One month :)

Time is moving fast and it's now only 1 month until i'll get married to Lupita. This is very exciting but we have tons of stuff to do but we're sure we will get ready for the big day. We just hope that Lupita will get better from her sickness soon. Aside from the wedding preparations we have enough to do here at the base.

We have 3 nights a week designated for family night to
strenghten our relations here at the base. One of the nights
each week is creative night where you can do whatever you
want as long as it's creative, so we paint, draw, write, play
guitar, take photoes and much more. This is my rather
strange picture from last family night. 3 elephants.

Yesterday we got the Mazatlan outreach team back from Brazil. The team will be staying here almost 2 weeks and do different ministries. This means that we currently are 20 people on base, which then means a lot of work for me planning the food. Especially it's a challenge in the kitchen which isn't very big to cook for 20 people. On top of this we will be having another team sleeping here in a few days (no eating as far as i know) which will bring our total number up around 30, so we will be more than full :)

Otherwise our time is going with preparations for the upcoming DTS, and the last 2 weeks we have been spending a little time making some notebooks by hand. This actually didn't take as long as i expected (a family night with 8 people working as a machine helped a lot). The reason for this is that we will have our students write about what they learn every week in these journals, and really want the students to put personality into these journals. Therefore we thought it would be cool if we put time into it by making them ourselves so that the students would be inspired to really use it and not just be another cheap notebook somewhere. The picture has the 10 notebooks we have made and we expect to put some fabric around them so they will look nice, and we hope that the students will use their own creativity to decorate them on the outside and on the inside so that these notebooks can be a place of reflections, thoughts and ideas from the teachings.

The notebooks waiting to be covered with fabric and
decorated, one book probarbly takes around 1½ or 2
hours to make when in training

My little brother is coming soon :)
Now that Lupita and I are getting married Filip my little brother will be coming here to Mexico a bit in advance. He will be living here on the base with us, and helping with different things. When he arrives the current team will stil be staying here, and when they leave we have another team shortly. So there will be enough to do, and we can hopefully show him a little of the city. Also i'm sure he will get chances to go be a part of some ministries like playing football or other things.

Lupita's little brother is here :)
This last few weeks we have had Paul living with us most days (he sometimes needs to go home). We think it's really good for him to be here instead of wasting his time at home, and he is really helpful when we need an extra hand. I have had him help me and Alejandro cook a lot and i think that is also good for him since he has never really cooked before. In Mexico it's very uncommon that boys ever cook in their home. This was also true for Alejandro, who i had to teach a few basic things in the beginning like not using the same cutting board for vegetables after cutting raw meat.

But it's good to have him here with us, and surprisingly fast he is starting to pick up on a lot of the English we speak (and i get to practice my Spanish). I think this is really good thing for him since English opens doors so he hopefully in the future can avoid the bad/low paid jobs which there are enough of here in Mexico City.

My finances
The last few weeks I've been sending mails around to some people, and i still have a few i haven't send to yet. This is because I've been asking for support to be able to keep working here in YWAM CMC until Febuary 2013 as Lupita and I plan.

Everyone in this organisation (YWAM) are unpaid. This means that everyone has personal supporters. So far i've been able to live on earlier savings and a my really generous and helpful parents, but now is the time for me to find someone who will support my work here.

Therefore I've been looking for 11 people to support me with 200 a month (the next 8 months, which will cover my living expenses) and I've gotten enough to cover around 4 of the 11 i need. I'm super thankful for this support, and i hope and pray that i'll get the last people so i can keep doing my work here the next months.

If you are interested in supporting me, please write me, and also we're still trying to send Paul to "Verano de Fuego" (summer camp) and we're a little over half way, so help for that is still more than welcome especially now that we see him enjoying being here with us we think it's a very important chance we shouldn't let him pass on, a chance for him to do and become different than the millions of other teenagers here in the city.

Here we were doing a drama in a youth service last Sunday. It looks really empty but there was around 150 young people. The event were from 16 - 20 and in the end the church had prepared some really good food for us. We did 2 dramas, some advertising for our upcomming DTS and a short message.  This drama I were on Facebook in the right side of the scene.

Curtains finally!

This week we finally got the last of our curtains put up here on the base. They were donated by a friend of the base 2 weeks ago, so now every room have curtains. This might seem like a small thing, but I feel it's an important step to make the base feel more like a home, like our home :)

Just relaxing in a park in Tlahuac close to where Lupita's
family lives. We went there with them to "celebrate"
mothers day.

This morning I was trying to remember what has happened the last few weeks. I feel like time goes fast, and most of the stuff i recollect is our wedding preparations. Lupita and I have started pre-marriage counseling with an American pastor and his Mexican wife, they are an amazing couple, and they don't waste the time with empty talk. They have 10 years of personal experience with what difficulties that are especially prone to cross cultural marriages. The pastor's name is Josh and he has said yes to marry us which we feel really good about.

Other than that we still have our other things here at the base, and during the last few weeks we have as always had lots of things going on.

