¡Caravana a Jalisco!

Jalisco Trip!!

Wow. Intense. Painful. Exhausting. Amazing. Crossing 8 states of México. That was last week thanks to a "Caravana" with Fishers of Men Mexico.
Last Monday we woke up at xam (it's obscene) and drove all the way to the Pacific by bedtime. At 8am we roll out of our sleeping bags for our morning devotional, usually given by someone on the team. I lead worship with Dulce, and then it's breakfast and ideally, we're on-site taking patients by 10am. :) We had two sites, both kindergartens, in Puerto Vallarta in association with a ministry called "Children of the Dump" and a local church. Although we weren't next to the dump, we were in poorer areas of the city surrounding it. We worked two shifts, 10-3pm, and 4-7pm, in which we provided Medical, Dental, Optical, Pharmaceutical, and Gynecological services. There's also Becky, leader of our team of evangelists, who talks to the people about God and counsels them some. Although in my experience, all the doctors end up doing a bit of counseling and sometimes sharing about God as well. After a light dinner and some down time, I usually work on songs for the next day until it's about time for bed.

One of the cool things about working in a Kindergarten was there was no lack of kids. Not only did we do our usual clown outreach in both Kindergartens (with the help of some hillarious local clowns), but Angie Zaragoza and to a lesser extent myself both put together informal times of games, coloring, and sharing with the kids during the afternoon.

I also work as a Dental Assistant in the "Caravanas." I've never seen a time when we didn't fill the dentists' schedule, so we stay pretty busy the dentists pulling teeth, putting in fillings, or doing touch-up work with resins while Gaby does the "limpiezas," or routine cleanings. Dr. Ariel, one of the dentists, was a such an example and encouragement to me this trip. Ariel turned down the opportunity to be a professional soccer player (This is México, that's a big deal.) to be a dentist, but the really impressive thing about him is the humility and intentionality with which he approaches the work we do. Much to the chagrin of the type-A's on our team, Ariel takes his time. If someone needs five fillings, he'll take two hours and do five fillings. He could be accused of being wasteful and reckless in how he uses his time and our resources. But you know, the way he works in people's mouths, it's the kinda stuff that changes lives. And by treating the people as more than a number and appointment, I think the love of God is evident in the time and care he takes. And beyond that, he makes every visit personal, encouraging the children to obey their parents, and in one example I saw, gently but firmly correcting the parent for how they were treating their child. It was such an inspiration to me, not only because it put into focus what it means to serve God and minister to others through medicine as we do on these "crusades," (*cringe,* yes they're still using that term) and also what it looks like to do any "job" as a ministry with excellence, grace, and love.

We ran across another team of Doctors doing another free weeklong clinic, mostly from the Upper Midwest. It was interesting, but cool to see we weren't the only ones doing the sort of thing we do. The setup was remarkably the same. Amusingly, a dentist needed a translator and I stepped in to translate, fresh with a full dental vocabulary in Spanish (the dental instruments, for example, I know in Spanish but not in English). Translating is so much fun, and it was cool to be able to save the poor 12-year old from a tooth-pulling as well as translate the team's prayer for this woman.

You might think Puerto Vallarta: Retired Americans and Spring Break College Students. And you'd be right, the nice parts (as we drove past them) were very California. But any resort town has its other side, and the moral, economic, and physical side effects of being treated as a place for license and bad behaviour. In Mexico, perhaps the most obvious one is the single mom with a blue-eyed baby. I think the retirees must have a calming influence, though, because Vallarta didn't feel anything like the gang-infested neighborhoods of Acapulco we were stayed in earlier this year when we worked in the prison there. You might also think "Missions trip to Puerto Vallarta" and think "evangelising" on the beach. Honestly, we didn't see the beach, and like I said, long days. I so wanted to stop and go photograph the cities we passed on this trip: Vallarta, Guadalajara, Morelia, Querétaro. But there was work to be done, and you know, I get to be a tourist often enough in life.

We spent two days in both Kindergartens, although I spent day 3 trying to sleep off a high fever (slept 24 hours straight pretty much) and was still recovering on day four. After the clown show and packing up, we left around 5pm for Guadalajara, where we spent the night in a church there. At 12:00am, I went to sleep, frustrated, still half-sick, and angry that I wasn't getting a full night's sleep as we were leaving at 4:30 the next morning. I prayed "Ok God, I'm sick. 4 hours sleep isn't how you get better. But I don't have a choice. Heal me please." And although I woke up with a headache, by the time we reached Colotlán, a town far to the North of Jalisco, I was fine. The people of Colotlán are strongly and dogmatically Mexican pseudo-Catholic, as in somebody sent cars around warning the people not to come to our clinic, pretty strong worship of the saints, and according to our host, who grew up being groomed to be a nun, the attitude of the local priests is basically "the people aren't smart enough for the Bible."

The ministry and fellowship here, however, went really well. The first night Vero and I put together a youth group meeting that included music, prayer, testimony, and an open sharing time. Amusingly, only two youth were there, but attendance was close to 25. The second day I gave my farewell devotional, sharing testimony and verses in between songs, and in the afternoon, Dulce and I lead worship for the crowd that stuck around for church after the clown show. Victor preached John 3:16, straight and simple, careful to stick to the basics of the gospel. I don't know how many people responded that night, but I know that usually about half the people who talk to Becky and hear her testimony end up praying a salvation prayer. The third day, as the church doesn't have a worship leader, I gave an intense 2-hour guitar lesson to one of the teens. Then Angie and I teamed up to work with the kids who were around. There were something like 15-20 of them, and we played some games I've picked up along the way before Angie gave a lesson based on Matthew 6 and that not worrying but trusting God stuff. Then they colored a big mural of paper she had made for them, and I shared testimony from my life about how God has miraculously provided for me. Then we played Ninja, which was a huge hit, and then it was helping the dentists pack up (Itzam filled in as assistant for me, but was still learning the ropes), and a generous farewell lunch of tacos, complete with Mariachi band in our honour. On the fifteen hour ride home (there was a sleep stop), I was so amazed how much we'd done and experienced in the past week! I'm gonna miss these trips and the amazing group of doctors, students, and friends, who give their time to serve.