Hadingers in MEXICO

Lot of shakin’ goin’ on…

October 28, 2009 at 5:26 pm | In Mexico, life | Leave a Comment

Southern Mexico has experienced over 100 earthquakes/tremors already this month (October 2009)*. This is not an unusual phenomenon, but rather typical for this part of Mexico. Nearly 30 of those have occurred here in Oaxaca state these past two weeks alone!

Last month a couple bigger ones hit (4.7 and 4.1) two nights in a row. Mike woke up to both while I stayed fast asleep. Now you know who’s the light sleeper and who’s out like a bear in hibernation! The first night he woke up to a crash; it was the stack of board games from a small closet that had toppled out when the door swung open.

I knew something had happened when I opened our back metal door to see the branch with the heavy bunch of bananas toppled over. I realized it couldn’t have been the wind since that banana tree has bowed under some pretty intense winds already. I cut off the bunch, set them out, and waited for them to ripen.

We don’t always feel the smaller ones, but often notice it’s effect. For example, the clothesline in the back yard may suddenly swing when there is no wind, or the water in the 25 gallon water jug suddenly swishes and gurgles a big bubble without anyone near it. The worst effect is the broken water lines in the street. Sometimes we’ll see a stream of water running down the dirt road to nowhere and wonder, “was it a heavy truck or another tremor?” that caused it.

However, when we do feel them, it can be momentarily unnerving – especially when Mike is on the third floor teaching at the Bible Institute and I’m on the second floor working in the library. Also, the fact that our kids are on the opposite end of the city with a mountain crossing between us could lend to stress should a bigger one hit during the day.

Tremors and earthquakes are just another part of the uncertainties of life – of which we all have our share. This is where we can stop and thank God for the peace He offers through knowing his Son, Jesus Christ.

This is also why we continue teaching and preaching the Gospel, so that many can come to know that same peace – and not only for the uncertainties found in this life, but rather so they’ll have certainties regarding their eternal life.

*according to Mexico’s National Earthquake Center (if you go there, scroll over the ‘sismicidad reciente‘ tab, then highlight and click on ‘ultimos sismos‘).

The Shout

October 13, 2009 at 7:46 pm | In Missions | Leave a Comment

Mexico’s Independence Day celebration was almost one month ago. They call it “El Grito” (The Shout) since at the appointed time a government official comes out and leads the crowd in a series of “Viva’s” – like Viva Oaxaca! Viva Mexico! etc.

It was a nice festive atmosphere with fireworks at the end (right next to the colonial cathedral I might add!) But for us the best was having a date night out, having left the kids at home. I’m finally getting around to posting this video from that night.

Note the mariachi’s playing in the gazebo – they were great!

The Persecuted Church in our Back Yard

September 11, 2009 at 1:59 am | In Mexico, persecution | Leave a Comment

Fifty kilometers up the mountain from our home, a pentecostal church in Ixtlán was burned to the ground by traditional catholics who armed themselves and kept the christians from leaving that Zapotec village while threatening to lynch their families. The local authority was present – to support the actions of the criminals.

The Catholic Archdioces of Oaxaca defended the hate crime, saying “the attitude of the catholics in Ixtlán was legitimate, since sects only dedicate themselves to dividing communities”.

Where there is no fear of God, there is ignorance. And great wickedness.

In that community of less than 1,000, the evangelical church has 70 members – comprised of thirteen families, of which you see several below.

Please pray for these families, their church, their pastor, and for revival in their village. The persecuted church always grows!

(Follow this link for more detail on the story and to join the Mexico Missionaries in prayer).

From Hating Men to Helping Many

September 6, 2009 at 5:57 pm | In Alfa Omega Bible Institute, Ministry, Missions | Leave a Comment

Here is another testimony from one of Mike’s students:

I was a very hard person to reach with the Gospel because of my childhood experience. I grew up in a home of daily violence and humiliation; a home where a woman was considered trash.

Deep inside me grew a desire for revenge and I made it my goal to do whatever necessary to get even with men. Even as a student, I pushed myself, not for my own advancement in high academics, but for the purpose of demeaning men by showing them that women are capable of achieving important status if they pursue it.

I never accepted anyone’s love. In fact, when I was dating, I did so only to play games with my boyfriends. I would wait for them to fall deeply in love with me, only so I could break up with them suddenly. I wanted them to feel as worthless as my mother and I had been made to feel by my father, who despised us on the account of being women. I would even yell at him in hatred that I’d rather marry an evangelical than marry someone like him!

A came to the conclusion that if and when I’d meet a man I was attracted to, I would have a child, then live my life as a single mother.

