Reflections

Hello dear team members and friends,

It was wonderful to spend a week in Culiacan with you, whether physically with you there or whether you were elsewhere and praying for and thinking of those of us in Culiacan. Thank you for your support, encouragement, and love. It is beautiful to experience companerismo with you, whether close by or far apart. (now that I have an english keyboard I wont be able to include the ~ or ' in my spanish words anymore!)

 

Each of us, who experienced the trip physically or vicariously, are a part of a great team, a part of God's transformational work on this beautiful earth with its beautiful people. Seeing and experiencing what we did in Culiacan is a part of that transformational work in our own lives, and will flow out into how we partner in the work for the lives of others. God's transformational work is happening in Culiacan, and is happening beyond Culiacan; it is needed in Culiacan, and it is needed beyond Culiacan.  We need to partner with each other, share, be accountable, and learn from one another as we seek to be a part of God's work. Let's all remember this as the days and weeks go by, and may they never separate us from these experiences or companerismo.

 

To all, whether you came with us to Culiacan or read or heard about it, 

• What did you see, hear, smell, feel, taste, think, sense, or experience during that week that is becoming a part of God's transformational work in you?
• And what did you see, hear, smell, feel, taste, think, sense, or experience that is becoming a part of God's transformational work through you?

Thank you for your piece in this tapestry.

It has been a joy and a gift to journey with you.

 

Peace be with you.

 

 

Elise Probasco

Fotos!

I noticed that we stopped posting pictures half way through the week. Forgive me! Here are some for you to enjoy.

Blessings.

Monday evening in Guasave (the drama)             

Tuesday in Badiraguato (Huesito the clown)

Thursday in Progreso (fiesta)

Friday in Chulavista (spontaneous fiesta)

Flying back

We are all home safe and sound! Pray that our colds would go away quickly, and for time to meditate on the trip. i will post an end reflection soon. Thanks!

¡El ùltimo dìa!

Hello friends,

 

Today was the last day that we are here in Culiacàn. And we went out with a bang!

 

After breakfast, we went to an area close to Emmanuel church that had several apartment buildings, 3 or 4 stories high with 4 apartments on each floor, with staircases open to the air and a plaza in the middle. We went with people from the church to invite them to Sunday services and to pray with them. One group talked to a man in a wheelchair who was drunk and sells drugs, some talked to people about how God has impacted their lives, and one group prayed with three or four people to begin having a relationship with Christ.

After lunch (everything seems to center around food on these trips!) we went to Chulavista and had a last-minute fiesta in a park. We got set up right when school let out, so children came running - literally - from every corner of the park to our fiesta. It was great! The biggest one we´ve had yet, and we didnt even invite anyone ahead of time.

We had our fancy Valentine's/Good-bye dinner tonight at Emmanuel with lots of people from the church. We heard from an older couple in the church, and sang our traditional good-bye songs that speak of always loving each other because we are family. We didnt leave the church until almost midnight...

and we leave the hotel at 6:30, so it is surely time to go to sleep.

Please pray...

• For those who are fighting sicknesses, especially as we have a long day of travel ahead. We have found this to be the trip of headaches, perhaps from some bad backpacks...
• For safe travel
• For the people of Emmanuel, that they would be able to continue their work here with love and energy in all their relationships. They tell us all the time that it energizes and empowers them when we join them, but they are the ones who continue the work and relationships after we leave.
• For the people we met over the week, that they would connect with Christians in their areas and experience the holistic transformation of Christ in their lives and communities.

I hope to write some time after we safely return. And include more pictures again!

Peace and blessings.

Another late night

Hola.  It has been a long day.  We left the hotel at 6:45am and went to Progreso to hand out breakfast snack bags to the children as they entered school.  While we were there we saw friends that we hadnt seen yet, dropping their children off at school and that made us very happy.  It is always exciting to be at the school there because that is where our ministry in Progreso began four years ago.  The school building then was a 3 sided tar paper wall with a dirt floor "building".  Now there is a "compound" of several cement classrooms - some of the nicest buildings in the neighborhood.  It is so exciting to see the results of how God has worked through us in Progreso over the 4 years we have been visiting.

