Brita's First Trip to Mexico

Well, to be completely honest it was my second trip.  My first trip was in May 2000, but that was  our honeymoon ages ago!  This was my first trip to Tamaulipas, Mexico.  It was so fun to finally go across the border and to top it off we were able to do some Christmas shopping.  I enjoyed all of it- the walk across the international bridge, the vendors, the tacos, the sweet bread, and getting to spend time with Josh and our friends from To Every Tribe.  It was a wonderful day!  I'm going to post some pictures below but, all the northerners reading this have to promise not to laugh at how wimpy we southerners are.  It was windy and in the low 40's... I know, pitiful compared to 20 below zero or colder!  But you can come down and visit us in the south arctic.... just saying :)

Brita

 On the bridge over the Rio Grande

Rio Grande River

In Mexico!

We found a Mexican Costco.  That's a big bag of peanuts!

Lunch from a street vendor.  It was so good!

Sweet bread and coffee on our way out.  

It was a good day!

Without Hindrance?

We have been studying Acts and the light bulb went on as our week ended with our assigned biblical text exposition, which for me was the last 8 verses of Acts.  Do you know what the last two words of Acts are?  Without hindrance.  That may not seem crazy to you or me but look at the context.  Paul the great Apostle is in jail, under house arrest. The writer, Luke, ends the book with "proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance." Acts 28:31.  How can Luke end the book that way?  Paul WAS hindered!  Imprisonment and house arrest is a big hindrance in my book.  This would ring in the mind of the reader.  But...  

Luke was writing to Theophilus and the church.  The beginning of Acts opens with the "all that Jesus began to do and teach" and a promise that the few remaining disciples will be witnesses to the ends of the earth.  This seems like an absurd impossibility at the beginning of Acts.  But over and over again in Acts, God is advancing His kingdom through the preaching and teaching of the Word of God.  We see that they preached, taught, repented, believed, and the Lord added to their number, 2,000, 5,000, many, and so on.  In the midst of all of this, there is a constant theme of persecution.  But this persecution is used by God to spread the good news of Jesus to the known world.  So yes, we see Luke is encouraging the church that is facing persecution that this gospel will advance.

It will also advance by the work of Jesus, not by any person.  Paul, by the time Acts was written, may have been dead.  This would have been alarming to the early Christians and make them question what will happen next.  Luke is forceful with these words of "without hindrance" because he is showing God working all through Acts to expand His kingdom from the disciples to many churches all over the Roman empire (see the major markers in Acts 6:7, 9:31, 12:24, 16:5, and 19:20).  But Luke wanted to make very plain that it isn't by one gifted person that this good news will spread and people will be saved.   That is clear with Paul's imprisonment   The point is that Jesus is continuing the work He began to do through the body of believers in the Church.  This should be SO ENCOURAGING to us!  It isn't about me doing everything right.  It isn't about everything going according to my plan (which seems impossible in Mexico).  It doesn't mean that there will be no opposition to this work.   Most of all it isn't based on me at all, but on Jesus and His work.  We get to be little fingers doing His work and we stand amazed at what He does despite our huge weaknesses.

So when I feel so incompetent, when I am bombarded with the things of this life and feel that there is no way this gospel work can be accomplished when there is so much life going on, I can take encouragement that Jesus is working to accomplish His purposes.  What a joy to know we all can be missional wherever we are, in our weaknesses, and the kingdom of God will advance without hindrance!      

DAN'S TRIP TO MEXICO - By Dan McKenzie

 This week I was able to go to Mexico with my dad.   I was expecting heat, but it was cold, it went down to 53 degrees at 8 am!

The dirt road was full of holes.  The first day wasn’t too cold though, that day we went to   “R” and “A” ‘s   house for dinner,

Dan, R, and Dale

We were so excited to have warm drinks!

since I live way up north I had no idea what a Mexican taco tastes like until now, and I would say they are really good!  I have never tasted such good fish!!!!   And their enchiladas are amazing!   What’s really strange is that when we are eating at someone’s house the people who live there won’t eat with us, they would rather eat after.  But  at “R” and “A”’s house they will eat with us. After dinner we had a bible study with “R” and “A”. 

After one of the bible studies with R and family.

The next day we went to people’s houses and asked them if they want to come to a bible study the next day.  One person had a pet wild hog!   

Feeding a wild hog

Still hungry

Most of the houses had chickens and a dog or a cat, many houses had shells, crab pinchers, or fish scales strewn about from fishing, some of those shells were really cool!    One thing I like about going to people’s houses in Mexico is speaking Spanish to people, I don’t know very much Spanish, but I know a bit.  My favorite Spanish word is “frio”, which means, “cold.  Josiah and Elijah Lynam came on the trip with their dad too.   Josiah loved the hammock that was outside. That night we played some card games called “Uno” and “Monopoly deal”.  

