The impressive work of a small local church

We've had a dramatic week in Monterrey this week. On the 1st of July, Hurricane Alex struck, dumping about 600mm of rain on our area in 24 hours. As a result, there was much flooding, destruction, homelessness etc. We were without power for 3 days and without water for 5. But our problems were pretty minimal compared to those living in neighbourhoods close to us.

And here's where the impressive actions of a little local church come in.

The pastor of this church (not our church, but a friend) lives in a house on the river which he moved into a month ago. On the night of the hurricane he had a foot of water and mud running through his downstairs rooms. That's all gone now, and has been replaced by a small army of people providing food for people in the area who have lost everything.

Three times a day, people from church gather to cook and then distribute hot meals around the neighbourhood - door to do. Kind of like meals on wheels, but its actually meals on gumboots - there is so much mud. When I joined the team last night, we walked carry meals through mud, twisted cars, rubbish and stormwater to reach people sitting in wrecked houses with no power and no water. What's more, it was pouring with rain and the river was starting to rise again - people were pretty tense.

The group from church has been doing this for a week or so, and they will continue to. I asked where the food comes from and he answered 'people just bring it.' Others in the area have realised what is going on and are dropping off bags of rice and other food. Its really quite amazing.

What they are doing is so valuable, because the infrastructure for helping people in relief centres or whatever doesn't really exist here - so its up to groups of individuals to make things happen. Its a great way for the local church to be taking an active, caring role in the community.

Reflections on preaching

I preached my third sermon in Spanish today (on Deut 6:24-25 and 2 Peter 1:1-11 for the record).

Preaching in another language, especially a language which you are still very much a beginner in is a difficult process. For me, I do my usual work on the passage, work out a main point, application etc from which I construct my sermon outline. Then, I write the full text in English and make sure it makes reasonable sense. Then the fun really begins.

I then translate the sermon into Spanish - the dictionary and and verb book get a good workout, practicing pronunciation along the way. I then deliver the sermon, paragraph by paragraph to Lillian, our Spanish tutor who gently, but firmly takes the red pen to it. She points our grammatical errors, helps with with idioms that I might have missed and generally gives it some sense. In my first sermon I think my correction average was about 5 per sentence, but now I am down to about 2 I think.

That correction process will take a couple of hours.

Then, after all that, I need to do some practice - so I can speak the words clearly, with a reasonable accent, acceptable intonation and timing, and even the odd pause or emphasis.

And so, Sunday morning comes and I deliver the thing. I think it goes alright.

So here's the reflection. When I preach in English, I write and use a full text, but I don't need to use it all that much. I know the material, I know how I want to say it and so I do. I can have a lot more eye contact with the people I am speaking to and hence get a much better feel for how people are responding.

But in Spanish - things are so much different, and difficult. I'm so busy concentrating on the words, and what comes next and taking notice of the pronunciation notes I've made, that I hardly have time to look up from my notes. Someone could be having a heart attack in the second row (they actually sit in the second row here) and I might not notice!

And as for having a question or comment time - something I used to love back home - forget it! I am so exhausted by the time I've finished I couldn't put an answer together - and that is assuming that I can understand the question (which I usually can't).

I'm hopeful that in a couple of years I might look back on this and think 'Ah yes - I remember those days' - in a fond kind of 'do you remember that camping trip we went on and it rained the whole time and it was horrible' sort of way. But right now, well, the camping trip is well under way!

The value of solid teaching

For many of you, solid and understandable Bible teaching is a meat and potatoes kind of thing. You have it, its normal, its good for you and it keeps you going. But, its kind of dull - in an inoffensive dull kind of way.

If that is you - can I encourage you to reconsider.

Largely because of the language barrier, meat and potatoes Bible teaching has been missing from our diet for the last 15 months. (Yes, we listen to mp3s, but its not the same). We miss sitting with people and discussing a passage in Bible study. We miss hearing the word expounded to us systematically and carefully and in a way which challenges.

One of the things that has made me realise how much I miss this was that last weekend we went to Dallas for what was basically a church weekend away. It was a small church (50 people or so) but they are committed to careful preaching, and so run a little conference each year. The speaker was excellent, the talks were careful and brilliant and the fellowship outstanding.

We did a round trip of 2100km for the joy of it - and it was worth it.

So - can I invite you dear reader, if you are in a situation where the preaching is meat and potatoes, and Bible study seems like a bit of a grind because 'we just keep reading the Bible' to not feel like it is boring or unimportant and therefore look for something more 'important' or a 'magic bullet'. Keep going, keep working, keep listening and growing - its the way God grows his church and his people.

If it feels to difficult to go to Bible study after work - please reconsider. Its an opportunity to serve and an opportunity not to be missed. If the drive to church feels a bit long, I reckon its not. If you feel like your programs at church need a bit of a spark - fair enough, but don't look for some magical technological fireworks - look for solid food in the taught word.

A report from Spain and England

I've just spent the last two weeks in Spain and England on MOCLAM business. It was a great trip - very busy, but also very productive.

