After nearly ten years at Stony Brook Fellowship we all agreed it was time for me to have a sabbatical. As part of this three month rest break our church offered to send my wife and I on a mission exposure trip to Mexico. The main purpose of this trip was to visit our adopted missionary Elma Janzen who works under the EMC Board of Missions in the Nuevo Pacto Church in Juarez, Mexico. This proved to be a wonderful and eye-opening experience. I was asked to write an article describing our experience. This is it.
To provide a proper context to our excursion it may help to explain a little about our mission work in Mexico. For many years EMC has had missionaries working in Mexico, primarily in the state of Chihuahua which is just south of El Paso, Texas. Their work has centered on reaching both Spanish and German speaking people and quite a number of churches have been established. I’m embarrassed to admit this but one of the first things we had to learn in our visit was to refer to all of these churches, Spanish or German, as Mennonites. These Mennonite churches are divided into separate Spanish and German conferences. The German conference made up of seven churches is known as the Conferencia Misionera Evangélica (Evangelical Missionary Conference) and the Spanish conference consisting of 17 churches and preaching points is called the Conferencia Evangélica Menonita de México (Mexico Evangelical Mennonite Conference). When you visit the area the need for this separation becomes evident as there are many cultural and linguistic differences.
Let me first describe our visit with the German churches. There are approximately 50 thousand German Mennonites living in and around the city of Cuauhtémoc. They moved to this area over the last century coming primarily from Canada and Europe. Some were fleeing oppression in Europe, but most came from Canada hoping to be able to live out their way of life unrestricted by government and worldly influences. They have organized themselves into colonies (somewhat like our municipalities) with numerous small settlements called campos. With some exceptions, these people live a conservative agrarian lifestyle and, regrettably, often are dominated by legalism.
Economically, the colonies seem to be prospering. We saw fields filled with wonderful crops of corn ready to harvest and the highway leading into Cuauhtémoc is lined with large businesses and industries run by local Mennonites. We even saw a hockey rink/mall with artificial ice. I guess some of them, at least, haven’t totally lost their Canadian roots.
We were able to visit with EMC missionaries John & Lorna Wall, who work half-time as pastors of the Hillside Gospel Church at Los Jagueyes and half-time in an advisory role with the CME, who toured us around the colonies. We met many interesting people and saw their church buildings. We also viewed the Steinreich Bible School which is doing a great job providing biblical and theological training in Low German. Near Cuauhtémoc we were allowed to visit the Luz En Mi Camino Rehabilitation Center which offers treatment for alcohol and drug addiction. This, sadly, is a pressing need in the area. Presently this center only treats German speaking men but additions to the facility are nearly complete so they will be able to treat women and Spanish speaking men as well.
The work among the German Mennonites is slow and difficult but progress is being made. While we were there we had the opportunity of attending one of a series of evangelistic meetings that were being conducted on the colonies featuring Walter Neufeld an evangelist from Paraguay. These services were being held on non-church sites so that more of the Old Colony Mennonites would be willing to attend. There was a large attendance the night we were there and the message was very good (as much of the Low German as I could understand).
Now let me describe our visit among the Spanish churches. We hooked up with Elma Janzen in Juarez and were able to attend a worship service at the Nuevo Pacto Church (New Covenant Church). Juarez, a city of about two million people, is just over the Rio Grande River from El Paso. Being a border city with the US is a mixed blessing. Many factories have been established which provide eagerly sought after jobs but there is also more crime, violence and insecurity due mostly to escalating drug wars between rival drug cartels. Job security is a huge problem. For example, while we were in Mexico, Carlos Martinez the pastor at Nuevo Pacto Church lost his job as a jeweler because his boss, who owns a number of stores, decided to close his stores after they had been repeatedly robbed. Carlos, himself, was robbed and nearly killed as he made his way to making a bank deposit. Deaths by suicide or murder seem to touch most families.
Other cities where we have Spanish churches are Chihuahua City and Cuauhtémoc. Churches and preaching points have been started in a number of smaller communities as well. We were not able to visit Chihuahua City but were fortunate to visit with Alvira Friesen who works in Cuauhtémoc. There are two Spanish churches in this city and they are working to establish a third.
The highlight of our trip was the five days we spent at the retreat centre at Santo Tomás helping with the Spanish youth camp. The camp consisted of sessions, games, breakout groups, two concerts and eating, of course. We were blessed beyond measure to see the earnestness with which the youth worshipped God. In Canada we are not accustomed to our young people crying out to God (literally), seeking God’s forgiveness and humbly prostrating themselves on the floor in order to do so. We saw young people who were serious about their faith and desperate to see God work in their lives and in their country. I guess turmoil, insecurity, financial struggles, and pain can drive people to this point. Inside I wept for them, but more for us.
When we made plans to visit Mexico we thought it would be a good experience for us but nothing anyone could have said before we left could have prepared us for the spiritual impact this experience has had on our lives. We will be forever changed. For us mission work is no longer a mere theory or a number in a budget, but faces, names and places. There is a powerful work of God going on amongst our Mexican churches that, for us, largely had remained a secret. But no more! So just like in Acts 4 when Peter said to the Jewish authorities after he was arrested, “we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard,” we cannot remain silent about what we have seen and heard in Mexico. We would encourage more pastors and EMC congregants to go and see first hand what God is doing in Mexico. We could learn a lot.
