Okay, we know that it has been a long time since we last posted and
we apologize. We are amazed at how quickly the last couple of months
have gone. We often find ourselves not knowing what day of the week it
is. Today is Wednesday, right?
Anyway, the last couple
of months have brought with it several holidays - US and Mexican. We had
the opportunity to celebrate the traditional US holiday of Thanksgiving
and the shared holidays of Christmas and New Years. In addition, we
witnessed and/or participated in the Mexican holidays of Día de los
Muertos (Nov. 1 & 2), Mexican Revolution Day (Nov. 20th), Día de
Nuestra Señora Guadalupe (Dec. 12th), and Las Posadas (beginning on Dec.
16th through Jan. 6th).
The first holiday of the
season was the Mexican holiday of Día de los Muertos. This is an
important Mexican holiday that merges Pre-Columbian beliefs and modern
Catholicism. Europe's All Saint's Day and the Aztec worship of the dead
contribute to these two days that honor Mexico's dead (
http://www.mexonline.com/dayofthedead.htm).
On these days, Mexican families visit cemeteries where deceased loved
ones have been buried. They beautify the graves and invite their
deceased loved ones to have a meal with them at the graveside (a strange
concept for most Americans). We should mention that this holiday is not
celebrated by most Christian Mexicans. The day after, Lora and I went
to the cemetery in Matachi. Here are some pictures of what the cemetery
looked like following the holiday.
The next holiday was Mexican Revolution Day (
http://www.mexonline.com/revolution.htm).
The Mexican Revolution was more like a civil war, but was fought for
very different reasons than the US Civil War. This day was celebrated
with a local parade. However, we did not watch the parade because we
were on our way to a remote town to watch a couple of local brothers from
Matachi (Fabián and Adrian Contreras) participate in a rodeo. So, no
parade or holiday pictures, but here are a couple of rodeo pictures.
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| Left to right: Andy, Adrian, Maykon, Fabian, Aleesa, Jevor, and JenJe |
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| Fabian is in the middle and Adrian is on the right. |
Next was Thanksgiving. Because Thanksgiving is a US holiday, most
Mexicans do not celebrate it. However, we were invited to spend
Thanksgiving with a couple of families in Creel, Mexico. These two
families are the Kaemingk family and the Parra family. These families
operate a Youth with a Mission (YWAM) base in Creel. For several years
they have been celebrating Thanksgiving and inviting other missionaries
to join them. In addition to us, the Weiand family were also there. They are
involved in missionary work in a very small village called Rio Chico, a
couple hours north of where we are in Matachi. This gathering featured
at least five people groups - American, Mexican, Dutch, Honduran, and
Tarahumara (and technically Denise Weiand grew up as a missionary child
in Papua New Guinea). There was even a live turkey that was killed and
prepared for the feast. The Pilgrims would have been proud. Here are a
couple of pictures.
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| Maykon's first Thanksgiving |
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| The missionary kids and Maykon playing Apples to Apples |
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| JenJe and Jevor at the YWAM base overlooking Creel. |
The next day we drove up to see
parts of the Copper Canyon (Barranca del Cobre), which offered amazing
views, delicious gorditas (not the kind you get at Taco Bell) and
handmade items from the Tarahumara (a Mexican indigenous tribe). Here are
some pictures.
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| Tarahumara girls selling handmade items. |
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| Tarahumara women making baskets. |
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| Real Mexican gorditas |
The next holiday was Día de Nuestra Señora Guadalupe or the day of the Virgin of Guadalupe (
http://www.mexonline.com/virginofguadalupe.htm). This day is celebrated with a feast honoring Mexico's patron saint. Not much to report on this one.
We traveled to Cuauhtémoc on this day and had lunch with the Fehr family
whom we met at a church in Chihuahua a few week before. They are a
wonderful family who have missionary experience. Celia is from Uruguay
where John meet her while serving as a missionary. They have since
lived in Brazil and Canada. They are now in Mexico because John has
family ties with the large Mennonite population that lives in the area.
Sorry, no pictures of the holiday, but we do remember all of the Catholic churches
being full as we traveled through the small towns on our way to
Cuauhtémoc.
Las Pasadas is a neat Mexican tradition.
It celebrates Joseph and Mary's search for shelter in Bethlehem with
candlelight processions that end at various nativity scenes. We were
not invited to one of these, but we did hear the loud parties that
followed several of them. It did get us thinking about ways that we
could possibly utilize this tradition next year to share the story of
Christmas with our neighbors.
We cannot complain about
spending Christmas and New Years in Mexico, but it was difficult to be
away from family. Our Christmas celebration began December 22nd with a
dinner with the Contreras boys and their mother (including oldest brother Joel visiting
from Parral, Mexico) and their cousin, Christian, at their mother's
house in Matachi. Dinner was followed with a lively game of Spoons. On
Saturday, December 24th we had a Christmas Eve service which consisted
of reading the Christmas story from the Bible and singing traditional
Christmas carols in Spanish. Little did we know that nearly all of the
Christmas carols were unfamiliar to our Hispanic friends from Mexico and
Honduras. Christmas carols are not a traditional part of their
Christmas celebration. However, it was a good service followed by
wonderful food and fellowship. One interesting fact, Maykon, our student
from Honduras, kept telling us that Christmas was on the 24th, while we
insisted that it was on the 25th. At first we thought that he was just
confused, but we were surprised later to find out that it is a Mexican
tradition (and Honduran tradition) to actually celebrate Christmas on
the 24th. It is customary to gather on Christmas Eve and have dinner.
Then, around midnight, presents are opened. As Americans, we typically
open presents on Christmas morning. Therefore a compromise was in
order. On Christmas Eve we opened the stockings that were given to us
from Hillside Missions Organization, and on Christmas morning we open
the other presents that we had for each other and that came for other
people. Also, an additional Christmas present arrived for us at the Chihuahua airport
when Gustavo, our newest student from Honduras, arrived in Mexico. He
is a friend of Maykon's and has been trying to get to the school for
nearly four months. Needless to say, we are all glad that he is finally
here - Maykon is especially happy that Gustavo is here.
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| Christmas Eve gathering |
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| Stockings from Hillside Missions Organization |
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| Trying on our new hats |
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| Goodies from the stockings renamed. |
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| Maykon is adding his name to Jevor's new soccer ball. |
New Years was also interesting. The Vicuña family from Chihauhua came to Matachi to celebrate New Years with us. Prior to their arrival they arranged for Fabián Contreras to buy a lamb. I do not know if this is a New Years tradition, or just something that they wanted to do. Fabián bought the lamb then took it to his father's ranch and with the help of his father they slaughtered the lamb and skinned it. Gustavo and I got to witness this. It was difficult for us to watch, but also strangely fascinating. The carcass was brought back to the school where Gustavo and Maykon cut it up so that it could be cooked. Unfortunately, no one knew how best to prepare and cook the meat so it turned out to be a bit tough, but it was an interesting experience.
Thank you for your prayers during the holidays. We have no doubt that they were instrumental in getting us through the past couple of months. We ask for your continued prayer as classes will be starting again soon. We ask for prayer for Heber, the next student who is preparing to join us soon. He is from Tampico, Mexico. Pray for him and Gustavo as they begin this new step in their lives. Also pray for Maykon as he adjusts to no longer being the only student. En Cristo!