More life in the base

Lupita's niece Adrianna with her dad (Lupita's brother)

A thing that we didn't expect living here in the center of Mexico City is all the people interested in living with us. These are people who most of them has been in  YWAM and now work/study in Mexico City, but would love a place to live in the center with a community of other Christians. Right now we have 3, but in a few weeks we will have one more. In the beginning we weren't sure how to deal with this because we're a school and not just a place for people to live, but we enjoy the extra life on the base, and the people who are living with us always loves to be a part of many of the things we do when they are free to. (worship, ministry, family night) 

So we see it as a chance to provide a (hopefully good) Christian community for Christians here in Mexico City who has other things to do than being full time in YWAM. 

Getting new contacts

Around 2 weeks ago we visited 2 American girls who works with different ministries here in the city. One of them had 6 years here the other 2 years. They gave us lots of contacts to different projects, and they could tell us a lot of stories, especially about homeless kids on the street since that were one of their focuses.

In the park i also tried jumping with elastics, and wow, it
was fun, but also frightening, especially because the
elastics felt really old.

The 2 girls also told us lots of things about working with street kids, and one story i thought was shocking. It was of how some of the street kids they regularly visited actually weren't sad when they found out they had aids. This was because as they said it would protect them against people wanting to steal their organs. I think it's sad that people have to live in so horrible conditions, and i think all of us as their neighbors (in the Christian sense) ought to help them, or as a absolute minimum use the knowledge of their life and suffering as a catalyst for living a life in thankfulness for the blessings each of us receives every single day. It's hard, but i don't believe it's impossible.

Lupita and I standing at what used to be a lake in the park. After the first big earthquake we had here in Mexico 2 months (Biggest in 7 years) ago all the water disappeared down in the ground. Now there's no way of getting the water back and the 1 - 2 million people who live in this neighborhood will have to live without their lake. To the left of us a lot of boats was stranded that will probably never be used again.

Here is a image for our web page i made Friday afternoon for our evangelising day. This is something started in YWAM and on the 2nd of June people from many different countries will go on the street and make God known. The image is one i took on my outreach of the cathedral in Zocalo where we're going to meet that day.

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 :)

Life Goes On

I've now been in Mexico for more than 2 months and i still love the land of the tortilla, even though I've now for the second time experienced an earthquake here.

The Earthquake

A small concert with a christian band. Our friend Daniel is
the newest member of this band "Antes Ciego" and this
is his first concert with them.

Today at 12: something we had an earthquake here in Mexico City. It was pretty strong compared to the ones they normally have. News reports says that the epicenter was in Gurrero which is a few hours driving from here. It was measured at somewhere between 7.6 and 7.9 which is pretty strong. Here we clearly felt it. I was trying out the stability of shelves for food  that some from our team bough this morning when my leader said something about an earthquake. First i thought he was talking about the shelves that they could withstand it, but i quickly felt that the whole apartment was moving. so everyone ran down to the street where people quickly gathered out of fear that the buildings would collapse. It lasted for a few minutes and afterwards people started going back in their buildings.

Afterwards we talked with our landlady who told us that our building survived the horrible earthquake in 1985 that destroyed many buildings, so i think that made me feel a little bit safer.

Later we were doing ministry in the city talking with people. When walking around I saw a few places where some cement/bricks had dropped down from the buildings, and one of my friend said he had seen a store being closed with large cracks in the walls, but otherwise life goes on. Although throughout the day we have been hearing more than normal sirens of police cars and fire trucks.

Cooking like never before

Lupita with her little brother Paul. We're trying to raise
money (5000 pesos) so that he can go to do a
"Verano de Fuego" (1 month mini DTS) this summer.

The last week we've been assigning different roles to everyone, and i got the responsibility of cooking. I really love it, but it's also a big challenge at times, especially because here in Mexico you normally eat warm food 3 times a day (I stand corrected by Lupita, only 2 because dinner is usually just sweetbread and coffee), but here we decided to have warm breakfast 3 times a week. Luckily I don't have to cook every meal, but i plan all the meals and shop for them, and then i'm also prepararing/cleaning dinner with Alejandro my Mexican friend. I especially like cooking when we have guests (which happends quite often) then i like to make a bigger effort to make it perfect.

So far i think that we've been eating good, tonight we had Swedish sausage dish which people seemed to like a lot, although they had all sorts of suggestions of what to put in to make it perfect, like cheese, fries, small pieces of pizza :)

English practice in University
Last week on Friday we went to a university. We had been invited by some Christian students in an university who wanted to do an event where some people who spoke English could come so the students could practice their English, and that we could have a chance to talk about good values and also what we believe in.

The event was like 2 - 3 hours and we both had some things all together and some in smaller groups where we talked with the students in English. We weren't the only foreign Christians they had invited, they also invited a group from another christian school here in Mexico with people both from Mexico and USA.

