Mexico

Calling All Missionaries

Current.

Retired.

Aiming2B.

A revolution in missions taking place

In the last few decades a profound yet quiet revolution has taken place in mission which is best observed from a field perspective. There are many facets of this shift, which is accelerating in speed and intensity as the timing of our Lord Jesus is coming closer.

The first change, according to The Bridge International’s RK Ulrich, is the pulling back of the Western church as torch-bearers of the Gospel to the unreached, and the merging of national churches with strong leaders who effectively are reaching their own. It is interesting to note that the Church-at-large is presently growing far more rapidly in the third world and emerging nations than in the West (Europe and North America)

Secondly, Ulrich says, “The definition of who is a missionary is changing. Traditionally, it was the person with a life-long call, trained through mission-school and sent out by a church or mission organization to one geographical field where they lived and died.”

[…]

And finally, the rapidly increasing availability and use of the internet and satellite television is changing outreach. Ulrich says, “These media are already blanketing every square inch of our globe with an unfathomable amount of information. It’s said that the paradigm shift caused by the coming of the information highway is causing as profoundly revolutionary changes in our present global community as the invention of Gutenberg’s printing press did to the world culture at the time.”

Generally speaking, I think the pulling back in the first change is unfortunate. Why pull back? If the national churches overtake us, praise God! But pull back…?

Anyway, I enjoyed this short article. Sure, I grew up in Mexico as an MK. Sure, I served in Mexico as an adult missionary. Sure, I’m chairman of a mission board. But I hope I enjoyed the article as a Christian and not just because of my involvement in foreign missions.

It Was Hot That Day!

Update way down below

This was at Margaret Miller’s place (a mission “compound” of Hope Mennonite Missions) in Guaymas Valley, Mexico:

Almost 110 degrees in the shade!

It was hot that day! (And it got at least two-tenths of a degree hotter than what it shows above.)

Thankfully, it was also very dry.

The wind that blew most of the day, as I recall, was also hot and dry.

On days like that, to stay healthy stay in the shade and drink liquids.

Do lots of both, in fact.

Anyway, I’m left wondering what the thermometer would have recorded if we’d had it out in the sun.

Yesterday, I did an experiment here at home (near Yoder, Oregon). Here are the results:

Thermometer in the shade

Thermometer in the sun

That must be why temperatures are measured “in the shade” rather than “in the sun.”

😉

Originally posted: July 10, 2008 at 1:54 pm

Updated: July 12, 2008 at 2:03 pm

At 10:20 this morning, the temperature in the sun was 107, but in the shade it was merely 76.

View from the Ground

Maybe I inadvertently set my camera on a bug...

Bird’s-eye-view photos are neat and have their place.

I like to take bug’s-eye-view shots as well.

So here are some taken during our recent visit to northwest Mexico.

The water ran over
The hose was filling the “dam” around the plants.
We left the project untended too long.
The water ran over.
Location: front of Margy’s house in Ejido Santa María

Mark Roth, self-portrait
Self-portrait
Location: same

Three people at Cochorit Beach at sunset: Mark Roth, Ruby Roth, Chris Strubhar
Mark & Ruby Roth and Chris Strubhar
tripod: beer bottle jammed into the sand
Location: Playa El Cochorit near Empalme, Sonora, Mexico

Read it all

Mexico Trip

About 41 hours ago our family returned from a quick trip to “our” congregation’s mission in northwest Mexico. (We left home shortly after noon on Monday, April 21.)

I intended to post here at least a couple of times while we were gone. Since I didn’t, I’ll do some catching up over the next few days, I hope.

For now, four photos.

Our children: Andrew, Michayla, Dora

Our three children-still-at-home who went with us: Andrew, Michayla, and Dora.

The parents: Mark and Ruby

Their parents: Ruby and Mark.

Mark preaching in Santa Maria

The dad giving the message during the Sunday evening (April 27) service at the Emmanuel church in Santa María, Sonora, Mexico. I didn’t know about the photo till I found it on the computer a few minutes ago. Judging by the angle and the knee on the left (and by the fact I don’t recall a flash flashing), I deduct it was a surreptitious shot.

Now for the final picture for this post, a book sighting!

Ordinary Days by Dorcas Smucker

I saw Dorcas Smucker’s book Ordinary Days. At various times I saw my wife and daughters reading it. I even heard (excerpts, laughs, chuckles) them sometimes. So for Dorcas’ sake, I shot her book, shown above on one of the “couches” in Margaret Miller’s living room. (Now click the book title, buy the book, and thus send a small commission my way. 🙄 )

Three Strikes, Who’s Out?

Dollar, Peso, Amero!

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox confirmed the existence of a plan conceived with President Bush to create a new regional currency in the Americas, in an interview last night on CNN’s “Larry King Live.”

It possibly was the first time a leader of Mexico, Canada or the U.S. openly confirmed a plan for a regional currency. Fox explained the current regional trade agreement that encompasses the Western Hemisphere is intended to evolve into other previously hidden aspects of integration.

US Law, UN Law!

The Bush administration is before the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to overturn the death penalty, at the behest of the International Court of Justice, a division of the United Nations.

Free Speech, Zoned Speech!

A street preacher whose annual fall campaign often includes a stop in Philadelphia, the self-described “Birthplace of Liberty,” has been arrested for speaking against abortion on public property outside the building housing the Liberty Bell.

[…]

While he was speaking, National Park Service rangers ordered him and others in his group to the other side of the building, where they said they had set up a “free speech zone,” which was far away from any pedestrian traffic entering or leaving the building.

Fencing Fantasies

Waxing Reaganesque — “Mr. Bush, take down this fence!”

Happy talk aside, relations between the two neighbors have worsened since Bush last year signed a law calling for construction of fencing along the long border the two countries share. Calderón has ridiculed the fence, likening it to the Berlin Wall.

Since I’ve already posted on this subject here and here, I’ll not say anything further.

However, there’s also this:

Church groups led marches along both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border to protest the use of fences to stop migrants.

Nearly 100 members of churches in Arizona and Mexico marched Sunday on either side of a wall near the town of Naco, which straddles the border.

On the Mexico side, Father Guillermo Coronado of La Iglesia San Jose in Naco, Sonora, said more people need to organize similar demonstrations.

“This is a sign of what needs to be done in all the border states rather than rejecting and ignoring other human beings,” he said. “The greatest gift we have is that we are human beings with a mission to love and be happy. God has no borders.”

Señor Coronado, a question, please.

Does your church have any borders?

Also, does your church take any action to stop activity it deems immoral?

And finally, do you see any valid parallels between your answers to the previous questions and what you’re protesting against?

Above all, love God!