Engagement & Wedding in Mexico

Isn't she beautiful?

As most of you probably know i have gotten engaged to my amazing and wonderful Lupita. Friday the 20th we went out walking in the morning, this Friday we had free because of work the previous weekend.

So Friday morning at the monument of the Mexican revolution i asked her to marry me, and she said yes :)

This is really exciting and we have already set the date which will be 30th of June in Mexico. Everyone we know in Denmark is welcome for our wedding, but we understand that it takes planning, money and time. Therefore we will also be having a celebration of our marriage in Denmark, but it will be some time before that.

We know that 2 months isn't a long time, but with our work here in Mexico we wouldn't be able to get married this year if we do it later, and also we see no reason to wait on this when we know we want spend our lives together in good and in bad.

We're both really excited about the wedding and especially for my family (hopefully all 5) who will be coming all the way from Denmark to Mexico for the first time.

So now we're working to plan the wedding, and we have already been doing a lot. We're set on the place which is a beautiful small place (we don't count on being a lot 50 - 60) in the historical center of the city.

With the upcoming wedding Lupita and I know that we will get in some debt, and though we don't like it we think it's acceptable since we're planning on going to Denmark in February 2013 for a longer period. The thing is that after the wedding we will still be paying staff fees, and by then i'll most likely be completely broke.

The organisation YWAM functions that not a single person (of 60.000 worldwide) recieves a paycheck. Their idea of finances is based on openness, and personal contact. So people who work in YWAM all have personal supporters. Lupita also have supporters who help her so that she can pay the 4.000 pesos we pay here as staff fees each month.

The thing is that i don't have any supporters, and I've always known that i would need it if i wanted to stay here in Mexico City for a full year, but until now I've been able to postpone it with the help of working when i was in Denmark and with my wonderful parents who have blessed me a lot.

So now i'm looking for people to support me financially so that I can stay here until our commitment to the base ends in February. Most of this time is already planned because Lupita and I will have some of the key roles in the upcoming discpleship training school in July (in which we already have 5 applicants with more on the way)

We don't plan on living on the base but in a cheap apartment nearby so the staff fee won't be as high, but we've still calculated that we both will need at least 5.000 pesos (2.200 kr) a month for us to pay staff fees, rent, metro card, phone, etc. to get by this year. (Lupita almost have this amount monthly)

Therefore i'm now looking for people who can help me either with a one time donation, or with a monthly donation, so that i can stay here and keep being a part of what God is doing here in the city and continue establishing the foundation for this new christian school here in Mexico City.

If you are interested i supporting me and us in this I would love to be in contact with you and talk or explain more, even just a little will be a blessing.

My email is Lars.borty@gmail.com

Lupita with her ring i bought together with her best friend Montse one day that she had to go to a meeting. She asked me to not put this picture in my blog, but i can't help it, she is so cute <3  

Stress, challenge, relax, fun, happy!

A few days ago i went to the cinema with Lupita (2 for 1 Tuesday, so it was really cheap, only 17 pesitos each). Before the movie started they showed some different commercials. One of the commercials were from Chedraui (Mexican supermarket) with the singing slogan "Chedraui cuesta menos" and i felt at home.

Lupita and I in front of the monument
of the Mexican revolution. They have a
fountain with lights there in the night

The last few weeks I've been to Chedraui a lot. I'm the one in charge of planning our food, and it has been really good. I've learned to cook manny delicious things, but it's also challenging at times when you have to plan food for 16 - 20 people for a week, which was what we had last week, and it was during our most busy time because of our event.

But I've made it through and from what i heard people liked the food they had. I feel i'm getting into a good rythm of cooking the food, so now i'm just looking for more inspiration of what to cook. It's best if it's something that is easy to scale to make for more than the 8 - 9 we normally are. So if you have any food  ideas you can comment below :)

To do
Before i came to the base here in Mexico City i sometimes wondered what we would be doing, or if we would have enough to do as a base. This fear of having nothing to do today is completely gone.

We keep meeting new people and running into opportunities of things to do, we recently started a new thing where Alejandro from the base is going 2 times a week to teach values to former addicts, so we will be taking turns on going with him to this place. I haven't been with him yet, but from what i hear it's a good opportunity because all of them are there by their own free will, so they are really interested in learning.