Late-night game of hangman

The next day we did the bible study, Mr. Lynam told a bible story to the people.  After that we went to some people’s house and ate dinner there, after dinner Josiah and I played a marble game with some Mexican boys, It is really hard to learn a marble game if the people who are teaching you can only speak Spanish and say “one, two, three and four” in English.  So after that we went back to our house and went to sleep.  In the morning we drove home to Los Fresnos.  I really enjoyed going to Mexico and I would like to do it again!

   

THE LAST MONTH IN PICTURES!

Cornelius's vision in Acts 10

Peter comes to Cornelius

A class period outside!

The gym?

Our team leader showing us how it's done.

Paul "teaching" before chapel starts.

              

Clara preparing for the bush!

Pumpkin Carving! 

Paul gets to use a sharp object! Best ever!

Saw strange sights during lunch break!

Thank you for partnering with us for the advancement of the gospel!

Classroom Training, Village "M" Work, and Prayer

It seems like yesterday I was sitting down to express all that has been going on in the training here at To Every Tribe. Thank you for your partnership in this mission.  You are as much a part of this training and work as we are.  But here it is a month later and my brain is brimming with all the classroom training and continuing church planting work in Mexico that has been done in the last four weeks.  I will separate the blog into CLASSROOM TRAINING, VILLAGE "M" WORK, and PRAYER.

CLASSROOM TRAINING 
(equivalent to 18 classroom credits, plus a week in Mexico every month)

What a blessing to be able to learn from instructors who know the word of God and know that it all points and leads us to worship and adoration of Jesus as King, Lord and Savior.  These men are humble and know that if this doesn't lead to knowing Christ in a deeper more intimate relationship resulting in more love and awe for our God and a love for people, it is worthless.

Classroom time

We had a full week of studying the mission of God in Acts.  What an amazing book.  I never studied it this in depth and when I see God's missional purpose expanding, growing, and widening through the preaching and teaching of the Word of God in Acts,  I was wowed by His mission,  the continuation of "all that Jesus began to do and teach" (Acts 1:1).  Jesus was at work then and He is at work now.  What fuel this is for the fire of missions, disciple making, and church planting right where we are and to the ends of the earth!

We also had a full week of Culture Index with Steve Leston.  Steve is an incredible instructor who taught on individual traits- the ways you engage the world and learning styles- the ways you receive information from the world.  It was incredible to see how different people are with the way they engage the world and learn.  I saw how valuable this information is in team setting, even elder and deacon settings.  For example, some people tend to be more "seeing the world at 10,000 feet, big picture, let's get going," type of people.  They are more of a "Ready, fire, aim" person.  Other people tend to be more "seeing every blade of grass, time to process, calculating,".  They are more of a  "Ready, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim, rest, aim, aim" person.  I tend to be a spreadsheet loving aimer.

Team training

The reality is that when you work in teams, it's possible to discount certain people because of their traits.  I noticed that when we are planning strategy for our Mexico village, I am shocked when some in the group want to "get out there and see what happens".  This is utterly foolish in my mind and I can tend to disregard their input because of that.  I feel more comfortable analyzing and strategizing but may never get to the point of pulling the trigger and moving forward.  God has uniquely wired each of us and we can use this to:

1. Know our strengths and weaknesses individually
2. Understand where each person leans and how they learn
3. Use our individual traits to equip the team to work in its strengths and shore up its weaknesses

We realize that this is just observation of learning styles and traits.  This is a great tool but can be a horrible master.  The Word of God is our authority with regard to defining who we are.  So if we take this too far and say "because I am a big picture person, I don't have to worry about details" we are turning observations into interpretations and now the traits are the authority over us.  It was a good caution as we worked through this in our Mexico groups. What a great and exciting thing it is to start working out and thinking about team dynamics before we are out in the mission field full time and have so many other pressures on us!  A true blessing!

The week before we left for Mexico was spent going over the biblical theology of missions.  This helped us see what the Bible says about missions from Genesis to Revelation.  It really blew me away how right from the first chapter in Genesis God is beginning to reveal His plan of redemption.  It isn't something that comes out of left field in Matthew 28:18-20, it's written as a continuous, growing thread throughout the entire Bible.  I won't give you all the class notes but it has been a great time seeing how the Bible isn't 66 independent books put together, or even Old Testament and New Testament.  It is one story, pointing to one Man, who did everything we couldn't do!

