Dearest Benefactors,
For if I preach the Gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. Necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel! 1 Cor. 9:16
Praise God for His mercy and abundant providence! God has been blessing us so much in the past three months since we first arrived here to Saltillo and I want to give Him the glory for all that He has been doing by updating all of you. It is hard to believe that we have been here in Mexico for over three months now. God is doing something new and exciting here, and we are so blessed to be part of it. (Isaiah 43:19)
My first two weeks here in Mexico were spent in General Cepeda, a small town where FMC has been for the last twenty years or more. The first week was spent helping staff a group from Louisiana, which was such a huge blessing, being with the students, building a roof with them for a poor family, preaching and singing in the ranchos, and getting back into speaking Spanish. After the group, Chris and I spent a week in the mission house waiting for John Paul’s arrival to Mexico, and got to paint a great deal in the house that some of our missionaries are renting who were just married in January. In that time I learned a lot about just being with the Lord since we still weren’t in our mission post and we found ourselves with a great deal of time to pray and reflect and prepare for JP’s arrival to Saltillo which was difficult at the time but now I see how it was really a great blessing.
Since arriving here, Padre Jose, whom we live with,has entrusted us with beginning a youth ministry program here in the parish, possibly the very first unified group of teens in its history as a parish. It has been really exciting and the response of the youth has been overwhelming. They have such a hunger and thirst for good, wholesome community with their peers, and more importantly a hunger for an experience with Jesus. It is so apparent that their faith has been their heritage and woven into their culture for such a long time, but they really want to take ownership of it and make it theirs, they are just unsure how to do so. During the season of Lent we gave a series of five talks each week for our teens in each of the four different sectors of the parish. (The parish community is composed of four different sectors, three chapels in the neighborhood and the actual parish Church, and at each of the three chapels has Mass once during the week and once on Sunday. Please pray for unity too between these parts of the parish community. Many of the adults and teens identify themselves with their chapel before they identify themselves as part of the whole parish community. We are really feeling led by the Spirit to unify these different groups of teens into one, unified youth group where they can feel part of the parish and the universal Church.)
Almost all of our time is spent with or on our teens: praying, playing, listening, and loving them. In addition to our ministry with the youth we play in different music groups for Masses and weddings, we play soccer with friends, work in the parish and do whatever Padre asks us to do. Thanks be to God we are able to go to daily Mass too since we live here in the parish, and also are able to spend time with the Lord each day in the Blessed Sacrament since Jesus is just a few feet away from our room.
Another great blessing is the weekly visits we get to make with the deacon of the parish to the five ranchos, or desert communities where he celebrates a celebration of the Word and we play music for it. They are quite a long drive away from Saltillo, about two and a half hours, but in that long drive we are witnessing to the people of the ranchos that God has not forgotten them and neither has their brothers and sisters in Christ.
Four weeks ago we were also so abundantly blessed to be able to help staff the short-term mission trip from Steubenville. It was an amazingly beautiful time, and although by the end of the week all three of us were so exhausted it was well worth it. I was privileged to get to translate for the first time ever in the ranchos in the morning for none other than Fr. Denny Gang TOR, and then preach in the ranchos in the evening with a team of students. In addition to translating and preaching, we were able to organize a prayer meeting for the youth of our parish with the missionaries and praise God it was a huge success! The night was totally the work of the Holy Spirit, and it was such a blessed way to begin our unified youth group since close to 40 teens came from all of the different chapels. We had some hilarious games, powerful testimonies by the missionaries, a time of praise and worship, and an awesome, animated preaching by Fr. Denny. And to end it all some of the women in our parish prepared a delicious Mexican dinner for all of us. God was so present as He moved in a mighty way and He continues to use these humble, little servants to bring His kingdom here to the teens of Mexico.
