, I gave away all the gospels of John I had in my guitar case, and had to send a boy inside to the reception table to get more, because everybody wanted one. You can pray that God will use His word to bring them salvation.
That was the night of the chicken toes. Some of the people in that village do not like us, because we are Christians. Two people who do like us (and there are a lot who like us) are the only Christians in town, and their names are Roberto and his wife Eugenia. They invited some of us to eat with them that night. When we got there, after a little while inside, I took a short walk outside. They called me in for supper, and there at the table, in front of the only place left for me, was the only plate that had a chicken leg, all the way down to the toesies. There were some other plates I could have taken, but I took that one, partly because I have experience eating chicken toes, and because I didn’t want to leave it for anyone else who might not want to eat it. Later on, the other Americans told me that they had sat at other places because they didn’t want to eat the chicken toes. I followed my two rules for eating them. (Do you remember what they are?) [1. Give thanks. 2 Eat it.]
Please pray for the people in La Barra de la Cruz. There are a lot of people there who show the sad effects of sin, and we saw some of it at the fiesta, with even some kids getting drunk. At the same time, I have never seen so much interest there, especially among the men, in hearing about God’s word. We go there because we believe that Jesus has people there who will be saved and will follow him. And that’s what we pray for.
Jim
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