It's beginning to feel a lot like home

Now we've been here for about 2 weeks and so far things are good. We have been doing lots of different stuff, and I'm getting a better feeling of our placement in the city, and what's around us. It still amazes me when we with a few minutes walk can be standing beside amazing sky scrapers, and huge monuments.

2 of the many sky scrapers few minutes walk from where
we live

I wanted to have more Photoes of the ministries, but I don't want to look too much like a turist and especially with the homeless it's better just to leave the values at home.

Famous Pastor Fermin
This Sunday Lupita, I and 2 other Mexicans went to a church called "Semilla de Mostaza" It's a huge church. Afterwards we went to say hi to the pastor, we talked a little with him before we went home. His name is Fermin Iv and he is really famous in mexico and also parts of USA because he was in a band called "Control Machete" and they were really popular when they played. They have made music to several big movies, like Crank, Land of the dead and Amorres Perror. The last which I've been wanting to see for several years now because it's one of the highest rated non-Hollywood movie and most popular Mexican movie to date. So i was really surprised to find out he made the sound track to that.

Pastor Fermin and Ivonne from the DTS

After Fermin became a christian he left the band (5 - 7 years ago) whose music is far from christian (very angry music) and now he has a wife and 2 kids and is the pastor of the church, where he seems to do an excelent (a word that i today learned that shakespere invented) job, so far I've really liked what I've understood from the 2 services we've been to.

Homeless Gringo in Mexico
Oh, and another story (i have many i could tell), around 10 months ago when i did my outreach here me and Daniel ran into this homeless guy, but unlike most he was an American from California, he couldn't return to the states because of some trouble, so he is hiding here in Mexico. Today we walked around and we ran into him again, exactly the same spot where we met him last time. We talked with him for some time and he still don't have a place to live, but he didn't seem that worried about it and he had been going a little bit to a Jehovas witness church in the city, but he didn't really know about all that religion. I hope we run into him again so we can talk some more with him.

Food for the Homeless
Today we did homeless ministry where we in the morning prepared "arroz con leche" a simple sweet rice dish that we took to a street with a lot of homeless 2 min walking from our appartments. There we handed it out in cups and meanwhile talked with the homeless. It was alot like my past experiences with homeless, that the people were really friendly, some because they were high, other just loved to stand and talk with us. One even showed me and a guy called Daniel around in his house that was build in the sidewalk of boxes, sofas and plastic sheets. (photo further down)

One day out doing some ministry in "zona rosa" a really
nice and expensive neighbourhoo

We also talked with this Girl, her name was Karin, she is 21 years old but was kicked out of her mother's house for doing drugs, now she lives here in Mexico city while her mother lives with her (Karin's) 2 kids in Guadalajara 8 hours away in bus. She was really broken she had been talking with some of the girls telling them how she needed love, she left and came back 10 minutes later, and i remember she asked us please not to forget her. We prayed for her and told her that she should stop getting high (she was huffing paint thinner). I know some of the girls want to go talk with her another day, but it's just so sad that this young friendly girl, who even spoke ok English which she learned in high school, can't get out of doing drugs. Even though she told us how much she wanted to stop it, and be back together with her kids.

I think it got some things in my life back in perspective talking with the homeless today. How small problems can become so huge and important to us that we don't realize how much we actually have. We have to be thankful for what we have. These people have no money, no food, no where to live, and worst of all, most of them are so damaged by getting high on paint thinner that any hope for a better future is unrealistic.

We have to remember to be thankful, but also remember our responsibility. Just because their lives are so different from our doesn't mean they stop being our "neighbor".

On valentines day we handed out around 500 hearts with encourgaging phrases and a pieze of candy to people in the street. In the evening we shut the girls out of the appartment and told them we were cooking for them, what we really did was calling Pizza Hut and have them deliver 7 big pizzas, but we were not that lazy, we brought stuff for the girls (princess crowns and boxes of candy) and we decorated the room with different things, like the toilet paper you can see in the top of this picture.

This afternoon I walked by the homeless street to take this picture. It was here that we in the morning handed out "arroz con leche". There wasn't a lot now but in the morning there were somewhere around 40 - 50 people. The first house one the left was where me and Daniel were showed around.

First week in YWAM CMC

So almost a week ago lupita and I arrived at the base YWAM CMC (Youth With a Mission Center Mexico City) and this really means center, we're 7 blocks from the Zocolo which is considered the center of Mexico City.

The Base
The 2 appartments that make up the base/school are in fairly good shape, but the space isn't extravagant, but we fit there. The base leader plans to acquire another apartment down the road, and there is still one free apartment in the building, so we pray it stays free until we need the extra space. Right now we're right now in the process of getting all the stuff we need for a base. The biggest need at the moment is something to put in our hangout room.

Our main room where we eat and do out daily devotions in
the morning

In our rooms we also need places to put things, so Lupita and I have been out looking at things, and we each brought a cheap and simple dresser that will help us organizing a bit of the mess our rooms are at the moment, we're also looking set up curtains in the windows, and we have someone who has promised to sew them for us, so it will be nice when they are done so it will feel a bit more like home.

