Only in Mexico (or as some people say, Only in Flexico):

These are a few highlights from our time here, compiled by two clumsy Canadians learning to live and enjoy Mexican culture. 

Only in Mexico do you get directions in terms of green houses, cuadros (blocks), and Oxxo's.  [Green because there seems to be some green paint factory nearby and so it's cheap, cuadros because the street signs are often non-existent, and Oxxo's, because, well, Oxxo's are to Mexico what Tim Horton's are to Canada.] 

Only in Mexico do you spend two hours finding a car place that doesn't exist.  ["Yes, yes, I know where that is... it's that way!  Only a short walk!"  We eventually did find another car dealership, but not the one we were looking for.  We could repeat this story many times over, and have since learned the advantage of doing a "Google Street View" trip ahead of time.  :-)  ]

Only in Mexico do you need to make a provisional gravity water drainage system due to driving rain and a leaky sliding door.  [I have since fixed the door.]

Only in Mexico do you need to open up the front door to warm up the house.  [Try that in Canada!  It's starting to get a bit hot now, but during the first two months Guadalajara couldn't have had more beautiful nor comfortable weather.]

Only in Mexico do you get popsicles of frozen Pepto-Bismol.  [I thought I'd try a new flavour, but that was exactly what it tasted like.]

Only in Mexico do you show up for your own baptism an hour after the service start time.  [We came to church for a baptismal service on a week-day, but thought we got the day wrong because no-one was there.  But we're starting to learn about Mexico time!]

Only in Mexico do you need to keep one eye peeled out for traffic, one eye looking up at street signs / Oxxo's, and your third eye looking down for those ever-treacherous topes (speed-bumps) just waiting to jump out and slam into your car wheels.  [Since we've come here, we've learned to always warn passengers to put their seatbelts on.  Passengers wearing seatbelts is not so common in Mexico, but more importantly, I have a bad habit of seeing the speed-bump at the last minute and slamming on the brakes which has had some surprising effects sometimes.  :-)  ]

Only in Mexico do you go into the right lane to turn left and into the left lane to turn right.  [The first is completely legal and makes a lot of sense due to the ingenious Mexican system of lateral lanes.  The second, however, is completely illegal but often happens at a red traffic light when people want to get past a line of stopped cars.]

Sometimes driving in Mexico seems to be like this.

I was going to write that only in Mexico does a wife repair her husband's hair with kitchen scissors after a failed attempt at communication at the local salon, but unfortunately that's not quite true.  The hair miscommunication saga has roots in Chicago, Honduras, but now it seems that Mexico should be included too!

 
And finally, only in Mexico can you find oranges sweeter than sugar, bananas that taste best fried, and people who love to spend hours chatting with you!  [People always have time for you.  What a blessing!]

Our baby, meanwhile, seems to be adjusting just fine to Mexican culture.  He/She (we still don't know) is packing on the pounds and making his/her presence known more all the time.  Here's our most recent family picture.

Weekends In Tepic

Yesterday marked two months that we have been here. Already! And at the same time, living here seems pretty normal now. Well… I thought that this time I’d write a bit about our weekends in Tepic. As this is where we hope to end up eventually, we have been visiting about every three weeks or so. It’s a three hour trip, but we don’t mind. The scenery is just beautiful! [Matt: we go by lots of rolling sugar-cane fields, steep dry buttes, and best-of-all, an old volcano. The volcano lava slide has jumbled black rocks piled helter-skelter in all directions – quite impressive.]

We are very happy to be getting to know the church a bit better, and are always so encouraged after a visit. To hear the heartfelt singing, to see the love that there is for one another, and to see the joy that there is in Jesus Christ as the gospel message works and brings new life. Yes, very encouraging! Matt has been able to lead a few Bible studies too. This past weekend was extra special. Matt preached for the first time since his ordination. God was gracious, and it went very well. The message was well-received by the people. [A lot of people commented on how good my Spanish was. Little did they know that Lisa, our language teacher, had spent several hours revising my manuscript and fixing the Spanish. Nothing like a compliment on someone else’s work, eh?  But the Spanish is definitely coming along for both of us.]

We always enjoy the time of fellowship with the Bouts as well. This past weekend, Pastor Richard & Angela were in Canada visiting some of the churches out west, so we were hosted by Rev. & Mrs. Bout and the children. We are sad to know that the next time we go to Tepic, Rev. & Mrs. Bout will be back in Canada. We have really enjoyed many good hours of conversation with them, as they have so much wisdom and experience to share about living in Mexico, learning the language and culture, the Lord’s goodness to them in the years they were here, and the Lord’s work in the lives and hearts of the people of Tepic. We will miss them!

