On Friday Abraham and I joined Six and two PCS teachers on a trip to Atlixco, a nearby city that is known for its greenhouses. Anyone who is a gardener can understand that a place like this is a small foretaste of heaven. There is such a variety of trees, bushes, flowers, herbs, grasses, and succulents that I can walk blissfully admiring for hours. And choosing which plants to buy and take home? A monumental task! The prices are unbelievably low and every plant at its glossy best.
What an amazing Creator we have. Who else could come up with the heady perfume of the jasmine, the eccentric forms of many cacti, or the soothing velvet of the lamb's ear leaf?
We thoroughly enjoyed the hours poking around the many greenhouses and returned home to continue the fun finding places for the new additions to our gardens.
The second VBS that we helped in ended today. Abraham, Six, and I went every day to Huejotzingo for the VBS from 12 - 2, and other adults from Dios es Amor went when they were available to help. On Saturday and Sunday before VBS, we went with a group of kids to pass out invitations in the surrounding neighborhood. Unlike past years, instead of just putting the invitations on people's doors, we knocked on the doors, handed the invitations to the people who answered, and gave them a verbal invitation too.
On Sunday Abraham went with one group of kids to hang posters on lamp posts, and I and another adult from Dios es Amor took another group of children to pass out more invitations in neighborhoods a bit further away. The kids with us turned down one street, and seeing that there was a large party going on, entered the yard and began giving out invitations. When I entered right behind one of the kids, a man shoved an invitation back into my hand and growled, "We don't get involved with this stuff!"
"This stuff" was a simple invitation to vacation Bible school that a little child had handed him. The hostile response took me off guard, but the other adult and I gathered our young team together and went to share invitations on another street.
Earlier in the day we had heard about the murder of a missionary in the Sierras. About five years before, his wife had also been murdered, and he had remarried about two years ago. In the afternoon we had showed a short video of the life of Jim Elliot to the kids in Huejotzingo. Later that evening, I told Abraham about the man's response to the VBS invitation. He asked me, "Were you scared?" And then he asked, "Would you be willing to die serving God in Huejotzingo?"
Huejotzingo is not as openly hostile a place as where the missionary in the Sierras was serving or where Jim Elliot went, but many of the people there are very entrenched in their idea of Catholicism. The idea of hostility, of people not talking to us or not letting us enter their homes, had occurred to me, but of people going to the extreme of killing? And yet, it could happen.
What makes me feel sad though isn't so much the thought of me dying. It's the idea of being left a widow. There were times during VBS when I would watch my husband playing with the kids or teaching them, and I would feel a sharp sadness and think, "Who could possibly want to hurt someone like him?"
So I ask for your continued prayers. Pray for our safety. I know that God has his plans, and they aren't always ours at first, but pray that we continue to work there as long as God wants us to. Pray that we enjoy each day together and enjoy the life God has blessed us with. May he bless each one of you.