But Christ had other plans for me. He led a man my way who was different than the rest; someone who didn’t call me names, someone who showed me that my anger and hunger for revenge were hurting me and that I needed to give that to God. We dated for five years and then married. But still I lived in fear that sooner or later I would be treated as my mother had been.

It took sixteen years for the prayers of my husband and his parents to break through. Christ reached down and saved me. I began to attend church and was baptized in the Holy Spirit, with the evidence of speaking in tongues. Later, I knew that he was calling me to minister the same Gospel I received to others.

This is why I enrolled for the weekend classes at IBAO (Instituto Biblico Alfa Y Omega). I continue learning, and in the process am gratefully reminded that I am a valuable treasure, loved so much by God that he sent his son Jesus to die on the cross for my sins.

He changed my life. I now see life through a new perspective and have learned how to love and be loved. Praise the Lord for that!

My future plans are to take God’s word to the multitudes who have never heard of such love, who are made to feel worthless because of color, gender, or social status. I am willing to become a missionary and go where Jesus Christ has not yet been proclaimed as the Savior of the World.

Please pray for me.

by Elfega Emma Ortíz Ramos, translated by I.H.

Blockades

September 1, 2009 at 1:10 am | In Mexico, Missions, life, prayer needs | Leave a Comment

Last week three teachers were shot – one killed and the others critically wounded – in the continuing saga of teachers union’s battling each other, one of which has the backing of the local communist group. This led to protests in the form of three blockades last Friday crippling the city once again.

Although illegal, nothing is done by the government or law enforcement to stop these. Blockades occur when a bus is highjacked and parked strategically in a vital intersection, impeding traffic from circulating along the main arteries.

photo from El Imparcial, Aug. 29, 2009

Transito, the ‘traffic cops’, do show up to help re-route traffic and aide the ones protesting as they themselves close off routes further down the main avenues. Is this to keep the protesters safe?

Last friday we were caught in all three blockades in different locations: the first one after we picked the kids up from school at 3; the second one in another part of town at 4; the last one after a brief grocery stop two miles away from the Bible Institute where Mike was teaching Theology II to the weekend students . The last detour took me one hour to drive through parts of downtown Oaxaca City, battling near scrapes among impatient drivers.

These blockades are nothing new here. We deal with them on a regular basis. Last week 300 students chose to protest in this way. They’ve been taught well by the teachers, I suppose. Their complaint? Not being admitted to the University. The reason, however, for not being admitted was they either failed the entrance exam or refused to take it in the first place.

Headlines from Adiaro - Aug. 27, 2009

So, first they did the bus-hijacking/paralyze the city thing. Then they decided to lock themselves inside the campus and do a hunger strike. The night the combat police units set out to break the chains and remove the students by force happened to be the same night that elderly Indian’s came from the mountains to ’sit in’ on another major intersection protesting a bank that stole millions of pesos of their social security.

This also happened to be the same night our Jonathan flew back to Oaxaca after spending the summer in Ohio. This meant he waited at the airport, alone and without any way to communicate with us, until nearly 10 pm since Mike was stuck in the massive congestion caused by those two major events.

Warnings came via e-mail today that the death of the teacher last week is sparking additional protests and marches to take place this week, including shutting off major highways throughout the state of Oaxaca. Officials are on edge, and additional federal police have been called in.

This we are aware of, as Mike was pulled over yesterday by “Federales”. They insisted on his license, and wouldn’t accept the copy Mike offered. What they were really looking for was a bribe – which they didn’t get either. They finally let him go when he insisted he had done nothing to break the law, was not a tourist and in fact was here with permission of the government as a minister of the Gospel and to teach at a Bible Institute.

Although we have many obligations, we feel the wisest decision this week is to work from home as much as possible to avoid getting caught in the middle of the mayhem and to avoid any more stops by police.

Please pray for Oaxaca. Pray for the teachers, the unions, and for the hundreds of thousands who are affected by these protests. Pray for peace, and for the Prince of Peace to be proclaimed during this time of unrest. Pray also for a sense of order and justice to come not only to Oaxaca, but to Mexico itself.

We thank you also for praying for our family and our ministry.

- I.H.

4,000 mile vehicle swap?

August 26, 2009 at 1:17 am | In Travel | 1 Comment

taking a break - Mexico

Yes, we did.

We left Oaxaca the end of June to exchange the aging Tahoe for this 2006 Toyota 4Runner. The transaction was handled by the incredible Gail Mitchell at Speed-the-Light*. The bonus surprise was that this vehicle came with a trailer. (This meant we could bring the rest of our belongings in to Mexico that had been sitting in storage near the border for the past year.)

