Doug Van Pelt

Max is getting on my nerves

(not really ... that's just an inside joke).
This Pastor Max guy is just outta control down here.

Today started in a cool way. After breakfast we had a little time, as one of the "other" groups hadn't coordinated with us exactly when we'd leave, so the family here had a little devotional time. They read out of a family-type devotional book, with some talk about bravery. There was a cool story about how young Native American Indians were called "braves." At one point a young man was led outside the camp blindfolded at night, deep into the woods, where he had the blindfold taken off and then he had to stay there all night. When daylight started to break, he saw light around him and then he noticed a man there with a bow and arrow. He didn't know who it was at first, but it was his father, who had been there the whole night, protecting him. I like the implications of that story. Anyway, it made me want to be consistent about making that sort of thing being a regular routine as a family.

We met up with the other group from the Dallas area, and we went to downtown Saltillo to do some souvenir shopping. We stopped at a bank and converted some US dollars into pesos. A crude and basic way to understand prices is to move the decimal point in pesos over to the left one space. For example, an item that sells for 100 pesos is about 10 dollars. When I went to the bank, though, we converted $100 into 850 something pesos. The dollar's value has gone down even more in recent days. Bummer.

I didn't find anything, but my daughters did. It was wild to see some giant pieces of meat on the ground in a hallway of this one big shopping building/center. Oh, I did buy a pair of cheap sunglasses for 20 pesos. Of course, I had a couple more Cokes today. We ate at a really nice restaurant. They served up some tasty tacos in various flavors. The multiple tortillas on each plate, though, were slightly larger than the palm of your hand. Kind of like little handheld tacos. I split an order of 5 small flautas with my wife. Two and a half wasn't enough, but luckily my daughters shared their uneaten portions with us. I tried breaking a 200 pesos bill to buy a few ice creams at a farmacia after ("antes de" in Spanish), but it was large enough to slow down the process and make the van of people have to wait for me.

Later we went to the children's home, which is way outside the city of Saltillo, about 30 minutes. It really reminded me of Soledad Canyon outside of Los Angeles. Lots of mountains and chapparel-like or high desert type scenery... This Children's Home is an amazing complex. There's a cool story about how the current governor of this state (Coahuilla) came to this center and was so impressed that he pledged tons of government support for what they're doing. I'm not sure I have the energy tonight to tell that story, but I might try.

Okay, so this children's home houses a set of house parents, who are like real parents for 12 kids that will live permanently in this house (with a master bedroom and four bedrooms (with 3 kids in each). The house gives the kids a sense of family and permanence. They don't have parents rotate in and out. It's one set of parents; and the kids stay here. There's a place for workers / missionaries to stay, work places, a place for meals, playground equipment, and lots of other details. So, when the local governer came out to innaugurate the place, they figured he'd be in and out, maybe give them some playground equipment and be done with it. Instead he engaged the leaders in conversation, cancelled a luncheon planned somewhere else (he called the food to come there) and he spent about another three hours talking with these leaders about the work they do here, helping children, as well as discussing Christianity. He found out how much it cost to run one of the homes and pledged government financial support to roughly pay that each month (or very close to it). He also pledged to build "peso for peso" whatever the children's home builds. For example, we saw the newest home today that they built, but the other ones are supposed to be built by the government. Whenever they build one, the government will build another. That is pretty darn cool.

While we were at the Children's Home (chmmexico.com), we exchanged money for "vales," which were vouchers that the poor local villagers could use for staples and goods. The woman who heads up the children's home has reached out to the local village nearby and has connected with the women. If they just gave them money, that would not empower them; but what Rebecca does is she helps the women make crafts and sell them to visitors (mostly church and short-term missions groups that come in) for these "vales." If they gave the women cash, their husbands would just take it and buy alcohol with it. But by using vouchers that the women can come to them and buy staples for their family, it goes to necessities like bread, milk, etc. They are also required to buy more craft materials to keep the system going for themselves, so they can make more to sell. It's quite an empowering and effective ministry.

When we took our "vales" down into the village, visiting individual homes, I was transported back to Africa. The poverty was real. The little homes are tiny shacks barely held together and not really closed and sealed shelter. The people, though, were bright and full of joy.

Back at the eating place, we sat at long tables and awaited for everyone else to gather and for Jeffrey to cook tons of hamburgers. They tasted fantastic. One thing I realized as I saw all these believers interacting, eating and fellowshipping with one another was this:

People who are helping others and/or are about helping others are some of the most awesome people around.

There's just a joy and an appreciation for people that is found in the common mindset of doing something to help others. It's really neat to be able to say: Yes, that is the church.

I think that is why so many people are connecting on "cause" and service levels these days. Even people that don't share a faith community embrace and enjoy this very real principle that is very much was Christ was preaching and leading by example. In an environment like that you can get beyond the differences that we all have as people. You can start to sense and feel how special our fellow human beings are.

Man, if I ever found myself in despair and deep depression, I think I'd prescribe the following: "Get involved with some community of people that are helping others." Just being about that kind of work has some great by-products that probably manifest themselves in all kinds of good ways.

Posted by Doug Van Pelt at July 30, 2008 11:09 PM