It was a good day with a lot of students coming to the event (maybe 100 - 150 people) and we got to meet other Christians who lives in this city.

Reminders of Denmark
Even though i'm thousands of kilometres from Denmark, i still often get glimpses of home. For example i have 2 friends i know from Mazatlan who currently lives here in Mexico City. They have startet a business with solar power. They are working in getting the contracts and outsourcing the work to the right people. Last time i met them they told me that they had been in contact with a company from Aalborg (my rather small city in Denmark) that produced things for solar power installments. Of course i offered my service if they needed any translation but they haven't needed it yet :)

Also I've met several people who as the first thing when i present myself as from Denmark thinks of Kashmir. Apparently Kashmir (danish rock band) is really popular here in Mexico and a lot of people know and like them. It is crazy how small the world is sometimes.

Lupita translating for 2 girls who talked about human trafficing in the University (they came to hear some english, but most only knew the absolute basic). This was before we moved to another place with more space where also more people came.

This was a night that we had YWAM Pacauca and their DTS visiting us. They are the nearest YWAM base around 2 - 3 hours away from us. Here we just finished cleaning after a nice meal of cheese/avocado chicken with rice, steamed broccoli, homemade salsa and fresh tortillas :)

Life in the city

Now i've been here in Mexico for a little more than 1½ month. Things are still going great and the DTS just graduated. We had our last day of ministry on friday, and since then it's mostly been debriefing, so me and Lupita have had time to do some other stuff that needed to be done while the DTS talked about thier experiences and about going back to thier normal lives. Now that the DTS is over there is DTS staff debrief that we're part of some of it, but not all since we aren't real staff on the DTS.

Fun at the roof of out appartmets

Getting connections in the city
Sometimes you are amazed how things turn out. Some weeks ago we did sign ministry in the street, i wrote about it in a earlier post. That day a lady came up to one of the teams with a sign that said "I love you" in spanish. She asked what they were doing and they answered that they were just trying to make people happy, then she asked if they were christians, and when they said yes she asked if they were YWAM'ers, and yes again :) This lady who currently lives here had been in a ywam base in Chile. Since then we have kept the contact with her and through her we got a chance to hold a night for a very traditional church she is connected to, and through one of her friends also with connections toYWAM we got 2 really nice couches for free if we just picked them up, so now we have 2 couches :)

Last saturnday she invited us all (19 people) to eat with her and her family. It was a really great night, and we also met some of her friends that also had been connected to ywam. It was especially interesting to talk with this guy from switzerland who is married to a Mexican and have been living here for 12 years. So i think it's kind of amazing that all of this came just from a random meeting on the street :)

Lupita was really excited about seeing the penguins :)

oh, and as a side note we keep meeting people here. Just a few days ago we had the house full of a Christian group (half Mexican, half American) that were doing ministry in the city. It was a guy from the base (Daniel) who randomly met them and invited them over to see our base, we had a good talk with them, and i think there is potential to do something together with them in the future.

Visiting a highschool

Lupita, her little brother and I spend a day in Mexico
Zoo, sadly the gorilla were hiding that day

Our last day of ministry with the DTS was at a high school where we had been invited to spend 2 hours with them talking about relationships and other things. First hour went with some introduction and then 8 or 9 small dramas with couples (preformed by all of us) that didn't do well, the bad relationships had names like "osama bin larden", "microwave" and "chicken mom" maybe you can guess from the name what the problems were in those. After that Lupita and I talked a bit about what it requires to be in a good relationship, and i used the movie "twilight" (Lupita's favorite movie that i've had to endure :) ) as an example of how you shouldn't be in a relationship. The next hour went with some testemonies, a little more talk, and a few different small activities. It was a good day and they said they wanted us to come again. (I'll hopefully have a picture or 2 up of it next week, we had a mexican friend who took a few pictures that day, but i'll have to get them first)

DTS graduation

Yesterday the DTS graduated. We had a good night with a few from the staff in Mazatlan, where the DTS began. Now that the DTS is over we're going to spend the next time with figuring out what we really want to do here in the city (along with some other events we're planing) and then we also need to connect with the around 12 people who currently have expressed interest in joining our first school here in July. So we're going into an exciting time with alot of stuff to figure out now.

The day of the graduation we had a meeting with the base leader in Mazatlan. He was giving us advice and we talked about different things and challenges about it. At the moment we're still a base under YWAM Mazatlan so he will be visiting us some times to see how it goes and guide us in this whole process of starting a base.

Along alot of very usefull advice he said one thing i've been thinking alot about, it was:

"Give effort, not excuses"

I think it's a thing we need to remember in all phases of life, we should do our best and not bother with excuses, it's a waste of time.

From the DTS graduation. We did it in the basement of a church that i also stayed in during my outreach. They were really nice and cooked delicious food for us :)

Lupita and her best best best friend Montse on the roof of our building. In my relationship with Lupita I quickly learned that it was a packaget deal since they are really hard to seperate, but it's okay because she is nice, but also a little crazy.

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.