Dear friends,
I hope this email finds you well and relaxed after a good Christmas. I feel that a measure of the busyness of my last four weeks has been the lack of spare time in which to write to you. This is definitely a good thing because I'm in Mexico to serve and I've been able to help out with so much recently. Thank you to those of you who emailed me asking if I was still ok. This one'll be a little longer than normal because I'm covering all of December and rounding off the year. No weather report this time I'm afraid.
As I've hinted, the last weeks have been amazingly busy; I think I had about 25 hours sleep over the 5 nights before the 23rd Dec (when Armonía closed down for Christmas). Those of you who know me will recall that a lack of sleep does funny things to me; I start going a bit mad (well, more mad), mixing up words in my sentences and losing things. My Mexican list of mis-laid stuff now runs at: 1 Sigg drink bottle, 1 penknife (Widge, Ferg and Pike - no comments please), 1 USB-SD card reader and some other things that I can't recall at the moment! As Mum would say, 'the massive pile of stuff in the sky' (representing all the things I have lost in my life) may have some Christmas additions. I am reasonably confident that I will be able to locate some of them. "Vamos a ver", as we say here…
2 weeks ago, we all took a trip south to Oaxaca City (pronounced 'Wa-ha-ka'). I was quite excited by the prospect of reliving my 2004 Venezuela overnight bus experience (best travel I have ever had) when I saw that the overnight bus seats reclined to a comfortable 50 degrees. However, I hadn't reckoned for a combination of the atrocious Mexican roads with a coffee maker just behind my head. 7 hours of bounce, rattle, bounce, rattle, bounce, rattle meant I arrived somewhat sleepless. Nonetheless, what I found out about the Armonía project gave me renewed energy. At the risk of lengthening this letter, I want to tell you about what Armonía is doing there because I'm very excited about it.
Oaxaca state is one of the poorest and less that 5% of the remote villages surrounding Oaxaca City offer anything beyond primary school education. If students want to progress to secondary, they have to come to the city. The problem is, where do they stay? In answer, Armonía has built a students' residence (very similar in concept to Alheli) and then admits hard-working students. They support them, get them into the best schools in the city and give them broader life skills training (for instance, through Bible Studies and training in carpentry/manual labour tasks). The house is overseen by three 'older siblings' who have already progressed through school and devote a year to this project before entering the Armonía university scholarship program in Mexico City. The project in general is maintained by Dani Vargas, the Armonía lawyer whose story of a life changed by the gospel will have to wait for another email. The students' residence used to provide for 100 kids from many different indigenous tribes but due to political instability Armonía were driven out of their original location in February. The current one holds 12 but we are in the process of constructing a new dorm for 200 by June! It's a huge vision.
This provision affects the students in three ways. 1) Almost all of them decide to put their trust in God and live life as the Bible dictates, in the light of the cross of Christ. The state needs committed Christians living out their faith and these students will be leaders amongst their peers because: 2) The students are well fed, wisely disciplined and carefully looked after so they get much better grades. 3 of them recently took the top three places in their final school exams. This isn't a coincidence and so the scheme is very popular. 3) This opens up a vast range of opportunities including university. Joaquín, who I live with, graduated in electrical engineering 10 days ago with the Mexican equivalent of a Cambridge first, a $30m (USD) grant to patent and produce a new style of vending machine which he and 3 other students designed and, to top it all, we're pretty sure he is the first person from his tribe to get a degree. Ever. And he's only 20 years old! Perhaps this shows why I am so excited about this project - he came through the whole system. We visited, held a Christmas party for the students and local supporters and looked back over the year – a great time of fellowship with lots of amazing food (Pilar was in charge of the cooking).
I returned to Mexico City excited but shattered in time for the Armonía Christmas celebrations. There was one at each of the three community centres this year. Everyone from the community is invited to come. There is singing, praying, drama, a short Christmas address and much celebration. Impressively, everyone who comes is fed and each family is given the elements for a basic Christmas meal (cooked chicken, bread etc) so they can celebrate the birth of Christ however poor they are. At Santa Cruz, I was a modern-day wise man in the drama, delivering lines in my weird Spanish accent to the 200 people present, and a true caballero (gentleman) as I took part in traditional dances too. There is video evidence but I won't tell you where it's being kept. ;)
The preparations for our trips and the celebrations took up most of our time so there isn't much else to report. Last week I had my volunteer evaluation; it was challenging because it lead to the vocalisation of some cultural differences which have caused the odd hiccup ( e.g. expectations of performance, communication etc). Saul and I have been very honest with each other and I found it very useful to learn how to work more effectively for Armonía in Mexico. God timed the visit of Andrew Widgery and Jim Houghton well so that I could take spend time with them digesting my experiences as well as have hours of good old British banter. Poor Liz seemed somewhat bewildered by the whole experience.
And so my time with Armonía in 2007 is coming to an end. I have learnt so much, been excited by almost everything and been challenged beyond what I expected. Thank you to those of you who prayed for me and kept in touch – it means a lot to know there are supporters back home. My first newsletter had some specific prayer points on it so I'd like to end with some things to praise God for:
§ That we have a Saviour to celebrate at Christmas – God didn't have to come but He loved us so much that he entered the world in the person of Christ just over 2000 years ago. He has been faithful and trustworthy whilst I have been away. In Him I trust.
§ For the strong relationships with Armonía staff that I have developed, especially with the Cruzes, Dani, the ladies at the centre and the kids in the homework club.
§ That I have learnt so much Spanish and now even have enough confidence to speak in public as a representative of Armonía.
§ That He has kept me safe, healthy and active in His service
§ For the way we in Armonía have been able to apply the Christian gospel to people's lives and see the radical difference it makes.
Happy New Year to you all. Well done for getting this far.
God bless,
Chris Güero
P.S: I'm just gathering more information about Tabasco but I'll include an update in the new year. I know many of you are interested to hear more about the water filters.
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