Our final week - 8/6/10

We really are now on the home stretch. While my mother and I both agree that this has been the longest summer of our lives, things seemed to move quickly for us…looking back, of course. Our experience in Tulyehualco and working in the church has been a good one. I believe through this time I have been able to do what I came here to do – to learn the language and culture and to experience a Mexican way of life. I’m so very grateful for this experience.

But, we still have one more week to go before Miranda heads to Florida, Bobby to North Carolina, and me to Cancun for a few days to relax and explore another part of Mexico. While we are eager about our plans ahead, we have to take in this final experience as well. As I probably mentioned in an earlier post, Sonia and family are moving to a new church and parsonage. This means we are all going to experience the joys and pains of moving. For the three of us, it’s merely a slight inconvenience, but for their family, they are packing up two significant years of their lives, saying goodbye to friends and church family in Tulyehualco, and re-establishing themselves in one day before life begins in the new church. While in some ways, they are pleased with the new assignment and location, moving is never easy.

So, this week for us has been packing and helping them move, as well as some other “fun” activities to pass the time. Given that almost all the living room (and some bedroom) furniture was packed up early in the week, we looked for opportunities that would tour us around different parts of Mexico City – some of these experiences were very American in nature, so I can spare the details of time spent shopping in markets and malls, eating at chain restaurants, and going to the movies. Some activities worth mentioning were our visit to the monastery (in Tulyehualco), to the Templo Mayor and Metropolitan Cathedral (in downtown), and our “re-entry” into American ways of life (via the Hampton Inn stay from Thursday to Monday).

The monastery was a really remarkable experience as we saw an ascetic way of life still in practice by one group of sisters in rural Mexico today. (This “ascetic” lifestyle consists of extreme personal sacrifice for a disciplined life of prayer, fasting, worship, abstinence, etc.) This particular monastery was called a cloister and only for women who committed to living a sacred, holy, and prayerful life – never having direct contact with others on the “outside.” I had seen this before – you know, in the movies like the Sound of Music – but it seemed very different to have bars separate people within visitation rooms and even in the sanctuary. Our purpose for the visit was to purchase Rompope – a liquor ingredient required for making a tres leches cake – but after learning that they were out, we asked about looking inside the sanctuary. We were allowed in, but only after the sister let us in from the “back way.” In other words, the sisters do not step foot outside their “compound,” even for a guest. This way of life was something I spent time reading about this past year in seminary, but I just hadn’t realized how it was still practiced today.

After going in, we quickly realized that one of the sisters sat on “their” side of the sanctuary (which was clearly marked by an iron gate) praying in adoration to the host on the altar. (Throughout the summer, I wanted to keep the theology light in the blog. This was in large part because honestly, I don’t really understand a lot of what I’ve learned this past year. So, here’s my attempt…) In the Roman Catholic Church, parishioners spend time adoring the host which is usually kept for a period of time on the altar. In these instances, Catholics believe that Jesus is truly present, that this wafer truly is the actual body of Christ. Therefore, sitting in adoration, taking in the presence of Christ is a sacred experience. For Protestants (or Cristianos, as we’re called in Mexico), this wafer is a symbol of the body of Christ. From a theological standpoint, there is a BIG difference; it is something that greatly divides the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches. While all of that is true, I just felt bad that we were interrupting that time for her.

A few days later, we said our goodbyes in Tulyehualco, primarily to church members and friends of the family. The night before we left, there was sort of like a send-off party for all of us. Church family brought ingredients to bake our final tres leches cake, which we were able to eat later that evening. We had a fun time just hanging out together. Kids slept over (on the mattresses that had already been moved downstairs to the fellowship hall). And the next morning, we headed to Mexico City for the final few days of our time in Mexico.