Also a few days ago we were invited to a company that print magazines. It's owned by a christian that we came in contact with through the conference last week. The company have 140 employ's that mainly consists of single mothers because the owner has a heart to help them. From talking with the owner we understood that they are going through a hard time economically, with them, as he explained, just being caught in unfortunate circumstances. The business seemed really well driven, but they are now fighting to survive. We didn't really know how we could help them, but we have offered to come to them some times and talk with their employs about values, and we pay that we can in some way have a good influence in things so that the owner can continue with this ministry of helping single mothers through his business.


Lupita's little brother

Someone praying for a little boy during our event. I spend
a lot of time in another room from where i could control the
powerpoint.

As i wrote about last week we're still trying to get money so we can send Paul to a christian summer school/camp.. I've put a little counter in the side and i hope that you will consider giving a bit for this good cause. Right now we have arranged that he can stay with us at the base for a few weeks (just the week days) so that he won't have to stay home in the little apartment all day. We are thinking it will be good for him to have a more scheduled day, so that he doesn't sleep to 12 every day. We really hope that we can get him to take his preparation for exam in august more serious so that he will be able to get into high school.


Event - Mas Alla de Tí
Last week we had our event. It was a really good experience and things went well. For the future we were thinking we would like more people there, but i'm still impressed that we had 100+ young Mexicans Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 10 in the morning to 18 in the evening. Lupita and I held a seminar about worldview and it went well, the first day our seminar were filmed by some guys from a Mexican christian TV station, and later i was interviewed too as one of the pictures show.

Here the interview with a nice guy called
Alfredo, he has his own show on the
TV channel.

In the event we had a Mexican politician come, her name was Rosi Orozco. She is a christian and she has a big focus in stopping trafficking of women that is a HUGE industry here in Mexico. The day of her speaking she brought 2 girls (both around 16 - 17 normal looking girls) both who had been trafficked. The one had been kidnapped and the other one had been manipulated by an older guy, and then they both had been sold for sex here in Mexico.There had to be a lot of security around them (no guys they didn't know well close to them) and no photos. This was to secure that the people who they had been rescued from wouldn't find them again. Both their testimonies were shocking and horrible, and no eye was dry after hearing their stories.

I think the thing that moved me most was when one of the girls told about her first day in Merced (maket)(a place i've been several times, and seen the girls by the side of the road) and told about how she was sold for sex form 8 AM in the morning to 10 PM in the night, and sharing how it was the most horrible she had ever experienced in her life.

Now both girls met Christ and it had changed their lives so now they were sharing their stories to help other girls who are still in slavery, and help change the mentality of "prostitution" in Mexico.

Seeing these girls has really made me think about how we sometimes just close our eyes to suffering in the world. How it's easier to distance us to things when they are not happening in our own countries.

The hardest thing of this is that these girls they don't need our empathy, that won't comfort them in their hell.

Our tears, if they are not followed up by action, only becomes testimonies of our western culture's self centered search for emotional stimulation. It's like in television shows where we turn other peoples suffering into entertaining emotional roller-coaster rides. It's about me feeling empathy for the suffering people, not about the suffering people, and don't get me wrong, i'm not trying to blame everyone else, it's a big part of me too. It's a fight of putting yourself in the background and others in front. It's a fight of doing what we as Christians are called to, to die to ourselves. These girls need people to take action, and we as Christians are called to do just that, and then it doesn't matter in whatever form that action looks, as long as it brings us further than just tears.

Those were my serious thoughts for this week, now i almost feel as a hypocrite for the following pictures, but life always goes on, our challenge is not to forget!

This was the last night before Daniel left for Mazatlan, We had planned a nice surprise dinner.. It consisted of noodles, bacon, chicken nuggets, sausages, cheese, chips, soda and a little bowl of bacon grease just to finish off this heart attack meal :)

Lupita's birthday was the 9th of April, and i had arranged a little treasure hunt. This picture was on the roof of our apartments where i'd hidden the next clue that would bring her to the bakery for a piece of cake and another clue.. I even had her play the computer game "Lars's adventure" for a clue, this frustrated her because she couldn't beat level 1 to get to the clue in level 2 :)

Where your heart is!

In Danish we say: "Ude godt, men hjemme bedst" (being away is good but home is best)
Elvis Presley sang: "Home is where the heart is"

Here i'm playing football with Alejandro and some kids from
the street, our friend Daniel who wasn't that much into
football was sitting and talking with some other street kids.