We do look forward to many more weekends and visits with Pastor Richard & Angela and their wonderful children! And not just because they take us to beautiful beaches.  Yes, the other weekend we did stay one extra day and spent the Monday at the ocean. Hopefully we can include some pictures below.

BABY

A little update on our baby… We are very thankful to say that all continues to go well. 34 weeks! The baby is about 5 lbs now, 45cm long, and just needs to pack on a few layers of fat yet. We are excited to think that our baby is just about ready to enter this world. We, on the other hand, are not exactly ready.  A few things to get organized yet, and maybe a final decision on that elusive boy’s name… I think we’re settled on a girl’s name... I have a big Rubbermaid container of baby clothes from Angela to sort through. And tomorrow evening we go for our first prenatal class – in English! There is a lady connected to our birthing center who is willing to do this for us – something we didn’t think possible when we moved here! I’m doing well also… as long as I don’t make myself too busy. I’m still feeling comfortable, able to sleep at night (more or less), and the weather is not too unbearably hot yet. Ok, that was a little more than a “little update.” Time for a new topic…

A FEW MORE THINGS YET…

• I have a lady coming to the house now one or two times a week for a couple hours to converse with me in Spanish. She came for the first time yesterday, and it went really well. A wonderful Christian lady.
• Supper time around our house has become an increasingly happy time. Why, you say? Well, until then, it’s Spanish only between Matt & I! With two exceptions: Sundays, and the day our baby decides to make an appearance.  Ok, once and awhile, we do find ourselves slipping into English, as Matt explains a Grammar concept to me, or… when something needs to be said now! But for the most part… We started this a few weeks ago and it has helped me a lot. Frustrating at times, (the words: “no entiendo” (I don’t understand) can often be heard coming out of my mouth), but also very good. I do have to say, I have a very patient husband! Matt is also very good at figuring out what I’m trying to say, even when I use the wrong verb or verb tense, or make up my own words. [Don’t be deceived… Anne-Marie is actually the patient one. She has to put up with a somewhat persnickety husband, at least when it comes to proper grammar! ]
• There is another couple at the language school now who also hope to live and work in Tepic. This is exciting! He is a pilot with an aviation fellowship (similar to Missionary Aviation Fellowship) and they are planning to set up an air base just outside of Tepic. We are excited to get to know them better.

I think that’s enough for now. We continue to be thankful for the Lord’s care for us. At times we do feel the distance from our families, especially when something special is happening, or we can have a bit of a discouraging day, (for me, this is usually connected with my inability to communicate or understand at times). Yet, we are content here, and do continue to thank the Lord each day. For the little things too. The kind girl at the grocery store who takes time to make some simple conversation with me, the gentleman who took the time today to go along with me to find out where a building was… these little things can make your day, and we acknowledge them as precious gifts from God. Thank-you, once again, for your prayers, notes, phone calls, and interest. May God bless and keep each of you. 

 

Our beautiful beach, just for ourselves.  A mile long strip of palm trees, sand, and waves.

Yes, we were crazy enough to try Richard's canoe out in the ocean.  It actually worked quite well!

 

Josh, the king of the boogey-board.

Only in Mexico do you cut grass with a machete.  [I guess I should explain.  Clippers were 200 pesos, and a machete was 80, so I thought, hey, I can save some money and get a machete too!  :-)   ]

Our new car!  We're thankful for the car that God provided and thankful to Alfredo and Maria. 

A beautiful park in Tepic that we're looking forward to visiting again in the future.

They even have fishing there!

Just today, we went for a hike in a nearby nature preserve.  We enjoyed it, though we never did quite find the water in question.  :-)

A picnic at the top of the hill in the shade.  Just behind you can see a bit of the beautiful dusty golden rolling hills of Guadalajara.

And for the final picture... "Can You Find the Matt"?

ELM Winter Update 2012

 Dear friends and family,

We have a new update for you to read - a bit more of an official one.  Here is the link: ELM Winter Update 2012.  Enjoy!

    Matt & Anne-Marie.

Guadalajara and Church

These past two weeks have been busy, what with language school, trying to figure out how to buy a car in Mexico (an epic story in itself), and trying to keep our house high and dry during the highly unusual and unseasonal February rains here.  Anne-Marie: Yes, Matt has had lots of opportunities to use his fix-it skills.  And I’m not complaining.  It’s a whole lot more pleasant to do laundry when you don’t have to mop up all kinds of water off your kitchen floor by the end!  Lots could be said about each of these, but we thought that it was high time that we give you a little update about our church situation here in Guadalajara. 

