mucho trouble with computadora

The computer set up is not working so I am writing this in Word, then I will, hopefully, transfer to blog. At this point I can not access the internet. Tomorrow, I will go to an internet café just to check on all of you.

Sunday evening, August 10th 2008.
Our wonderful cousins, Rick and Leigh left yesterday after driving us to the coast and spending a couple of days here. They have been wonderful company, and we do miss them. Rick is an easy-going, astute fellow and Leigh is the brains of the outfit. They have been a joy to meet and get to know.
After they left we decided to jump into the water at the Pacific Ocean, a block away from our little casita. We quite literally almost died. There was a strong undertow and I could not get out of the water. After several attempts, I thought I would die and told Stephen to “go on in to shore”. He did not listen to me. He took me out beyond the waves so that I could catch my breath. I had already swallowed a fair amount of water. Then he kept trying to ride in the wave and not let me go as the undertow kept sucking me back into waters that treated me like a washing machine. I didn’t know up from down. I simply had no energy left to fight and thought I was going to die. Stephen stayed with me over my protests and brought me in and held on to me until the waves subsided which gave me a few seconds to roll further up the beach. I did not have the energy to crawl or get up on my feet. So, I am saved--again. Thank God for mercies I knew nothing about.
Today is the Lord’s Day. Stephen and I rode our bikes downtown to the English speaking church here. San Patricio by the Sea has a web site—check it out. There were four other people besides us and we were doing a study in James. One of the ladies said that the service is filled to capacity (60) in the winter and they do two services. The church is an area with a cement floor, brick “fence” around the outside about 6’ tall and a roof over the entire area made from palm leaves. They do have a bathroom. I did miss my little church in Ithaca and the saints that are attending there.
The bicycle that I am riding has a very narrow seat that jams up my crotch while I am riding. It feels awful on the cobblestone streets. It is also too short for me so my knees keep hitting the handlebars. So, while my hero is riding along just fine, I am usually miserable on the cobblestones. Hero dropped off our laundry today and picked it up several hours later—riding a bicycle. He tried to talk me into going down the beach to a “safe” place to swim. We walked about half a mile but I was not getting in that nasty ocean. If it gets me again, it might eat me.
We came home to have drinks on the veranda and talk to the babies walking by with their moms. I am very sweaty and dirty. My major event of the evening will be my hero reading the Bible to me. More tomorrow. Meema.


