September 6--Todas las Personas

Rev. Brad Walston

Cuernavaca Thoughts Day 8

I wonder – could this administration be any crueler? I am heartbroken at the decision to rescind DACA.  That’s 800,000 young people whose average age is 26!

Since we are deep in central Mexico here in Cuernavaca, this comes at a particularly appropriate time for us. We are witnessing first hand the many reasons why so many people from Mexico and Latin American countries emigrate in search of a better life. For example, one shocking fact is that a person working for minimum wage in the United States makes more money in one hour than a Mexican makes in an entire day in Mexico. Minimum wage in Mexico is currently 80 cents – not for an hour – for a day.

In my experience, the people of Mexico are, in general, a warm, friendly, hospitable, hard-working people. They have problems just like we do. They love their children just like we do. They are organizing to improve conditions in their country in many of the same ways we are in our own country: some people want to build a highway over sacred lands; political corruption, food insecurity, environmental issues, etc. It’s not so different from the US, and I’m afraid that those of us on this trip have seen the future of our own country if things continue as they are.

Jesus said we should love our neighbor, our enemies, the stranger, the prisoner, the sick, the widows, and the orphans.  The current administration wants to “round them up,” rip them out of school or work, and send them to place they’ve never been, not knowing the language. What should we do as Christians? What can we do?

A cursory Google search finds that the Hartford Institute estimates there are approximately 350,000 Christian, Catholic and Orthodox congregations in the United States. Technically, we could provide sanctuary for all 800,000 Dreamers!  (Just sayin’...)

One of our LGBTQ speakers today

Cuernavaca Thoughts Day 9

Today we enjoyed yet another brilliant day filled with fellowship and food, and lots of verbs and tenses. The teacher in our group tells us a simple story, and then we have to tell it back to him, or to someone else in the group changing the grammatical person – I, you, he, we, they, etc. It’s very challenging! Today I learned just how much I don’t know, but I think I said that yesterday (and the day before that!). When we left the school today, at around 5:00 in the afternoon, someone said that we all looked like we were pretty well done in. Nobody argued!

We had terrific speakers today on the roles of women and women’s rights in Mexico, followed by two more speakers who talked about LGBQ rights and issues. Eye-opening yet at the same time it all sounds very familiar – only worse. It’s like Mexico is years behind the U.S., and look at how far WE have to go, still!

How sad that people can’t see each other for the similarity of our many struggles rather than our many differences. We really aren’t that different from each other. ON the us coming home there was a musician playing the guitar for tips. There were two precious little girls with their father and next to them sat an old man with smiling eyes. Maybe it was because I got on, maybe not, but the musician started playing “Light My Fire” by the Doors. Well, I happen to know all the words to that and was singing quietly and mouthing the words, when the old man looked up with the most contagious smile, and then the little girls started to smile to – made my day! I tell you without a doubt; God was on that sweaty, crowded bus with us today. I think the Spirit is always there; we just have to not close ourselves off to her.

Joanie listening to Trini, an LGBTQ activist

Rev. Jim and Joanie Calhoun

Dormir? Si! We were weary on Tuesday night--long busy day with homework (El perro ate it!). Mario challenges my limited vocabulary but we are learning.

Mexico's Hilary is running for president! I slept through the cheese cake and awoke for the politics.

All of my ministry I've sought to have people link Bible in one hand with newspaper in the other (per Karl Barth). Our CEB group illustrated this process--bonita-fully. So simple yet so profound! Muchas gracias, Senor Jesuscristo. We anticipate manana. Salud!

Denise Bender

For the last couple of days we have continued studying Spanish. I am surprised at how much I am learning and yet I hesitate when I speak. I know more than I think I know and that is a great feeling. The professors are wonderful and patient and we are learning so much about the culture.

The children are important part of this culture. Everywhere I see the children they are with adults who care for them. Rarely is there a child crying and then it is a small child or baby. The children go to school from either 9 to 1 every day or 130 to 6:00. There are two groups. The children wear uniforms. The families need to buy school supplies and uniforms. This is very difficult when they are paid 80 pesos a day which is $5 US money.

There are many things to process; much more than memorizing words and sentence structures. The stories of the oppressed who are fighting for justice are only totally understood by the oppressed. We, the church as the body of Christ -as the actions of Christ, can share the stories, and through the bravery of those story tellers we are called to action.

Rev. Melinda Baber

Jesus cautioned? Invited?   a calloused and jaded, conceited and presumptive crowd of would-be disciples: unless we become like 

~ little~ children, ninos y ninas,   we can NOT enter the Kindom of God, the place where love is both the means and the end, the alpha and omega. 
For me, that has meant doing the impossible:  becoming dependent on others,  trusting, making myself, again and again, remember and accept without condemnation or criticism,  the small frightened hungry child that I am.  It has meant in order to draw close to this God of a Kingdom, i must not isolate, but draw close to others in this Kindom, allowing myself to be invited to a dinner I cannot eat, comforted in the arms of a soft, fierce embrace of my host Mama, Araceli,  and soothed by a hot cup of tea offered on a cold rainy night.