We have been attending a Presbyterian Church here (Presbyterian Church of Mexico) in Bugambilias, and have been greatly blessed every Sunday.  This church has two services, one in English and one in Spanish.  Usually the same sermon is preached in both services, though in different languages of course.  This is a huge help in understanding the Spanish service, as you can well understand.  We also attend a Spanish Sunday school at Bugambilias, which means that we are in church usually from 9:30am until 2:30pm.  Then we go home... and eat lunch!  By then the two of us are very ready for a meal.  Matt’s usually pretty hungry too.  :-)  ...and usually go to another church service, whether a church plant or to the other established Presbyterian Church in town (Rey de Reyes).  This makes for quite the busy day!  But it is always a blessed time.  Our church in Bugambilias is very welcoming and we have gotten to know some of the brothers and sisters there well.  A missionary family here, the Meyer family, has taken us under their wing a little bit and are always inviting us out to different activities – Bible studies, different church plant services, shopping at Costco (great for Anne-Marie) where we can buy cheddar cheese!, seminary classes, and more.  They have been so helpful to us and a blessing from God.  Just last week we bought from them a beautiful Pack-and-Play, stroller, baby carrier, and more!, for an amazing price.  This was quite the provision, as things like these can be very expensive new – even more expensive than at home – and finding good things second-hand is not always easy.  We are very thankful and are definitely looking forward to trying them out soon, not too long from now!  :-)  9 more weeks.  We’re into single digits now! 

The Presbyterian Church here, as are more Presbyterian churches (to my knowledge), are believers in weekly communion.  Though weekly communion is not something that we grew up with, yet since seminary in particular, I have been wishing that we could have communion a little more regularly.  (That’s a separate discussion, one that I think is much better on the phone or face-to-face.)  But now we actually are partaking of Lord’s Supper every week.  This has taken a little bit of getting used to, and sometimes can create little conundrums for us.  For example, Lord’s Supper is served to communicant members at both the English service and the Spanish service, as many people only go to one of the services.  But then the question becomes: in which service do we take communion?  And Anne-Marie is expecting too (so too much wine is not good)!  But as we realized, to not have communion with one of the groups would implicitly say that we were not in communion with them.  As a result, we now have communion twice a Sunday (as do others in the church).  Anne-Marie will usually pour the second little cup of wine into my cup, which takes care of the other question.  :-)  But that is not the whole of the conundrum.  At a church plant we visited one Sunday evening, we were greatly encouraged by the fellowship and the message.  As this was their only service, they served communion, and so we were more than willing to partake with them.  But when we saw the size of the wine cups, we were quite worried!  These weren’t the little cups of Bugambilias, but just about half of a normal cup.  Oh no!  Both Anne-Marie and I were quite worried, as you can imagine.  But we were thankful to find out that this church plant uses grape juice, not wine.  :-)

Seriously though, weekly communion has been something that we have grown to appreciate.  The biggest thing for me was to see the close connection between Word and Sacrament.  This should always be there, of course, and is properly already there in our Reformed churches.  However, what I appreciate about weekly communion is to see how from that particular Bible passage, a certain aspect of the Supper comes out.  Our form, for example, describes all of the aspects of the Supper (e.g., the one-time sacrifice of Christ, communion together, eating and drinking by faith of Christ).  But with weekly communion, just one particular aspect can be highlighted.  I would compare the difference between the two to the difference between a Thanksgiving Day feast and a normal supper meal.  Obviously, a feast is more special.  But on the other hand, that doesn’t mean we should stop eating supper every day!  :-)  To conclude this topic, (here I’m doing what I said I wouldn’t do), I should say that I don’t think moving to weekly communion in our Reformed churches would be healthy.  But having monthly communion would be healthy, in my opinion, and could easily be done if we keep our long form but have a short form as well (which could include a place for the minister to tie in the sermon to the sacrament).  And now, I desist.  :-) 

All in all, we have been very encouraged to see the “inside” of the Presbyterian Church here.  Though there continue to be some smaller differences (a praise band, for example), yet we continue to be impressed by what we have seen and heard of their committment to the full-orbed Gospel of Jesus Christ, both in the preaching, the outreach, and the discipling.  The following story will help you see what I mean, I think.  Listen carefully, as it gets complicated. 

Last night, we had a Christian couple over for dinner and we had a very special night together.  They are engaged and are in the midst of planning their wedding, so we had more than enough to talk about.  :-)  But during the night, I was telling Ezra about our visit to the Florestra church plant.  It is a tiny little church plant in a poorer section of Guadalajara, with quite a minimal building but yet full of people.  I mentioned this church plant to Ezra, and said how impressed I was with the PCM’s committment to church planting.  You see, this church plant is not a church plant of the mother Bugambilias church, but rather is a church plant of the Santa Ana church plant, itself a church plant of Bugambilias.  I was remarking on the fact that I had never seen such a thing before.  Back home, we get excited (and rightly so) about a church plant.  But here was a church plant of another church plant!  Wow!

