Mexico Part Two

This last week has been a very special week!  My team has had the huge privilege of going up into the mountains (along a very very long incredibly bumpy road) to work amongst the Cora people, who are descendants from the Aztecs.  We drove for hours and hours to the village of El Congrejo in the state of Nayarit, working alongside long term missionaries Jay and Faith from the States as well as Mexican church leaders.  About 40 families live in this small community along with lots of dogs, cows and other creatures!

I had the immense privilege of being able to visit families in their own homes (social work prepares you well for this!), pray for them and invite them to the activities which we helped organise.  We ran an event for the children (they really liked musical chairs!) but were quite reserved when acting out the Bible stories (nobody wanted to play a bad guy!).  The Mexican team then distributed food and clothing for the families as there has been little rain (so very little crops harvested) and its about to get very cold in the mountains (the Cora people wear the donated clothes under their indigenous clothes).  It was great to see many Cora people wanting prayer and to learn more about the Christian faith during our time with them.

On the way back to base camp (where I gained the most ridiculous number of mosquito bites and the rooster started crowing at 3am!!) we met the Catholic priest who is now in his 80s who has devoted over 40 years of his life to bringing hope and education to the mountain communities.  Under his leadership, children now have the opportunity to study from primary to university level.  We decided that he was a male version of Mother Teresa and you could just see the wisdom shine through him!

The last couple of days have been spent in Guadalaraja in the state of Jalisco, working with Fuega Mexico.  As well as being able to share at various church services, I was given the opportunity to help teach English..putting my TESOL qualification to good use!  We’ve all had some down time too so I’ve been able to use the internet and visit Lake Chapala, Mexico’s largest natural lake.

Soon we’ll be off to Mexico City which sounds pretty big….!

Funny moments:

-          Hearing Rick Astley play in a Mexican bar (I only had a lemonade honest!)

-          A sign for no parking which read: Estacionarse

-          Being escorted by the police to one of our destinations (I think they probably wanted us off the road after we nearly caused an accident with our fleet of vehicles!)

More difficult times:

-          Learning that my friend Ian is sadly no longer with us – I’m dedicating this post in his memory

-          Missing friends in the UK

Sleeping statistics (since we started):

Bed (that fits various descriptions including potato sacks!):  10 nights

Trailer tent:  8 nights               Concrete floor: 3 nights                 Tent: 0 nights (hurrah!)

Love and miss you all and thanks for reading!