Report by Susan Spearman
Five members of Northeast Ga. Presbytery met and traveled with six Noreste Presbyterio, Mexico to work with Susie Fredrichs in the Haustecus area of Mexico, the state of Hildago. The mission was to help in the pouring a church roof, to offer a Bible School, and to worship together despite our so very different cultures.
Sunday March 30th: We traveled in two mini vans owned by two of our Mexican team members to meet Susie in San Felipe Orizatlan, HGO. She lead us to La Laguna an hour’s drive away over partially paved roads and some under construction where we were to live for a week. We arrived and got settled in our new environments, new families, and, different culture. We worshiped that evening with the Relations minister of the Hildago Presbytery, Pastor Abel Manuel Hernandez giving the sermon. We ate dinner after the service and visited with our new friends. Remember these people do not speak Spanish, they speak Nahuatl, a language of the Nahua Indians.
Monday March 31: We had breakfast and devotional time. We begin working after breakfast, men on the roof, women in the kitchen. We had a small lunch around two, and went to the river for bathing around 4’ish. We had worship around 7:00 and then a small dinner. They usual eat twice a day, and meat only twice a week if that much. Meals consist of black beans, corn tortios, chicken soup, rice, and sometimes chicken. Drink is water, coffee, orange juice or another type of juice I can’t recall the name.
Tuesday April 1: Breakfast and devotional time. Work, Bible school, and more work. Cleaning and grinding corn, getting water from the river, killing and plucking chickens and washing them in the river, getting the hog prepared for eating, making tortios, black beans, cooking rice, and squeezing oranges for orange juice, cutting down banana leaves and constructing in a way to make zacuiles. We have to feed 100 mem and women Wednesday morning. A lot of work happened on Tuesday!! Bathing and relaxation around 4:00 p.m. with worship service around 7:00p.m. . Dinner followed with reflection time after dinner.
Wednesday April 2: Breakfast and devotion early. About 100 other people showed up to help pour the roof. The men were in small groups, some going to the river to get water for the concrete mix, others were working the dirt and mixing the cement using shovels. It took approximately 4 hours to mix and pour the concrete roof. Many buckets were carried up one side of the baboo ramp and down the other to refill. Women worked all morning preparing lunch and keeping the men hydrated as they labored. Some women participated in Bible school for the children. No worship service that night, the work was hard and strenuous and the men and women rested after they bathed in the river.
Thursday April 3: Breakfast and devotional time. We traveled to see a few other churches in the presbytery, including the mother church Chancuetlan and Rancho Nuevo, where last fall’s NEGA team poured a church floor. We had lunch n the road at the mother Church: cactus soup, tortios, squash, and black beans. Cactus is eaten a lot there and taste very similar to our green beans! We also visited Pastor Abel’s church, where Susie leaves – two small rooms in the School building adjacent the Church. This is where I stayed two years ago when NEGA was considering doing this mission. We made it back to La Laguna in time for one last bath in the river before closing worship service. The service was awesome and very inspiring.
Friday April 4: We toured the orange groves and walked the country side of LaLaguna and said goodbye to the families and children we had grown to know and love. Susie led us to San Felipe and Roberto Medina guided us to Tampico where Saturday morning we left for Mexico City, and then to Atlanta, Ga.
What did I gain from this trip? To be short in writing and answer, I will say that I gained a lot of respect for an entirely different lifestyle and culture, one that is solely dependent God and what it means to be a Christian and nothing else. They read, study, and follow the Holy Word of God.