Sign Ministry

I'm living with 2 other boys, our room is messy at the
moment we're waiting to get some furniture so we can sort
our stuff and not have it laying on the floor

So far being here we have been following the program of the outreach that is currently here from a DTS in Mazatlan. This means that currently and for the next month we are 14 people in the 2 apartments. The outreach started in a church here in the city and moved in the apartments about 2½ week ago. The first 2 weeks here the team has primarily been trying to figure all the pratical things out, like buying beds, chairs, cooking equipment, etc. and finding out how everything works. Now most of the basic things is down and the team is about to do more ministries in the city.

Yesterday we did our first. It was sign ministry that is primarily about showing love to people. We had different signs like, smile, free hugs, free prayers, and we walked around with the signs talking with people. I was with Lupita and another Mexican and we had some really interesting talks. We also talked with a group of 4 boys around 17 - 18 years, and they gave us a song they themselves had written preformed with beatboxing, it was really cool and they had a lot of talent. From what i heard the other groups also had good experiences, one got filmed by some guys with camera and another met another ywam'er from a base somewhere in south america being home in Mexico on vacation. The sign ministry is something I really like and hate :) it's because it really challenges you not to have "fear of man" by walking around with big signs and talking with people. In the beginning it feels really weird but after some time you get into it and it's really cool.

Other Stuff
We have been doing a lot of other stuff the last few days, this sunday me and Lupita went visit this church Lupita heard about. We found the adress of online, and it was a cool exprience even though we were a little late, and i'm sure we will return next Sunday. We also went to a love themed youth gathering where the outreach team preformed some dramas and gave some testimonies.

So we're having a good and challenging time here, and we're excited for the things to come :)

This is our hangout room, at the moment it's kind of empty but we're hoping to get some furniture soon, but we need money, so if you are interested in helping financially you are more than welcome to email me so that our hangout room can get more than 2 inflatable mattresses and one thin blue mattress

Trip to Chiapas

Today I'm back in Mexico City. Me and Lupita have been on a trip down to her home town San Cristobal where she showed me around. We visited some of her friends, family, her pastor and her church. We stayed with her uncle and aunt who were incredible welcomming and good to us. Her uncle jokes alot, although with a lot of the jokes i needed help from lupita understanding, but i learned some things like which fruits to use when having diarea, and i don't mean to eat :)

Lupita's church, they make me feel tall :) and they were really
nice to me.

Trip to Palenque

Our trip was really good, and i got to see a lot of San Cristobal, i also got to see Palenque which is a collection of different Mayan pyramids and buildings, it was really exciting, and beautiful, and it was worth the 5 hour bumpy bus ride each way. On the way we also visited 2 different waterfalls that were really nice. There are some pictures further down.

Christians and Catholics

Picture from our trip to Palenque

Lupita and i making "danish" food for her aunt and uncle,
Before we baked the bread we had to remove around 30
lids stored in the oven, Mexicans don't really use ovens.

Last Saturday Lupita and i went to a christian conference, with worship and a speaker,. In the beginning we were afraid we were way too late, because we came 40 minutes after it should have started, but when we came they still hadn't started, this phenomenon is called "Mexican time" :)

The speaker, who after 1½ hour of talking said that he was just about to finish his intro and start preaching, was good. He talked about how that we sometimes connect being Christians with just being in the church, but he said how being outside, working, doing business can be just as "holy" and that we shouldn't be confined within the church walls. The sad thing was that in the end of the preaching he talked about Catholics, and he like most protestant Mexicans see Catholicism as a whole other religion, that needs to be converted to Christians.

Lupita's Aunt and uncle are Catholics and one night after this preaching we had a long conversation with them about faith, Lupita did most of the talking though :) and i really think they needed to hear our point of view of how Protestantism and Catholicism isn't 2 different religions, and how that we believe that it's the belief in Jesus as savior and nothing else that saves.

Getting ready to join the team!

Now we're back in Mexico City and we're staying at Lupita's parrents at the moment. We plan to join up with the team Sunday or Monday depending on what fits best with everything. We are excited to get started now that we have had some time to "relax" if i can call it that :)

Lupita and I infront of the 2nd waterfall. We asked a lady to take a photo of us, but her boyfriend offered to take it. This guy had minutes before shocked most visitors at the waterfall that day by doing different poses completely nude in front of the waterfall, afterwards i offered to take some photoes of him and his girlfriend, although this time he had clothes on. A few days later we ran into them both in San Cristobal where we said hi again, we now refer to him as "the nude guy" :)

Here are some of the ruins in Palenque, it is really cool how they are in the middle of the jungle in Chiapas. A jungle that i recently read is one of the places with the biggest biodiversity on the planet. Sadly the biggest ruin was closed for entry because of concerns about crazy people with reference to December 2012 where the Mayan calendar runs out of days. The place That was closed was the big ruin in the left side of the picture, where you from the top can take stairs all the way to the bottom where there is a tomb. Could have been a cool experience, but i don't think it's for people who don't like small spaces

A bad picture of a huge protest that blocked our way this Wednesday when Lupita and I went to Tuxla, the capital of Chiapas. We went to get her school papers from the university that she got into, but bailed in favor of YWAM, luckily we found people in the same situation and shared a taxi the rest of the way to Tuxla, where the busses found other routes back. For one scecond we feared that we wouldn't be able to make it back to San Cristobal before our bus to Mexico City left at 19.30, but we did :)