Beyond this, we continue to have great prayer times, chapel together, and small groups, along with staff mentoring.

Clara and Easton helping out in Chapel

This brings all of the knowledge into the practical and worshipful reality of walking with Christ in community every day.  I have to remind myself of the gospel every day.  I am not sufficient for anything today.  I need Jesus every day.  Not for what He gives, but for who He is.

Trip to Village "M"

Praying before we leave for Mexico

I just got back from our four day trip to village "M".  Every time I think about the opportunity to go and continue the church planting work in "M" I am amazed.  We get the privilege to learn all about the bible, who Jesus is, and gain a ton of valuable tools that we can use for long term mission work.  But we get to do that work now.  We are learning and doing at the same time.  That makes everything so real and immediately practical.

On our way south!

My heart has been growing for village "M" even since the last trip.  In between trips and classes we are working in our teams to identify the greatest needs of our village, how we can pour out love to them, and disciple the three known Christians in the small fishing village.  

Morning at "M"

We had Gary Weaver, the Field Training Director, with us to interpret.  We are still actively (though not as active as I should be) learning Espanol.  We had dinner with a couple "N" and "E" the first night. (Just a clarification here.  I only use first letters not because there is any danger to the people we go to, but as an extra precaution for us as we travel in difficult areas.  It is not always necessary, but is always good practice).  Gary was able to have a good conversation with "N" and "E" about who Jesus really is.  We were able to visit some of the 75 or so people in the village over our four day trip.  A privilege for me was to lead the bible study for "R" and "A" with their daughter.  We had given some homework on a passage of scripture from Luke 5:1-11.  With the teaching on observations last month, we continued to build on the homework we left for them. 

  I love this picture because it reminds me of "M" and the only way anything can happen in this village, through prayer.

 It was exciting to see the husband "R" get excited about the observations they had made.  They started to see who Jesus was.  It was cool to see that "R" was really learning not so much from us, but from his own observations and talking them through to a logical conclusion. Though I realized that a Bible study with a translator is difficult and can be slow, (which makes me want to learn Spanish so much more) it is the living and active words of God that open peoples eyes and His Spirit that helps them understand.  So cool!  We were able to have another bible study the following night and it was rich again.  It is hard to strain for words you recognize in Spanish while people are talking or you try to speak but I've found that people are so forgiving if you mess up trying some word or phrase and that gestures and body language speak volumes!  "R" and his wife continue to ask us to stay longer and teach more to them.  I would love to do that and at the same time it's great to have them start to see that they don't need us to teach them all the time.  As we learn, we teach them and hopefully they will be able to start sharing with those in the village.    

FAMILY LIFE

Brita will be doing a post on family life soon. So stay tuned!

Friends over for a movie

PRAISE/PRAYER

• We are so thankful to be down here learning so many things!  Please pray my head doesn't explode or get buried in all the homework.
• Praise for another opportunity to go to Village "M" and see the growth and excitement of "R".  Please pray for all the people in the village who have no church close and live on very little.
• Praise that Brita is getting the homeschool routine down and settling into the new normal.
• Praise that the kids are making new friends here. Please pray that we would hold these relationships loosely.  One of Dan's really good friends will be going back to southern Mexico in a week or so.
•  Praise that our monthly support is getting closer to our goal.  We are now at 71%.  
• Prayer for homesickness twinges.  We miss our friends and family a lot. 
• Pray that we would continue to connect at our new church.

We are so thankful for each and every one of you!  This is exciting to share this mission together!  Please email us at joshandbrita@gmail.com with any prayer requests you have or just to say hi.  We would love to hear from you!

Evie, Nutty and Nut say goodbye!

At Home Thursday 10:30 am

Just a normal day at home for the kids and me. 

Clara has been able to finish her school work so fast lately that she is already free to play. 

Dan is reading a biography on C.S. Lewis and Paul is reading The Sword in the Tree by Clyde Robert Bulla.  

Evie is having fun with her duckies.

 

And the "dishwasher" is running ;) and I am hoping to get a shower at some point today!  

 Josh is in class.  At noon we have Ekklesea which is our small group. Then back to class for Josh, more school for the kids, a nap for Evie, and some house work for me. We are also gearing up for Josh's second trip across the border. He is hoping to find a small battery operated fan because he had trouble sleeping in the heat last time. We northerners can be pretty wimpy ;) 

Brita,

 for the McKenzie Clan

First Trip to Village "M"

Team M (Me, Dale, Natalia, David, Kyle, and Shaye who didn't go this trip)
Natalia and I are the only first year trainees on our team
Seriously this WAS the best shot of the team 

I am sitting here just amazed at the last 4 days!  I will try to give you a brief overview of this past week.  (Huge side note- the previous week we had Russ Kennedy speak with us for a whole week on the theology of the heart.  It was an incredible class and really wonderful to look into the Bible to see what God says about our heart, not the "thing" inside of us but our beliefs and wants that shape our world view.  I am still processing all that was in there for me.)