As we drove the many miles to get to Missouri, logic whispered to us that Ohio was only two states away. Hmmm, good idea! Why head back to Mexico without seeing family, friends, and especially our college aged son?

Not only did we have great visits with our loved ones , we also had several impromptu ministry opportunites: teaching a Christian Education class about marital stresses on the mission field, giving a brief update during a 10 minute window, and sitting in on an Ohio District Missions Committee meeting in the absence of vacationing members.

We returned to Oaxaca the beginning of August, without any major problems arising at the border or along the way. We thank God for that.

heading north to Puebla, MX

Ilona and Katie; Ilona's turn to drive

shall we stop for prickly pears? (fruit from cactus')

El Guapo behind the wheel - probably singing along to Ricky Scaggs or Randy Travis

Home in San Andres Huayapam after 8 days on the road!!

For a few anecdotes about our trip, go to my blog to read various posts on Sundry Adventures of Mexican Road Travel.

- I.H.

*Speed-the-Light is the arm of the National Youth Dept. of the Assemblies of God that raises money to purchase vehicles and other equipment for missionaries.

Abortion, witchcraft, and the power of God’s grace.

July 16, 2009 at 6:35 pm | In Missions | 1 Comment

Tesoro is committed to the call on his life. He is enrolled in the weekend classes at the Instituto Biblico Alfa Omega, where he studies Theology as one of Mike’s students.

This is Tesoro’s testimony:

God reached down and saved me the day my wife was dying as a result of an in-home abortion. As I watched her fading away, I cried out to God, asking him to give me another chance and to save her life. For our baby, it was already too late.

My wife miraculously regained consciousness and I began to thank and praise God for that. That was the turning point in my life.

Before that, our seven year marriage had been full of problems. I had been studying the art of witchcraft and was ready to leave my wife.

But my wife, who had some knowledge of God, had prayed, asking God to change me. That fateful day, God honored her request.

That is how I surrendered my life to Christ. I now walk with God and daily fight the good fight of faith.

by Tesoro Lopez Hernandez

translated by I.H.

Update – another robbery

June 16, 2009 at 4:47 pm | In Mexico, life, prayer needs | 1 Comment

It gets old, quick: we were robbed again. So we don’t have to repeat the details here, go to Ilona’s blog.

Congratulations Joseph!

June 6, 2009 at 1:38 pm | In family, life | 1 Comment

Our second son, Joseph, graduated from Oaxaca Christian School on Thursday, June 4. By Tuesday, June 9, he’ll have flown the coop.

He’ll be flying to Cleveland to look for a summer job. Then by late August, he’s off to college to enter pre-med either at Evangel University in Missouri or Southeastern University in Florida.

We are very proud of him. He has shown a great attitude this past year, having moved back to the mission field, spending his senior year in a new school. He went from a class of several hundred in Mansfield to a graduating class of five here in Oaxaca.

Our prayer for him is that he continues growing in his faith, walking in integrity, and pursuing the will of God in his life.

The Soldier Who Saved Thousands-After He Was Dead

May 29, 2009 at 2:53 pm | In Holiday, Memorial Day | Leave a Comment

The Allied invasion of Sicily was the largest amphibious operation of World War II. The six week campaign that began on July 9, 1943 landed more men on the beach then any other and marked the beginning of the end for Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and severely weakened the Axis forces (the bad guys).

Remarkably, the Allied forces (the good guys) faced little to only moderate resistance in the initial siege, due to a little known soldier who saved thousands of lives after he was already dead!

To distract the bad guys, the U.S., British, and Canadian intelligence op’s concocted a scheme called Operation Mincemeat. The plan was this: a corpse disguised as a British officer was allowed to drift ashore in Spain, carrying a briefcase containing fake secret documents.

These documents revealed that the three allies were planning to invade Greece, and had no plans whatsoever to invade Sicily. The rouge was accepted as genuine by German intelligence, and as a result defensive efforts were diverted from Sicily to Greece, greatly reducing the number of potential casualties.

This is a fascinating example of the Christian life! The apostle Paul writes that when we accept the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior we ought to see ourselves as “dead to sin”(Rom 6:2), and on an ongoing basis we constantly have to submit our will to Christ, which Paul calls “dying daily” (1 Cor. 15:31).

So then, just like the dressed up corpse, we believers who are in one sense dead can still be useful in God’s overall scheme-the salvation of mankind.

Be sure and thank a veteran this week for his service and especially those families who’ve
paid the ultimate price. And thank the Lord Jesus as well who is working out his great plan!