So, our next and final phase of the trip served as our re-entry into American culture. We checked into the Hampton Inn in downtown Mexico City on Thursday afternoon. We recognized that there were many foreigners in this hotel, not only by their looks, but also by their actions. It didn’t take us long to realize that our lifestyle these past 10 weeks has been pretty low-key, not exactly what you would expect in our fast-paced American culture. The best example of this occurred during an encounter I had with a woman in the business center of our hotel. In this case, the primary problem (for Americans) was that this business center only had one computer. This particular woman was greatly agitated by my interest in checking my email (for the first time in a few days), because she needed to print out her boarding pass for her flight that was leaving the next day. Normally, I might have been that frustrated myself about printing out my boarding pass the day before, but after spending a significant amount of time here, I realized that tomorrow is a-whole-nother day away! Just think about all that can happen (and be accomplished) by then. It’s learning to accept that life will go on even if things seem to happen a little slower than we’d like. The situation actually became more comical as other people passed by the business center seeming to have some dire need to use the Internet at that very minute. I think I might have been in that room using the computer for all of 12 minutes, yet I saw so much frustration and irritation over just the most minor of things. This was just a great lesson learned from our Mexican neighbors about the need for patience, no matter where you are or what you’re doing.

Our next day in the city included several exciting things. We visited the Templo Mayor – the ancient Aztec Temple constructed from the 1300s - 1500s by several Aztec leaders, most notably Montezuma. Thankfully, we invested in the $250 pesos for a tour guide who could tell us about the ruins and the significance for the ancient Aztecs, the Spanish, and now for Mexicans of today. It was interesting to hear about the stories of religion and politics folded into one within the temple. This Templo Mayor was one part of many other surrounding buildings of the Aztec Empire. In the 1500s, Cortez, the Spanish conquistador, defeated the Aztecs and began to destroy and re-conquer parts of the city for Spain, greatly changing the culture and ways of life. The Templo Mayor is one of the great tourist sites of Mexico City because of its rich history and connection to the ancient Aztec people.

Those days in the city passed quickly and soon we found ourselves preparing to say our goodbyes to Sonia, Jorge, Eliud, and Zuri. Saturday and Sunday we spent time with them all – looking around the new parsonage which is a little tight, but cozy and very cute; helping straighten (but only a little because they really just wanted to spend time with us); visiting Jorge’s church to see where Bobby spent his summer working; and then eating and just talking.

Sunday’s worship service was pretty special too, as this was Sonia’s first mid-day service in the new church. The people of the congregation seemed open and welcoming to them all – including us. The music and organ playing was the best I had heard in Mexico, even though the organist was a young Mexican guy dressed in cutoff jeans and black Chuck Taylor Converse All-Star shoes. The organ was tucked away to the right of the lectern and altar - all we could see as we heard these beautiful hymns played near perfectly was a right leg (dressed in cutoff jeans and tennis shoes) pushing down on the pedals. Wonder if that’s a trend we could bring back to our churches?

Finally, the sermon was very fitting – all 45 minutes of it – as the lay leader preached from Hebrews 11 (I’m pretty sure this was it – overall, he chose at least five passages of scripture to reference), which re-told the story of Abraham as he prepared himself to enter into this “foreign” promised land without fully knowing or understanding the final result. The key to this was his faith. It was by faith that Abraham sought this promise of God. However, he was never able to experience it. Only Abraham’s descendants were those able to live out this promise. While I could certainly make a connection to Sonia’s new placement in this “foreign” town, “foreign” church, and “foreign” house – changing everything in their lives out of faith in God’s promises – I immediately thought of our time in Mexico as one very similar to this scripture passage and the life of Abraham. By faith, God helped us walk into this strange and foreign land this summer, not really knowing or understanding where we were going or what we were going to do. Like Abraham’s journey, our journey also revealed the daily promises of God with us and among us in this foreign land. While it’s true that I have struggled on this journey, not really understanding or even seeing this “promised land,” as I prepare to return home, I am left to wonder if maybe my time here is to be experienced and seen by others instead of me or maybe together with me. I really don’t know, but my hope was that this blog this summer would be a way to share with you all as I (or we) traveled on this journey. Thank you for reading; thank you for listening; thank you for acting as God has moved in your heart as a result of the stories along this journey. And I faithfully believe that there will be more amazing promises fulfilled and lives touched in the future as a result of this experience – Gracias a Dios!