In this trip to Mexico, it has meant also, to choose to be like a young child. I, 9 years a law enforcement chaplain, used to being in charge and in control in the midst of violence and in the aftermath of tragedy. I, pastor of two churches, graduate with 2 master's degrees, mother of grown children with complex issues and challenging illnesses. I must  leave competency, and choose to be confused, lost, helpless, following my roommate to school every day like a toddler, being careful not to stop in excrement or  fall on the uneven stones in the street. I am ignorant, unlearned and, mercifully,  open; here to be taught a new language, a new way of thinking-- about everything! About small ordinary things, like how to count, use the toilet, how to cross a street, and how to eat a piece of fruit; to deeper things, like accepting uncertainty, opening to unknowns, relinquishing control; letting down my guard, taking off my cloak of silence and invisibility,  and being the foreigner and the stranger in need of hospitality;  experiencing diversity;  and understanding more than ever the beauty of human  dignity, the mystery of true riches, the burden of the injustice of privilege and the injustice of poverty. I am so clueless, that i dont know enough to be discriminating or judgmental. Fried bugs for snack? Sure. Fireworks and Mariachi in church? Sure. Like a baby, for ten days, ten intense draining exhilarating days, i put anything in my mouth, and make nonsense sounds, albeit with communicative intent, come out.

No wonder Nicodemus was clueless. How can this be? How can a Pharisee become a child again? And why? What kind of God insists on babies and little children to change the world? ! 

A

Jesus kind of God. 

The God of the disenfranchised, the marginalized, that's what kind.  

The words from today are still in my head: "the fragrance of our encounter".  "Make it happen!" "Silence is death." 

  I want the people of the margins here in Mexico to continue to teach me about, and reach me with, all they know of  the breadth of God's glorious Kindom, and the wideness of that LOVE. 

 Mas agua, Senor.... Quiero mas.

Bishop Karen Oliveto

I have been so moved by the stories we have heard in our time here. Stories of struggles and injustices, yet also of unyielding hope and intense community that will not allow violence and intimidation to have the last word. I am struck by the fact that while we have heard from educators, children advocates, feministas (women's rights organizers), LGBTQ activists, Bible study participants, and more, no one stayed within their own area of concern. Each one, as they spoke, connected their struggles with the struggles of others--indigenous people, the environment, the poor, those with addictions, the rights of women and lgbtq people, advocacy for children and those experiencing domestic violence, the poor, those who have experienced political repression...

Each speaker clearly articulated an understanding of intersectionality--how systems of discrimination and oppression impact us all. I thought about the United States. While we might have our pet topics or passionate issues, we seldom connect our own issues to that of others. Is it because the starting point for social awareness in the US is the individual? It is about Me and Mine. Yet the starting point in so many other countries--including Mexico--is the community. It is about We and Us. I may have an issue I am passionate about, but it is within a web of interconnectedness, and so I must also be aware of how my issue is connected to yours.

This reflects what it means to be the body of Christ--the eye cannot exist alone, nor can the feet. The eye, while it seeks to take care of itself, knows that its wellbeing is intrinsically connected to the wellbeing of the feet. It is the We, the Us.

Imagine how different our lives would be if we connected our experiences of injustice with that of others'? A revolution would be born. A revolution of love.

Iglesia Methodista Cuernavaca

Rev. Cynthia Paquette

In addition to learning Spanish, we have been exposed to a lot of children and women issues.  There is a lot of work that still needs to be done.  Women are still repressed in Mexico.  Women still have to fight for their identity.  Mexico is a male dominated country.  Even the Spanish language is a male oriented language.  In the church, the priests control.  In the government, the ruling party suppresses.  In the society, the male species dominates.  Has anyone stopped to think of the other?  In the United States, we speak of women not getting equal status as men but in Mexico, the fight is still for gender identity, from repression, and for freedom.  Getting to the state of achieving equal status for women and men is still far-fetched.  There is quite a substantial amount of violence against those who demand to be recognized, who demand their rights, and who demand to be heard.  People can just disappear or get killed.  Forty three male students from a rural teaching college and with history of activism disappeared on the night of September 26, 2014 after they were transported away by the police in police cars.  There was so much violence that night as these students were going for a march in Mexico City commemorating the massacre of students in 1968.  There is so much mystery surrounding this tragedy.  

In other cases, there are people working for the causes of children.  Very organized and well developed efforts by Caminando Unidos are helping children who are victims of domestic violence, poverty, and drugs get off the streets, be cared for, loved, receive education and start life anew through the support and guidance of the school.  The children might be financially poor but they are rich in all other aspects (because they are God’s children).  We also have different groups, under the CEB working for the rights of women, gender issues, and environment.  They are pursuing the non-violence way in response to the violence from figures of authority.  There is still a long way to go.  

People who are living in developed countries will not understand the dire situation in Mexico and other developing countries unless they come and see for themselves, come and experience for themselves and come and build relationships with people who are in the midst of this situation.  We have come for a short time, too short a time to really experience the “heat” and too little time to fully understand.  However, this is an eye opener for me, a start for me.  It was said by a Syrian painter that all of us have a map in our bodies composed of the places we have lived that we are constantly in the process of redrawing.  I must say this immersion is on the map in my body.  The relationships formed, the experiences encountered, the language and “language” learnt along the way and the land I walked on, they greeted and ushered me with the welcome God extends to me.  

This stop on my map is definitely one that has given me a whole new perspective of life and ministry.  What are we doing in developed countries to bring the Kingdom of God to people who are struggling in developing countries?

Evening meal and debrief