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 :)