I know my heart is right here in Mexico with an amazing Mexican girl, so I know i'm home, although i still miss my other home (Denmark) a bit :) but i'm thankful that i get to stay here in her country and learn more of her culture and language, with amazing people and t-shirt/shorts weather almost every day :)

I have a plane ticket back to Denmark the 17th of April (booked it for return after 3 months because it was a really cheap offer), and I've been thinking if i should take it for a short visit home, but I've decided to not do it. One thing is that i don't want to leave Lupita again, we have had enough time apart. The second is that it is too expensive for me at the moment, and then there is more than enough for me to do here in the new YWAM school. So I've decided to let the plane leave without me.

This means that it will probably be some time before i return to Denmark, (that is if i get my FM3 visa that i need after 6 months here). But it's ok, especially because my parents are trying to plan a visit US here in Mexico.

So all in all I'm still doing great here in Mexico and i really enjoy it. The only thing is that Lupita has been fighting some sickness. We think that maybe it gastritis (as some doctors have said, and something that isn't that uncommon in Mexico) and we hope it's nothing more serious, but it's hard when every doctor gives us a new explanation of what is wrong, and prescribes medicine like it was candy. But we would really appreciate your prayers for her so that she can get better because she has been fighting this for a long time, and it's taking a lot of her energy, especially with our big event coming up (12th - 14th of april) where she is planning a lot.

So aside from that some other things has been happening since my last post, here are a few of them. oh, and we had an earthquake yesterday, the strongest since the really strong one 2 weeks ago. 

Weekend with church

Here i'm giving my message with Alejandro translating, it's
still too hard for me to do teaching in Spanish, but i'm sure
it will come one day :)

Not this weekend, but the one before that we went to a weekend camp by a church we have some connections with. They had invited us to come and spend some time with the youth, and also give some teachings. Lupita was supposed to give a teaching, but when she stayed home because she was sick i had to take over the teaching. I talked about how we as humans are in a battle between the flesh and the spirit as Paul writes, and what we do with that battle.

A lot of Mexicans have this western lifestyle as their dream, so i also addressed that dream which a lot of times lead to the lie that money creates happiness or a better country. In the end what really creates a better country are the things like respect for human life, respect for the law, and love between people. I talked about how that they shouldn't strive to be like the west, they should strive after those things, and they don't automatically come with money.

Pastors breakfast

Lupita talking about YWAM and thier schools at the
pastors breakfast.

Last Saturday we had a breakfast at a Christian cafe for pastors. This breakfast was to tell them about us as YWAM here in the city and also a chance to spread the word of our conference in the middle of April. We had invited 50 pastors, and around 25 showed up. It was a good morning where we told a little about who we are and encouraged them to work together with each other. We also made clear that we aren't trying to steal their youth and that we're just here to support them in their work as churches.


Lupita's little brother

As i wrote shortly in my last post we're trying to send Lupita's little brother (15 years) to Mazatlan this summer for a "Verano de Fuego" (a 1 month mini DTS). The thing is that he moved with his mom and dad to Mexico City to live with his older brother and his family a few months ago. This meant that he hasn't been to school since because he failed one of his exams to continue to high school, and the next chance he gets is in August. So for the past few months he has been staying at home away from all his friends 12 hours away in Chiapas.

This has been really hard for him, and we're also a bit worried about him because he is the type who makes new friends really easy, and he is in a age where he is really influenced from the people around him (he had some not so good types of friends in Chiapas) so we really want him to find good friends, and not people who are an bad influence on him. He says he believe in God, but it isn't very personal and with the age he is in everything is new and tempting..

We went visitng some friends from another organisation
who did an event called "Invasion" in Mexico City. An event
we worked together with them when they did it in Maz

So we were thinking that it would be great if he could spend a month in Mazatlan and get some good influence. The mini DTS costs 4000 pesos (2000 DKK) and the transportation back and forth to Mazatlan is a little less than 2000 (1000 DKK).

So in all this is 3000 DKK. With moving and everything this is too much for his family, and for me and Lupita it's also a lot, so i hope that someone wants to help him getting to Mazatlan. We see it as a really good investment for his future in this time where he has to choose what path he wants to follow in life.. 

So please, if you want to help Paul getting to Mazatlan write me, and i can send you my danish bank info or paypal info. Even if it's just 50 DKK, everything counts :) You can reach me at lars.borty@gmail.com 

Picture from Curnavaca where we did the weekend camp with the youth from a church. The weekend was packed with teachings, but we also had time for a little fun in the pool :) oh, and the date on the picture is wrong :)

Lupita's creatively decorated wall by her bed with photos we printed :)