Some other trademark ministries of FMC are home visits and in the last couple of weeks I have been able to make a few really memorable ones. After a horrible bus accident, which took place a few weeks ago and took the lives of 12 Americans and Canadians, we felt convicted to go and visit the hospital where some of those who were severely injured were taken. The Spirit really blessed us for our first step and we were able to pray with a man who had been a in a coma for over fifteen days and let his wife and son know we were praying for them. (He was just recently taken to a hospital in the states by plane.) A second really memorable home visit took place with one of our other missionaries to a woman, Doña Juanita, who is 114 years old and still walks, sews, and lives a simple, poor life. Her youngest son lives with her and he is 86 years old himself which is so amazing. She has such a tremendous faith in the Lord and His love and the length of her life is such a testament to the love she has for Him.
There really have been so many exciting stories of glory and triumph, and of failure, and disappointment and it is impossible to tell them all here but I hope that someday I will be able to share them all with you in more depth. We are really beginning to feel like part of a family here through the everyday experiences, and the really important ones. Alongside our brothers and sisters in Christ we have prayed and cried at funerals and wakes, celebrated weddings and Quince años, lived alongside and in solidarity with the poor the sick,and the hopeless, and in all of this keeping love as our goal. As John Paul II said in his encyclical on missions, “love is the driving force of missions.” (RM #60) We have been blessed to live not just as tourists and visitors to Mexico but as pseudo –Mexicans feeling the same pains and joys that they feel and “living as one of them.” Often people in the States ask us about the violence here in Mexico and if we feel safe spending ourselves here. Really the only way we can respond is by purely stating that we are all the body of Christ, and for this reason when one part is hurting we cannot run from that suffering when it is uncomfortable or we fear losing ourselves. We must stand alongside of our brothers and sisters in their trials and needs and give testimony to a God whose love knows no bordersor limits. Why should then place limits on our love, or on our capacity to stand for truth amid suffering and violence? No, here in Saltillo we do not feel that our lives are threatened by the violence but if we did feel threatened we do feel that we would not leave out of fear for losing our lives. No we daily pray for the drug lord’s conversions and for the safety of all threatened but we are not going anywhere unless the Spirit calls us elsewhere.
In conclusion we are busily blessed but we realize that no matter how much we do really it is the Lord who does all the work and He chooses the weakest and least qualified to shame the world’s wisdom and to bring His light and love to the youth of Saltillo. We cling to nothing of this world knowing that everything else is lose as Paul says in Philippians 3:8 and remaining in His Word and finding the answers to our problems in prayer and in silence we make Him our one and only passion living only for Him and for His kingdom here and now in every moment of everyday. We are called to be pilgrims only, to not be off this world but only in it for a time, to bring to a hurting world what it really needs, Joy! Our world is starving for joy, for people who would dance in the street for our Lord, who would sing and laugh until they lose their voices, and for saints who would smile, all this for the Lord. Let the praise of God from our voices pierce the darkness of the night, and enter into the most difficult situations and times.
Thank you for every one of our prayers for us and for our mission. I pray daily for each of you and for your intentions and have a confidence that the Lord is blessing you for your generosity and faithfulness to this little missionary by pouring out in your life and in your family the same graces He is pouring out on me. Please continue to lift up our intentions daily and sacrifice for the missions and I know your prayers will have powerful results. May God richly bless you and keep you in this Easter season of joy.
In Christ Jesus Risen and Alive,
Jonathan
Here are some of our most important intentions and ageneral idea about how we use your gifts.
Intentions
V For unity in our parish community, among our teens and within our missionary team.
V For each teen to encounter the risen Christ in their lives and decide to follow the Lord with their lives.
V For the formation of young adults wiling to serve the needs of the young people of the parish.
V For the five rancho communities that they would not feel forgotten by the Lord and that we would be able to work more frequently with them.
V For the conversion of those who are addicted to drugs, for those who sell them and for the drug war here in Mexico.
V For all missionaries throughout the world that they would be encouraged and animated by the Holy Spirit and by the intercession of al the great missionary Saints.
What your gifts do
V Feeds, clothes, and houses the three of us. (No really, you feed a hungry missionary with your gifts and boy can they eat a lot.)
V Pays for the gas, repairs on the van needed to visit the ranchos.
V Any time we do ministry and have to buy the materials, food, or resources.
V Any alms request that comes to our door in the form of a poor, sick, or homeless person that we feel called to help.