After a breakfast break, we went back to Progreso and spent a good amount of time simply being there and building and making new relationships.  The women met in homes and caught up on life with their amigas and the men walked around the neighborhood looking for conversations with men and to help them as we could with any projects.  One group of women (including me - Peggy) got carried away and didnt watch the time and went "missing" for a while....we didnt realize the rest of the group was at Lupitas house for lunch waiting for us  and  they were making phone calls and starting to worry about our safety,.  We were just fine............just talking! 

We continued with an event at the House of  Hope this afternoon-evening including a fiesta, drama, music,  puppets and preaching.  Lots of fun and games for the children and families and our team.  We enjoyed our time together.  We played games with over 100 children during the service time.  The evening concluded with a new event - a MEN only pizza-fellowship time.  (true FELLOWship).  Since it was everly evening, men were home from work and able to spend time and connect really for the first time, after praying and desiring for this to happen.  The timing was right. It will be exciting to see what becomes of this as the men from Emmanuel and the few men from House of Hope follow up.

Over all a great day of  ministry.  As you might have guessed, our blogster, Elise, is unavailable.  She needed sleep, so we granted that.  So, you get John and Peggy instead.  We are tired also, so cutting this short.  Thank you for your interest, prayers and support.  Please pray for health and strength to get through the last day of ministry and then travel home.  And wouldnt you know it, they started up with the jackhammer outside the hotel about 45 minutes ago.  We are going to try ear plugs tonight.

Goodnight from Culiacan.

A short

Hello!

Yesterday's post was long, so today's is short. It is late, and we have to leave the hotel at 6:45 am to pass out breakfast at the school in Progreso.

Today/Wednesday we spent a lot of time organizing ourselves for the rest of the week. It was raining so we didnt walk around inviting people to Emmanuel's prayer service like we had planned. We had free time this afternoon too, so we are all tired from walking around the city for hours!

This evening was a powerful prayer service with our brothers and sisters at Emmanuel.

Tomorrow/Thursday we are going to be in Progreso all day, handing out breakfast, spending time with the women in their homes, having a big fiesta and also a time with pizza for the men to spend time together (something that we have been wanting to have at Progreso for quite awhile).

Peace and blessings!

PS
The rain probably means no construction tonight!!

Relationships, Relationships

Hola! I´m back. Thanks to my mom for setting up a good case for sympathy for me while I was gone... :) What she didnt mention is that baby Josue, Vanita and Lucio's boy, wasn´t feeling well either so Vanita and Josue stayed back in the hotel too for the morning. He (and his parents) need some sympathy too!

How is the snow up there in MN? We heard we are missing a lot!


So, I¨ll start with what we missed...

Monday
On Monday, as Peggy mentioned, we went to Progreso in the morning for some home visits. We also passed out bags of food (beans, oil, pasta, etc) to several families. For the team members who come to Progreso every year, it was a great time to see hermanos and hermanas and reconnect. Some of our amigos are in tough times, with loss of work or death of family members, and we carry their pain with us. But it was also an encouraging time as they shared with us their commitment to their children and to trusting God in ithe difficulties.

After lunch we went to the town of Guasave, a new place for us, which was a good 1.5 - 2 hour drive away. Pastor David from Emmanuel was working to help establish a church there before he came to Emmanuel church, when he lived in Los Mochis, which is close to Guasave. We walked around the neighborhood with some people from a church in Los Mochis, inviting the neighborhood to our fiesta in the park. At the fiesta we had a puppet show, a solo by Lindy, a clown ("Huesito," or Little Bone, is a member of Emmanuel church and is famous in Culiacan), a drama about how the devil traps us with bad decisions, a message from David, and Shawn and Kathy shared about God's work in their lives. Then we had a lot of fun carnival-like games and face paint for the kids. We started late, so we had to do the games in the dark, with the headlights from the van to help us. Several people asked for prayer after the message.

