Jon in Mexico

New English Classes

I began English lessons last week with another family in my neighborhood. This was the first family with whom I have used the “Good News English Lessons” (GNEL). The GNEL is a method of teaching English that Pete Campbell, my fellow missionary and brother in Christ, developed to use the Bible to help teach English. It is the story of salvation, directly from Scripture, in simplified English sentences with pictures. The student first looks up the Scripture passage in their Spanish Bible, reads it and then puts it in his own words. Then one or two sentences, with picture included, are read in English and the student must “fill-in-the-blank” wherever there is no word. What is so neat about it is that just about everybody in Mexico has a Bible in their home and considers themselves at least “somewhat” religious. Therefore, asking them to dust off their own Bible and use it to learn English is not as offensive as one might expect.

Half of the class is a grammar or vocabulary lesson and the other half is the GNEL. By God’s grace, when I asked the father of the family permission to use the Bible to study English, he accepted. It was so awesome to see because the father was reading passages from his Catholic Bible about sin, man, Christ, forgiveness and salvation, while his wife and two kids were listening and filling in the blanks of the story. They were really grateful for the lesson (another demonstration of God’s grace, because I’m not a great English teacher) and are looking forward to the next one. Praise God that he is using English, to open doors, Bibles and hearts to the message of salvation.

New Bible Study Opportunity

Another one of my English classes has turned from an English class into a discussion about the Bible and Religion. My “student’s” name is Alberto, he lives a few houses down from me. He’s a strong Catholic, but has expressed to me his uncommon belief that Christ is superior to the saints, and the virgin Mary. The reason this is strange is because many Catholics in Mexico have been deceived into thinking that Mary (the Virgin of Guadalupe) and certain saints are capable of intercession for us to God. We had a long discussion on Friday night about the Catholic religion in Mexico and he told me that he is completely Catholic, but that the Catholic church has committed a great error in elevating the virgin Mary or any of the saints above Christ. Our conversation was very interesting, very long and probed religious topics that were far more weighty than your average discussion. If Alberto is not already a believer, he’s not far from it. He’s been reading through Romans and we’re going to meet again next week to discuss the book.

Some thoughts on language study

I just decided to include a few thoughts on language study. I’m not sure how interesting this next part will be to you all. If you’re short on time you may want to skip this next part.

The best way I can describe foreign language study is as a slow upward progress that comes in waves. For the longest time you feel like your studying, thinking, struggling to learn with absolutely no results, and then all of a sudden, you see big breakthroughs and huge progress. Then a few days later you can’t even remember even the simplest words and phrases that came so easily the day before.

I liken learning a foreign language to healing a broken arm. Bear with me now. When the cast is taken off after weeks, sometimes months, of stabilizing the bone, the muscles need to learn how to work all over again. If you’ve broken a bone, you know how hard it is to get a muscle to work again, because of the length of time it’s been immobile. It’s not that the muscle is injured… it just hasn’t been used for a really long time. It’s tiring, demanding, painful. I picture the human brain as working the same way. Through these past seven months I’ve been using a part of my brain that’s never been used before. It has literally been “training” to listen, comprehend, and perform tasks in a manner that it has never been accustomed to. It’s a tiring and often times frustrating process, but the end result is invaluable. To be able to show with actions, and words too, the love of Jesus Christ to others is an awesome combination that is quite priceless. Learning a new language is not easy, and sometimes not very fun either, but by God’s grace, it eventually comes.

Last Email

I heard that some of you didn’t get my last update about the Medical Caravan. I’m sorry that it didn’t get to all of you. I had email problems to the point where I needed to send out the email to 4 smaller groups of people instead of one big group. Apparently one of those groups did not receive the message, but I’m not sure which one. Anyway, I hope this time I get it right. If you have any problems receiving any more of my emails, please let me know.

Border Run

Next week we’ll be making a run for San Antonio to help some foreigners cross the border. No, we’re not bringing Mexicans to the states… we’re bringing a Canadian couple into Mexico. Gary and Kim Lidstone will be traveling from Ontario to San Antonio, Texas next week to meet Neil and me. We will accompany them across the border, through the Mexican highways, and into Puebla. Gary is on the board of Crossworld Canada and is very interested in Puebla (as is his wife Kim) as a future missions field. They will be with us for a number of months, studying the language and seeking the Lord’s will as to what they should do. We met them in October when they came down to visit for a few days to see what we do here. We’re really looking forward to seeing them down here.

3 Praises

- For the new family that I have to teach the Good News English Lessons
- Although I’m tired a lot, I’ve been healthy.
- For Alberto’s desire to study the Bible and continue meeting to discuss it.