But that is not the end of the story.  As Ezra and I were talking, we realized that we were talking about two different church plants.  He thought that I was talking about a different one.  You see, there is actually another church plant from the church plant (La Florestra) that we visited.  This means – note well – that there is a church plant of a church plant (la Florestra) of a church plant (Santa Ana) of a church (Bugambilias).  And the original Santa Ana church plant is less than 8 years old!  All I can say is: praise the Lord!

FYI: There will be an ELM update coming out soon, so you will be able to read that too, if you wish.

Some pictures: the outside of the Bugambilias church (Cristo Redentor) and Christian School.

A number of baptisms in the Bugambilias church, both of parents and children.  Quite something to see.

Enjoying pancakes and fresh strawberries. 

Anne-Marie says: They have nice flowers in Mexico too.

Coming soon (next update?): Only in Flexico...!

Language Flops, Guachimontones

These past two weeks have slipped by. We have some updating to do!

First of all, we have a vehicle! Alfredo and Maria (from the church in Tepic) have sold us their 97 Ford Explorer. This is the vehicle we have been borrowing since we’ve been here. We had hoped to buy something different, but with all the paperwork and many other complications, we came to realize that this was the Lord’s provision for the time being. Once we have our Visa (sometime in the next number of months we hope), we will be able to sell this vehicle and buy something else. For now, we are thankful!

What else… We have a doctor here in Guadalajara (GDL)! So yes, we have decided to have the baby here. And feel very good about that. So we will have a little Mexican baby (and Canadian too). Matt jokes that this means we will have to work really hard at our Spanish so that we will be able to understand our baby. And Dad vP is looking forward to meeting his black-haired, darker skinned grandchild. The doctor is very warm (I got a big hug the first time I walked into his office), speaks quite a lot of English, and tells us that he is really a midwife at heart. So we will be very well cared for. It sounds that his practice is very different from a lot of other doctor’s practices here, where being medicated is assumed, care can be quite impersonal, and at times husbands aren’t even allowed to be present at the birth. This is what we were told at the information meeting we went to, so maybe they are a little biased. But anyway, we are so thankful for the Lord’s provision in this way also.

We are carrying on in our language studies. I completed Level 1 yesterday (there are 4 levels), and Matt is three-quarters the way through Level 3. We continue to be very impressed with the program and are learning a lot. From virtually not being able to speak four weeks ago, the fact that I can carry on a basic conversation now is very encouraging.  Of course, we will notice the most improvement at the beginning. And I am usually struggling to find the right verb tense and ending, and am just happy when they understand what I’m trying to say. There are also many opportunities for me to develop my ability to laugh at myself. A very important skill when you are learning a new language, I’ve learned! There was the time that I asked an eight year old girl if the nine year old boy standing beside her was her son. (Strange look. And then: oops, I mean brother). Then there was the time when we were handing out soup and buns downtown GDL with one of the missionary families and I thought that the one lady said that the other was pregnant. Well, I knew the word for “congratulations”, so I was happy to use it. Until I realized a moment later that I had definitely misunderstood the lady, and no congratulations were in order. They were very understanding and we all had a good laugh about that. And then, finally, there was the time when a man came to the door trying to sell me cheese. I thought he was the neighbour, and was asking to borrow some cheese. I was very apologetic that the cheese I had was cheddar, not Mexican cheese.  He looked confused so I went to the fridge and brought it out to show him. And, was this ok, and how much did he want?... Eventually I clued in, and I urgently called Matt down to try to explain to the man… We laughed and laughed.

There are many more things we could tell you about. We spent this past weekend in Tepic. Hi-lights were: many great conversations with Richard & Angela & Rev. & Mrs.  Bout, worshipping and celebrating communion with the church, (for me) the women’s bible study and baby shower for a lady in the church, fun times with the kids, and all the delicious food! (Thank-you Angela & Mrs. Bout!)

We also have included some pictures from a little trip we took on Monday. It was a public holiday, so we went with the other two ladies from the language school to Guachimontones, a historic site about one hour away. Matt can tell you a bit about this.  The Lord has been very good to us. When we have been discouraged, He has lifted us up. And His provision has been so abundant. We’ve been very blessed by the preaching of the Word here, and fellowship of believers. And while there are lots of things to do always, and paper work to get through (Matt’s favourite!), each day we continue on, not just merely surviving, but really enjoying our days and rejoicing in His goodness and faithfulness. We do thank you for your continued prayers and support. This means so much to us.