In Guasave we met Jesùs (not the Messiah, but a guy from Los Mochis), who has been holding weekly Bible studies in the park. He has been asked to be the leader for starting a church there, and just moved in to a home in the neighborhood. His fiance, Ycari, was helping us with the service too. The home he is renting has 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, a hallway, and a wee room with a sink, 2 shelves, and a corner table. And a hot dog stand with picnic table right outside of it (yum). All 20+ of us took turns using the little bathroom.

Tuesday
Today we (well, they, technically) passed out food bags in another new area, Chulavista, and invited people to join us in the park for another time with Huesito. While walking around and inviting, some people came upon a woman cutting down a tree on a ladder with a machete. The men offered to help, and soon there were 5 US guys doing the same job that 1 Mexican woman was doing a minute earlier! A lot of jokes went around about that, and a great bond formed between the group and the woman and her neighbors.

After lunch we drove to Badiraguato, in the mountains. The last time North Haven went to Badiraguato was in 2003, in the pouring rain, and we were in a park in the city. Today we were on a basketball court in the neighborhood, and it looked great all set up for the fiesta. After we invited people, we had a similar program to Monday, but this time it was all in daylight: Huesito providing energy and excitement, puppets, drama, a song from Kathy, Jon, and Lindy, a message from Cipriano, and stories of God's work from Cindy and Jim. Then the fun games, prizes, and face painting. People from Emmanuel come to Badiraguato every Saturday for Bible study, and are hoping that some day the neighborhood will want someone like Jesùs to move to the neighborhood and eventually build a church. Badiraguato is close to La Apoma, another town that we have worked in before, that had an established church and building (with Raul and Gloria, if you remember their names). Sadly, that church is struggling to survive, so hopefully the church in Badiraguato will lend them support.

Relationships
The biggest theme of Monday and Tuesday is relationships. Walking around Progreso was so rich, because we were able to reconnect with our dear brothers and sisters there. It was different in Chulavista, where we didn´t know anyone. It felt colder, more sterile, until we met the woman with the tree. Then, through shared experience, we made a new relationship, which was really exciting.

Pastor David met a policeman in Badiraguato awhile back through the Bible studies, who was very skeptical of what Emmanuel was doing there. After awhile, the policeman asked David to pray for his son who was sick. The next time David saw the policeman, he said that his son got better after they prayed, and that now he did not doubt what they were doing, and that he was open to being prayed for too. We saw this policeman today at our fiesta, and he addressed our team warmly and called us brothers/sisters.

Relationships are also why coming to Culiacan is so neat. We bond with our family from Emmanuel and the other small churches. We come to be with them, to work with them, to love and to live with them. Some on the team might even feel more bonded to people here than their own friends or family back home. It is because of the special work that we do together, and how we can share in the transformation of God and of God's transforming kingdom together.

For me, what is so important is knowing that the people from Emmanuel do not choose random towns, conduct evangelistic meetings, and then disappear. Not at all! The church visits these towns weekly, visits the people there, cares for them, prays for them, and brings them food or other necessities they may need. They provide wonderful experiences for their kids, the fiestas with Huesito, and wonderful experiences for the adults, the Bible studies. They love these people, and dont care just about their souls, but their lives and who they are. Jesùs and his fiance are great examples of this. They love the people of Guasave so much, and they really care about them and their city. So they are being incarnational, they are moving in and going to experience life, and all it brings, with these people. Even when life there means a teeny tiny apartment away from your "normal" life.

Perhaps this thing of relationships has to do with the compañerismo David was talking about yesterday...


