Like a soap opera

For the last few Saturdays, Abraham, Six, Ken, and I have been spending the afternoon in Huejotzingo, helping the kids memorize their parts for their small Christmas play, taken from the accounts in Matthew and Luke in the Bible. Each Saturday has had it's difficulties and frustrations. On the first one, only a handful of kids showed up, so we passed out at least the principle parts. Right at the end of our time there, a few other children came, and one of them was upset to find that only minor parts remained. With ill grace, she agreed to a small part in the play, but she did not actually accept her role.

When we returned the following Saturday, we found that this girl had been working throughout the week to persuade the other children to trade parts with her, so she could have a larger role. She also made fun of her cousin who does not know how to read, convincing her that she could not participate. When we talked with the other children and helped them see that they could indeed continue with their original roles, the girl renounced her smaller part.

Throughout the following week, the girl continued her campaign, working on the play's narrator to persuade her to drop out so the other girl could take over her role. She succeeded in making the narrator drop out, but we still would not let her take the place of the narrator, knowing that it was better not to let her have her way in the scheming.

This past Saturday, however, came the most difficult change. I could not go out to Huejotzingo due to a nasty cough, but when Abraham and Six returned to the house, they told me what had happened. The girl who had been trying to manipulate her way into bigger roles in the play has been with us on Sundays for a long time. She is not a believer, and her life is the stuff of the worst soap operas. Our prayer was to share God's love with her, so that she could change and follow his guidance.

It would seem our time with her is over, however. Abruptly, she, her mother, and her brother have moved to Michoacan to live with her estranged father. Her older sister will be moving to Playa del Carmen. Meanwhile, her cousins, the two children I wrote about in the previous post, have moved back to Oaxaca. Please keep those two families in your prayers. Both of them are involved in illegal activities, and they leave in Huejotzingo messy problems that involve other family members that we still work with.

Please pray also for the Alameda family. Half the children in this family join us every Sunday afternoon and are involved in the Christmas play. On Thursdays Abraham began a Bible study with their father and also began teaching him how to read, but the obstacles are constant. This week Abraham will not be able to go because the father will be working the whole time. The family is devoted to the Virgen de Guadalupe and the traditions passed down to from their parents, but they also willingly invite us into their home and discuss the Bible stories openly and ask many questions.