Matters for prayer:

• Rejoice with us in God’s provision of a car, a doctor, and that we can feel a lot more settled here.
• Pray for the application process for our Visa.
• Pray that we may continue to be motivated in our language studies and be able (and willing) to develop relationships with those in our neighbourhood.
• Give thanks for 29 weeks of pregnancy and that I am feeling so well.
• Pray for the gospel to continue to go forth in this dark land where there is so much need for the Truth.

Pictures from Guachimontones:

 The four of us (or should I say five? ) on top of a big massive altar looking down on the main altar.  The Guachimontones was built around 200 B.C. to 300 A.D. by an Indian group.  Guachimontones was apparently the cultural center of a vast empire / network stretching from Mexico down past Guatemala. 

 Here you can see the central altar in greater detail.  Note the steps going up to the very top! 
The group actually knew that the planets revolved around the sun.  It's an impressive place now, but actually was quite the brutal place in the past. Thankfully, that is no more.

 

A palota court, where they had to get to the ball into the hoop with their hips.

Language School in Guadalajara (pictures)

The Language School

Nopales (not my picture)

  

Tortas Ahogadas (also not my picture)

Just today we went to the market.  We bought all this for less than 100 pesos!  That's less than $8. Amazing, eh?

Language School in Guadalajara (without pictures)

Note from Matt: I've been having a horrible time trying to include pictures, thanks to Blogspot's new broken picture uploader.  Here's the text, and the pictures will hopefully appear later.  

Dear family & friends,

We hope this letter finds you well!  We are doing quite well ourselves and are thankful that the Lord has worked out most things for us.  We are still working towards getting a car, which has been occupying a lot of my time lately, but we are hopeful about that too.  We thought it would be good to tell you a bit more about the language school this week.

The school is almost 45 minutes away in the mornings due to traffic, so we have lots of time to listen to the radio and to try to decipher as much as we can.  Some radio announcers talk very fast!  We are also enjoying listening to some sermons from Canada during the drive.  Those ones, at least, we have no trouble understanding.  :-) 

Here are two pictures of the language school.  The first shows the whole house (the school just rents the bottom one-and-a-half-levels).  The second shows the court inside, which is quite nice.  Note that we're both wearing sweaters!  It can actually get down to 10 degrees in the mornings, which is quite cool considering that there is no central heat.  It's very common to see more winterish coats, scarves, and even touques in the mornings.  But we're not complaining about the weather at all.  The days are absolutely beautiful.  Blue skies, warm sun, but still cool in the shade.  We love it!

Anne-Marie is all by herself in her class.  Apparently there used to be more students, but with the violence elsewhere in Mexico, enrollment has dropped a bit.  But this way Anne-Marie gets lots of practice!  I have two others in my class, Deb from Texas and Courtney from Oregon.  We've really enjoyed getting to know them as friends and sisters in the Lord.  We've gone out a couple of times already for ice-cream and tortas ahogadas, and are planning to make a trip down-town sometime.  (If you don't know what tortas ahogadas are, you'll really have to try some if you ever come to Guadalajara.  It literally means "drowned sandwiches".  They're really quite good!)  Deb and Courtney will be working in a little place in Autlan, Mexico with a Baptist church there. 

The language program is really put together quite well.  The subjects we deal with each day cover quite a wide range: Christianity, Catholicism, food, health, the judicial system, etc.  Did you know, for instance, that the nopale is useful for everything from making adobe stick better to nourishing cows during drought?  We're looking forward to trying some (it's used in some very traditional dishes), though we haven't quite decided how to use it yet.  :-)

As Anne-Marie mentioned before, part of our Spanish homework every other day is to go to find people to ask a couple of questions of.  Something else that works well when you're trying to learn the language is to try to find something that's hard to get.  You often go on a bit of a goose-chase, but it's a good way to meet people.  People are generally very helpful too, which helps a lot.  I went into the Santa Ana center today to try to find a new sink drain plug.  I asked first one man, who sent me to another store, who sent me to another store, which I finally found after some false turns.  But now we have two shining new enchufes in our fregadero, and I've also met some new people!  So little by little, you begin to get to meet the people here. 

So that's it for now.  We've got lots of plans on what to write on, but we're going to try to write on one topic a week.  Thank-you for your letters and thank-you especially for your prayers.  I can say that without a doubt that God has been very good to us, and we are very happy to be here.  We've even had some pretty funny happenings lately!  (But that will have to wait for another time.)  Until then,

Love in Christ, Matt & Anne-Marie Van Dyken.