*********
There are a few other stories I could share, and things that our team members have found encouraging, or enlightening. But, it is bed time for me. I hope that you will catch up with whoever you know who is here in Mexico for their own personal stories of seeing God work here, when they return.

For those who are pray-ers, please lift up these things:

• Pastor David is running himself ragged. His 3 children are all sick, and he was not feeling well when we arrived. He is spending long days/evenings away from his wife and kids, and seems to be barely hanging on. He told us that he gets physically sick when he is too stressed out or too busy, and we are concerned. Lift up his health, and that of his kids and wife, to the God who designed our bodies and systems.
• The construction workers are back tonight on the street outside the hotel. Ask God that we would all be able to sleep through it.
• We are not sure yet of our plans for Friday. We might have a fiesta in Chulavista, or spend more time in Badiraguato or Guasave. Ask that God will give the leaders wisdom for this decision, and that they would be able to discern where we are needed the most and what work is to be done, or relationships to be grown, wherever we do go.

Tomorrow we will be walking around the neighborhoods near Emmanuel Baptist church and inviting people to church, and we will be attending their prayer service in the evening. The afternoon is for free time.

Blessings on you, and on your relationships

Elise for Team 10

PS
For those who've been paying attention, those missing suitcases showed up Sunday evening. :)

Monday, written Tuesday morning

Buenas Dias!  Good morning.

This is a little note to inform you that the blog will be updated later, probably tonight.  Our blogster, Elise, had a migraine headache last night so she was not able to write her post.  She is feeling better this morning, but will continue to rest here in the hotel this morning.  Please pray for her recovery.

This is not a quiet place to be, especially when you have a headache.  Last night when we returned to the hotel at 10:45 pm, they began some road repair outside of the hotel.  Right under our window.  This continued through almost all of the night.  Imagine laying in bed (with a migraine) and hearing the jack hammer, cement saw, scraping, pounding, and the beep-beep-beep of the machine backing up......Thankfully, we all got some sleep, but it was a bit challenging.  We were all very tired, so that helped.

We had a great day yesterday - passing out food baskets in Progreso, and then the afternoon service, and fiesta in the afternoon.  More details later......

So, that´s it for now.  Time to get in the van pretty soon and off to our next adventure.  Thanks for checking in.
Peggy - for Team Ten

El Compañerismo

¡Dios le bendiga!

Today was a wonderful day of fellowship with our brothers and sisters aquì in Culiacàn. After breakfast in the hotel (yes, Peggy did get her avena) those of us who are with North Haven headed out to Emmanuel for Sunday School and church. {to clarify...there are 20 here who came with North Haven, and 2 from a church in Fosston who are visiting their sister church here, and 4 from a church in Worthington also visiting their sister church...we are all staying in the hotel together and traveling together, though}. Marco, the director of the Baptist Conference in Sinaloa (the state that Culiacàn is in), is in the city from Los Mochis and is staying at the hotel with us and using his 12 passenger van to help transport us.

La Iglesia Emmanuel is working through a series called ¡Encender!, or Power Up! and is centering their teaching around the need to grow community amongst one another and to pray together.  Their Sunday School classes, powerful prayer times, and sermons are all centered around this focus. Today´s passage was Hechos (Acts) 2:42-45, and the theme was el compañerismo, or fellowship.

Compañerismo is more than simply spending time together or watching the Superbowl with someone else (which we did not do, mind you...). The leaders of Emmanuel reminded us that to have compañerismo is to be devoted to each other, to be unified, and to have the presence of God amongst the people. Pastor David doesn´t mince words, nor does he say things without acting on them.

Last week, Pastor David and other church leaders were praying for the church, asking God what they should do and how they should lead the church toward greater compañerismo.  Compañerismo necessitates taking down walls, being united, and working through conflict. So on Wednesday, David and others took down some walls - literally! For those who are familiar with Emmanuel`s building, the outerwalls of the room we usually fellowship in, by the kitchen, were torn down so the room is now open to the concrete slab/parking area al lado, or next to, the church. The church is growing, so its building needed to as well. We had the church service in this space, as we would not have all fit in the Sanctuary.