Hi. This is Stephen, Granddaddy, “Pastor,” etc.
There is an old song about Margaritaville—no; it won’t be in one of our three hymnals. I must be there, in Margaritaville. It’s a fairy land in this lovely little hacienda. A swallow family works in their nest at the right hook of our hammock. They fly in and out, poking food into hungry young beaks, whether we are in the hammock or out. There is also an unusual hummingbird—rusty and pink—sucking on beautiful balls of red flowers in front of me. Then there’s me, here in a bathing suit and having rinsed off the continuing, warm and healing sweat of the day with a local hose. I may have to stop for a picture of the hummingbird. I have Mitzi’s telephoto camera, and I want to get a shot of this rusty-pink fellow sucking at a scarlet floral ball. My telephoto photos, so far, are the lovely ringlets that form around Mitzi’s ear and neck when it’s so hot and humid like this. If I get a camera shot of the hummingbird and flower it will mean more to others, but Mitzi’s wet and upward-shrinking ringlets mean more to me.
We studied James, chapter 1, in our tiny church today. The stretch of our trials, that James talks about—“count it all joy”—allowed us to better understand both the folly and the horror of almost losing Mitzi in the ocean yesterday. When I took Mitzi back out beyond the rough waves so that she might catch her breath, she was both beside herself with fear and wanting me to return to shore to save myself, as well as—and here’s the key—she was praying, mightily, to God. She doesn’t remember praying (!), and I think that is the way it often is when the crunches come in life. God’s Spirit is either in there to be called on, or He’s not. Mitzi was calling on God.
We both slept all afternoon, and had no interest in talking about our ocean adventure until we were watching a crummy George Clooney movie on television in the evening--not the one where they all die in the sea! Again, this morning we could “process” what happened. This morning at church we could compare the paltry power of the mighty sea—which took us to the edge of ourselves yesterday—to the fearsome and almighty power of God. Mitzi’s cry to God was to the Almighty and made it all okay for us so that we are back to normal today. Sort of.
We’re not just here on vacation. That’s clear. In spite of the spirit of Marguerittaville and the singer’s “lost shaker of salt” (ask Dan Jones about the details) and a sense of vacation the likes of which we have never had before, there seems to be a brewing purpose in all of this. We talk with the church “Gringos” who work and pray for a Protestant church growth down here, and they talk of our establishing a church in the village (La Manzanilla) 6 miles north of Melaque (where we are staying). “But, Lord,” we protest, “didn’t we just get done establishing a church in faraway Ithaca?!” We see the warmth and hard softness of poor and broken Mexicans around us, and we can turn to, and once again thank James who says, “Hath not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith?” There’s work to be done down here, and we dare to think that maybe God has sent us to be partakers of that work. Remember, He could have drowned us so easily! Gulp, blub, and snuffed out—just like that! As someone said in church today, apropos of our near-drownings, “God’s obviously got something more for you.”
My cousin, Rick’s last move was to drive us to La Manzanilla, to the north, to get a look-see. Rick claims to not be a believer, but keeps doing these believer sorts of things (like Jim, Ralph?). I highly recommend reconnecting with cousins you’ve not known for fifty years—and their wives!
Mitzi has just returned from “la tienda”, half a block down the street, and asked me to come carry a five gallon water bottle home. A Mexican lad sitting nearby saw my awkward heave and heard my huffs and puffs and soon was carrying the bottle for me. He wouldn’t take the glittering pesos we offered him. I smiled and said, “Senior Dios bendecira por eso” (God will bless you for that) which may be my first tidbit of ministry here in Mexico. We would never leave Ithaca and live here in Mexico full time, but we do see ourselves coming for even 6-month chunks of time and doing a new work for the Lord.
I had told our church elders, Michael and Ralph, almost a year ago that I would be “phasing out” as I reached the age of seventy which is two weeks from now. Already that is happening and especially so as Michael takes over the business of the church, as Ralph Selin pours years of church wisdom into our considerable changes at Reformed Community Church of Ithaca, and as Ralph Reigle comes on board as Deacon, but this venture down here in Mexico so stretches the meaning of “phasing out” as even to surprise Mitzi and me.
Five years ago, when we first considered what to do about the future of our church in Ithaca—it was a troubled time and the two of us were “not getting any younger”—we could not have foreseen God’s powerful hand in bringing down Ralph Selin from Valois and stepping up Michael Jones into his ministry. Wow! and that’s a joyous “Wow!”
If we were to make this move to a part-time ministry in Mexico, I trust that I would still be part of the team in Ithaca on a part-time basis, as well as remaining active in the Federation of Reformed Churches—(what a time we all had last week!) But we think there’s work to be done down here and that there may be a “leading” to do such work. Can you imagine a FORC church beginning in a tiny village on the south-Pacific shores of Mexico? That’s a stretch, to be sure, but nothing like the elastic goings-on in the Bible. I’m sharing these speculations in order to ask you for prayer. I recall that, before we got started with a church in Ithaca, there was an inner tension between the assurance of God’s will and strong delusions.
If you ever plan to come down here and help someday, be forewarned that those beckoning beaches are dangerous. We’ve learned that many people drown by not being able to make it back through the rough waters and just when they are so very near to what seems like the salvation of dry land. I guess illusions like that are prevalent in Roman-Catholic Mexico. Today at church we were told of a doctor friend (a strong swimmer) who was literally jammed into the sand by a huge, but typical, wave and broke his neck when the undertow snapped him backwards. He lived, but in a very changed condition.