3 Requests

- For the salvation of my neighbors who I am in close contact with, especially my English students.
- For God’s blessing during our trip to the border to bring down the Lidstones. We will be leaving Thursday, Jan. 26th and returning Wednesday, Feb. 1st.
- For the elders and pastor at Cristo Victorioso. They’re doing a great job, but continually need our prayers.

May the Lord bless you all and keep you in his care. Thank you so much for your prayers!

Posted by Jon at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a safe, restful and blessed Christmas and New Years. We just returned from the medical caravan, very tired but very blessed. The Lord was at work, as usual, in great ways.

The Medical Caravan

I have been to the medical caravan two times before this most recent one and have loved it each time. Before the caravan begins, I always get a little anxious about what in the world am I going to do, because I don’t come ready with a specific medical skill or great translating abilities. Even though in my past experiences, I have had more work at the caravans then I could possibly imagine, I still had no idea how I would be a help on this one.

During the past medical caravans, there was a great need for nurses and helpers in the recovery room during the night hours so I decided to volunteer for that again this year. The “recovery room” is the place where patients spend the night resting, healing, and receiving medication because they just had major surgery. The patients literally need help with everything, including, going to the bathroom, sitting up in bed, walking, and eating. There were two RN’s working through the night and two helpers, I was one of them. The first two nights I only needed to work about 8 hours, and had the opportunity to help out during the day time in the lab (where they do blood work, urinalyses, and other tests) and the x-ray room as well. When we started working 12 hours a night (7pm to 7am), I spent a little more time resting during the day.

I think one of the reasons I really enjoy working in the recovery room through the night is that it’s a job that not many people want. Therefore, I feel like I’m really helping out because it frees up people to do other things. Does that logic make any sense? Also, I really enjoy helping people. Even though none of the recovering patients can really say thank you, or act grateful (because of the combination of drugs, pain and recent anesthesia), it doesn’t matter. The fact that they’re getting better and I had a small part in helping that happen is a really special privilege.

The first few nights I spent most of my time taking vital signs (blood pressure, temperature, pulse and respiration rate), helping people walk to the bathroom, changing wet sheets, emptying urine and emesis basins, and recording everything that happened on their medical records. Since we were short of nurses and had up to 14 patients spending the night in the recovery room, the head nurse there taught me how to change I.V. bags, aspirate air from I.V. tubes, prepare antibiotic I.V.’s (piggy-back’s) … lots of really neat stuff. I love learning new things. So this past week, that’s how I spent the majority of my time.

Throughout the week, there were about a thousand patients treated, over a hundred surgeries, thousands of medicines prescribed at the pharmacy, dozens of x-rays, lab work and pulled teeth. But the most important thing of all was that through all of this, the Gospel of Jesus Christ was proclaimed to every patient and family member, through the work of evangelists, missionaries and local Christians. A great number accepted Him as Lord and Savior through their message. Praise the Lord for the work he accomplished on the medical caravan!

January

I like having a lot of things to do. As of right now, there is a lot planned for the month of January. I will be attending a pastoral conference for about 4 days (about 4 hours north of Puebla), attending language school, preparing for a trip to the border with Neil and Cheryl to help bring down some new missionaries to Puebla and continuing my regular weekly English classes with my neighbors. Of course all of these things are subject to change, because after all, this is Mexico. Here, we hold our plans in an open hand, ready for them to be changed at a moments notice. Our constant focus needs to be, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” (James 5:15)

Praises

- The medical caravan went extremely well. I was very encouraged by many of the people there. A large number of people accepted Christ through the Lord’s working at the caravan.
- My language skills have been improving little by little. There are still a lot of things I don’t know, but the Lord has brought me a long way.
- The Lord has blessed me with peace about being single right now. I have always wanted to be married and have a family, and still do very much. But as of right now I am waiting for the Lord to provide and have had an uncommon peace about it over the past month. I know that many of you pray for me about this already… thank you.

Prayer Requests

- My buddy Omar (the 14 year old who I have been discipling) has been going through some rough waters lately. Some of it has been his fault, some the fault of others. I would really appreciate your prayers for him, his walk with the Lord and that I would be a good council and Biblical example to him.
- Teaching English is not something that comes easily to me. Combined with teaching the Bible through “Good News English Lessons”, it is doubly difficult. Please remember to pray for my English classes that are held throughout the week, especially because some of the lessons come directly from Scripture.

Thank you all so much for continuing to pray for me and the work the Lord is doing here in Puebla. May God bless you all today, tomorrow and in the new year to come.

Posted by Jon at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)