Emmanuel is challenging themselves to true, devoted faith through this ¡Encender! series. We read in Hechos 2 how the believers were devoted to the teachings of Jesucristo so much that they made his teachings their reality. "This isn´t just hard stuff to be asked to do...this is reality" says David. Truly sharing all possessions. Working through all conflict. Being one in heart. Having compañerismo, sharing one with the other about the things in their life. Compañerismo is a way of life, not something we do for a tax refund or as a social event. If Emmanuel is going to take this seriously, David challenged, the fellowship will go deeper and farther than they think it can, and it will get messy. But this is Jesus' call on his followers.

It is humbling to then follow the leaders of Emmanuel to Progreso, where they are constructing a church building, holding weekly services, giving physical and spiritual food aid, and helping people to find employment or go to school. The believers of Emmanuel are living the reality of Jesus´ teachings, and are passing on these teachings to us while they think they are passing them on to Progreso.

We went out to Progreso for that service after relaxing at the church for several hours, eating comida China, playing with kids and conversing with the adults. We had a similar church service to Emmanuel´s, on the grounds of the Casa de Esperanza church building, with a great reunion for our returners and the people there.

Right now, in between people trying to find out how the Saints won, we are waiting for Dominos pizza to arrive at the hotel - what else would native US Americans be doing on Superbowl Sunday?

Paz, y compañerismo...

Elise Probasco for Team 10

We´ve arrived!

Hello family and friends,

Team 10 is officially all together and in Culiacan, at Hotel Santa Fe II (though not all of the luggage is...)!

Our trip was wonderfully uneventful, though we are missing two suitcases. After settling in at the hotel we went out to eat at a favorite local restaurant and had Papas Locas, or Crazy Potatos, with Pastor David, Marco, Jorge, and other church leaders.

Our team from the US consists of 26 people, from different places in Minnesota, Missouri, and California. 20 of us will be spending most of our time in the area of Progreso, 2 will be with Manrique`s church and in Cofradia, and the other 4 will be with their sister church here.

We closed our evening in traditional style, up on the roof of the hotel, to debrief the day and discuss tomorrow`s plans. Thanks to a handy Ipod and speakers, we sang along to the song "God of This City" by Chris Tomlin. The song talks of the great things yet to be done in the city. North Haven Church has partnered with Emmanuel Baptist in Culiacan, helping them to serve the people here, since the summer of 2000, which is why we call ourselves Team 10 this year. We have seen wonderful transformation of people`s lives, of communities, and of the city. But "greater things have yet to be done here." The people of Emmanuel Baptist, and now several other partner churches, are still loving on and serving their city, 10 years later. We are still coming, 10 years later, and we are all still praying and working for God`s transformation for the people here.

It is our prayer for Culiacan, but it is also our prayer for our homes in the US. As we pray for God`s Kingdom to come, for God to bring "peace to the restless," as the song says, we can think of the beautiful things happening in our cities because of people doing God`s work. We can think of the people, communities, and systems that still need God`s transformation. But we don`t sing this song just for our own cities or for Culiacan alone. We can proclaim that "greater things have yet to come" for Haiti, for Colombia, for Palestine, and so many other cities. God`s kingdom and God`s work transforms lives and communities.

God, continue to expand our eyes and understanding of your work here, at home, and around the globe. May we see how you are transforming lives, communities, and systems to be just, loving, and righteous in the model of Christ. Show us our parts in your story of redemption, and give us the strength and courage to follow you.

After some much needed sleep, we will be eating breakfast in the hotel once again and heading to Emmanuel Baptist for church in the morning, and to Progreso for a worship service in the evening. Please pray for our 2 missing suitcases to return to us quickly and easily.

Blessings on you family and friends!

Elise Probasco for the team