Its always great to meet people who are enthusiastic about providing training resources for Christians, especially in places where the scope of materials is fairly limited (for example, Spain). The friends I met in the north of Spain (Gijon and Bilbao) are keen to be sharing the gospel with people in a very materialistic and 'style conscious' society, which makes their work very difficult. Coming from Mexico I really noticed how expensive everything was, how glamorous most people were and how few kids there were around the place. Apparently the national birth rate (children per couple) is about 0.4. I asked a few people why this was so low, and the basic answer was 'kids get in the way of the life we want.' Hmmmm - no wonder its such a hard field to plough in Spain.

One of the interesting problems we face providing resources into Spain is that Spanish in Spain uses a different word for the second person plural pronoun. This means we need to produce a new edition of our materials, with vosotros rather than ustedes. Fortunately this is relatively straight forward and hopefully can be done quickly.

There is also something of a 'snob' problem providing materials to Spain from Latin America. I'm not sure Spanish people are all that thrilled about being taught by the 'colonies' but hopefully producing the materials locally can give things a more 'home grown' flavour.

In England I had a refreshing time hearing the Bible taught brilliantly at St Helen's Bishopsgate and at Christ Church Durham. It was so nice to sing songs in English - I found myself having tears in my eyes singing 'When I survey' at St Helen's. I'm not sure the trainee sitting beside me quite knew what to make of that!

I had productive meetings with publishers and distributors, as well as meeting some people who are very keen to give money to help the work of MOCLAM!

To top it all off I had 3 days with some great friends in Durham. Just hanging around, playing with their kids, being 'normal' was so refreshing.

My project for the next two weeks is to prepare my teaching notes for a Summer School intensive on Old Testament 1. I have a group of 4 students who I'm going to meet with 4 hours per day for 5 days to do the whole course. Sounds intense? Well, get this. They have 10 days between the end of their exams and the beginning of their summer classes - and they are going to spend 5 of those days with me studying Old testament. I think thats pretty impressive!

Thanks as always for your support and prayers.

CMS Global Vision

Twice a year CMS publishes 'Global Vision' - an online magazine covering topics concerning mission, partnership with CMS, creative ways to be involved in mission - things like that.

The latest edition even has a review of blogs by CMS missionaries!

Can I suggest it would make worthwhile reading??

www.cms.org.au/globalvision

A week in Chile

I've just returned from a great week in Chile. It was a two part trip - each part being quiet different.

I began at a rural conference centre just outside Temuco, about 600km south of Santiago. It was a beautiful spot - a bit like being in rural Tasmania. Green, cold, really nice! I spent the Easter weekend there with the Scarratts and about 35 students studying 'Introduction to the Bible'. Most of the students are doing an Education Degree and this was part of their accreditation so they could formally teach 'religion' in schools (Australian readers - this is the equivalent of School Scripture). It was a great class, lots of questions and discussion and because it was a residential conference there was plenty of time for personal discussion as well (as well as a couple of games of table tennis!)

On Sunday afternoon I returned to Santiago and spent two days visiting various people within the Anglican Diocese in Chile to discuss the ways they are using the Moore College material and learn from them. I stayed with our good friends Michael and Jo Charles - and it was a great time of catching up with them. I also got to feel my first earthquake! It wasn't a very big one, only 4.9 but the epicentre was only 45km away so it was actually pretty strong. Enough to make me put out a hand to rest on the wall and make the glasses clatter.

Of course Santiago suffered a big earthquake a few weeks ago and some of the damage is obvious. In the photo I've included you can see how one bridge shifted. The guide rails you can see used to join up and now are separated by about a metre (horizontally) and about 40cm (vertically).

As always, thanks for your interest and support.

Two worlds in Mexico

Here in Mexico, we live in a country of two worlds. The haves, and the have nots. Depending on which report you read and on which scale they measure, something like 70% of the Mexican population lives in poverty. For example, the between our house and the school the girls are at there is a large 'informal' settlement made of bits of tin and wood where a large number of people live.

But then on the other hand, there is a significant middle, upper middle, and upper class here. Big houses, flashy and frequently washed cars (you can guess who does the washing), pampered children, designer clothes - the whole bit.

Last week I was travelling through Mexico City airport and had a really clear demonstration of the two different levels of living in Mexico.

Like many airports in the world, in Mexico City its hard to tell sometimes whether you are in an airport, or just in a shopping centre with arrival and departure gates. The terminal is wall to wall shops, selling all those travel essentials like large bottles of alcohol, 1.5kg toblerones, designer clothes, sunglasses and watches.

While I waited for my flight I was reading my book (ironically on the topic of money and wealth) and noticed one of the airport cleaning staff emptying the bins. Pretty standard stuff - expect for the fact that she wasn't just emptying the bin, she was sorting it and keeping any scraps that were useful. A half eaten muffin here, a couple of ketchup sachets there. The remnant chips from the bottom of a McDonalds bag and an untouched tortilla. Into her personal bag all these things would go.

Into another bag would be the PET bottles, the cans and any reasonable piece of cardboard - presumably for selling later on.

But what really caught my eye was that as I watched this process, the backdrop was the precisely arranged and brightly lit display window of a top end clothes outlet - full of customers trying on items which if push came to shove, I doubt they actually needed.

It was as if the cleaning lady was a performer who had somehow wandered onto the wrong stage.

Living in Mexico is forcing me to think a lot about questions of wealth, poverty, greed and economics - and scenes like this are certainly adding material to the thinking process.