Monday:
We were supposed to have classes until noon and then head off to our villages.  With hurricane Ingrid making landfall just south of the villages we were going to in Mexico that morning, it was decided that we should wait until Tuesday morning to see what the hurricane would do and how bad the rain would be.  So we shifted gears and had a full day of class studying Acts in mission.  There is always work to be done here and never an afternoon to be wasted.

Tuesday:
We met at the suburbans and after looking at the reports and a call to someone close to the area, it was decided to go.  So our team of five loaded up the red suburban and headed off to village M (for safety we won't say the names of the villages we go to or the real names of the people we visit with). 
I can't say exactly where we went, but through surprisingly dry conditions (except for a portion of the road) we made it safely to village M.

 

                   

We arrived and began cleaning the house we are able to sleep in while we are in M.  It is awesome to have a place to sleep that isn't in tents. 

 

We are continuing the church planting work started years ago.  There are two Christians in the village we know of for sure.  There is no church for them to go to.  Can you imagine that?  We have trouble picking the church we like the best.  They don't have that choice in their area. 

 

So the rest of Tuesday the second year students took us around the village meeting those who were out and about.  We are blessed to have Natalia with us on our team.  She is a fluent Spanish speaker and does most of the translating for us.  It was great to meet with different people and hear that the hurricane didn't do any damage to their houses or boats.  Most of the houses are made of wood or concrete with a sheet metal roof and approximately 15'x20' in dimension.

We ate with "Roger" and "Abby" (again, not their real names if you couldn't tell) the first night and had a delicious meal.  They are the known believers in the village and it was great and hard to see that they desperately wanted more teaching from the bible.  They want to know more about Jesus and be able to share with their neighbors when they come to them.  Abby talked about how the village seems to come to her when there is a crisis and she wants to know how to help them with more than just the immediate calamity.  She and Roger are both hungry for teaching. 

 We got back to our house at dark and used our headlamps since there wasn't any electricity.  I must have caught a flu bug because that evening I spent the next 3-4 hours really sick outside.  But God was gracious to me and the next day I was ready to go(a little slower than normal though).

Wednesday:
After normal chores getting ready for the day and devotions we again set off to visit more people.  It was great to be able to visit with some of the people the second year students hadn't seen since last May.  It seemed like half of the conversations turned to spiritual things and it was good to know there is interest in the gospel.  This is a fishing village and most of the people survive by fishing.  The fishing hasn't been very good the last few years and most are hoping the hurricane will help bring more fish closer to shore. 

I had the privilege to pray for "Oliver".  We were able to talk with him for quite a while about life and what it means to follow Jesus.  He knows some things about God and Jesus and it will be exciting to pour into him and the other people in the village over the next 8 months.

We ate dinner with Roger and Abby again that night.  In the span of a day they became more open with us and we also started conversing more casually, using our translator when we could, or if they were in conversation with someone else we would communicate with words and gestures and pointing and laughing.  It made me want to dive into Spanish (and charades) all the more!

Finally, after dinner we sat down with Roger and Abby for a bible study.  We used some of the many awesome tools we are learning at school.  We showed them in a practical way how making simple observations of the text of scripture can really bring out great insight and understanding of the meaning in the text.  I wish I could have captured how, just like us in school weeks before, they were starting to see how observations of who, what, where, repeated words, and so on really help us understand what the writer was trying to convey.  They asked great questions and the interaction was so good!  Natalia was exhausted but she did great and our first study was a big success.  We left them with some homework and another text to study while we are gone.  God was so good to us.

Thank you all so much for the prayer during the week.  It is awesome to be a part of the ongoing church planting work here and know that your prayers and support are reaching people in Mexico.  What a privilege to do this with you all!

Praise:

• The hurricane didn't have any effect here in Los Fresnos or in our village!
• We had a fruitful first trip into Mexico.
• We are here.  It still seems crazy!

Prayer:

• Please pray we can continue to disciple the very few believers in village "M".
• Pray that we can give an opportunity for the whole village to hear the gospel.
• Pray I will be able to keep up with the mounting assignments and reading we have! Yikes!
• Pray Brita and the kids will continue to firm up their homeschool routine and daily living here.  
• Pray we continue to raise financial support.  We are currently at 65% of our monthly goal for living expenses. 
• God would be glorified and worshiped through all of this!