My first few weeks here, while relaxing, were admittedly a bit confusing. I found myself sitting around a lot at the pastor’s house, wondering whether I should wait for instructions of ask if there was something I should be doing. Nobody seemed to be as concerned about this as I was, so I just sat tight, until finally a few weeks ago, the pastor made his move.

We were riding together on our way to Bible Study and he told me: “I know in the U.S. you don’t go to someone’s home unless you are invited, but we do things a little differently. Here we expect you do just drop by whenever. I think you should start paying visits to local youth.”

Oh.

Assuming I knew where these “youth” lived and how to get there, I could just imagine the conversation: “Yeah, hi? I’m an American living in Mexico for a year, and I know I don’t really know you and can’t really communicate with my broken Spanish, but do you want to hang out for the afternoon?”

As it turns out, it hasn’t been that bad. Like everything else, I have been eased into it, one youth at a time, until my schedule has filled. I now visit 6 youth a week, generally for a couple of hours in the morning or the afternoon, and a few more youth may be added in time.

Monday morning’s I visit Carlos, who is not part of my congregation, but lives just a few blocks down the road. Carlos is 27 and fifteen years ago, he contracted a rare disease that destroyed the muscles in his legs, rendering them almost useless. He drags himself around on crutches now, slowly moving through the streets all day, with very few friends and very little to do.

The first day I visited him, he was so surprised, and excitedly introduced me to his family as his “friend from America.” Sometimes he goes with me on small errands. Once we watched Alvin and the Chipmunks in Spanish. The other day he pulled a tattered US map from under his bed and some postcards of US cities. He is particularly fond of a postcard of Denver, saying how beautiful it is, and repeatedly asked me where Disneyworld was on the map.

Each week we also work on his English. He loves to recite his English vocabulary to me. We have been working on correct pronunciation of the alphabet and next week I think we will learn different parts of the body.

Wednesday mornings I visit Ricardo, a high schooler from our congregation. After breakfast we usually listen to music and play Xbox. This allows me to simultaneously pick up on what the youth listen to around here and learn how to operate a sports car at 220 mph through city traffic.

Friday mornings I meet for a Bible Study with Elias, who also lives right down the street. We have been working our way through the book of James, which has been rewarding for both of us. Though my vocabulary is frustratingly insufficient for talking theology, Elias carries on good conversations and fills in my blanks along the way.

Elias is emo to the core. He lives and breathes music, and is an incredible drummer. As drummers are hard to find, he is a part of four local bands. Elias is incredibly friendly and outgoing, and has eagerly requested that I introduce him to more Christian screamo bands. Though that is generally not my genre (to contradict my previous blog), I am an expert in the field of music, and have taken him under my wing, opening his eyes to bands like Staple, Demon Hunter, and Kids in the Way.

After Bible Study I eat breakfast with his mother, two sisters (who are also in high school), and drop-kick dog. I do not say this lightly, being the lover of animals that I am, but besides its incessant barking, last week it tried to make love to my arm, and that was about the last straw.

On Saturday afternoons I head to Silvia’s house to spend time with her 11 year old son Hector, and two brothers, Eladio and Edgar, aged 12 and 14. Eladio and Edgar live by themselves in a one room apartment. Their father works at a bakery all day, making enough to feed them, and that’s about it. These two boys have been almost adopted by Silvia and her sister, and come to church with them every week.

Both boys are in school now, but sometimes Eladio doesn’t come home after school, and sleeps in the street. He refuses to tell anyone why. Despite this fact, both boys are really very normal, ornery, fun loving boys. Sometimes we play soccer or basketball outside on the street, and other times we play Uno, dominoes, or Tourista (Monopoly). Recently Silvia has been teaching Eladio how to cook, which gives us a good chance to talk about pets, city life, and the ups and downs of school.

My work (if you can call it that) has its challenges, but overall I feel so blessed to be able to spend time with so many interesting youth that have so much need, but also so much to give. Praise be to God.

This past weekend I had the chance to go to a Christian metal festival with part of my youth group in Naucalpan’s city park. The concert featured three of Mexico City’s top Christian metal bands, sponsored by a local church and held in a conference hall of sorts (though it took them over an hour to get me inside once we got to the park and I discovered that grass still existed).

After being greeted by some sweet church leaders in suits and ties, the room opened up into a rowdy mix of rapid fire bass drum and screaming/howling vocals from men with hair down to their waists and tattoos covering about everything else.

Christian metal is a paradox for some. Personally, the shock value doesn’t faze me. In scripture, God exposed himself through so many people and in so many ways that I feel it is not my place to say that God cannot show himself through a raging metal band. It would figure that if God made us all different, we would all find him in different ways.

What I struggle with is the idea of “Christian music.” My youth, not being able to understand the lyrics to many of the American bands they listen to, often ask me: is System of a Down Christian? Is P.O.D Christian? Is Evanescence Christian? And I am given the chance to glorify or condemn a band with a yes or no answer. This makes me uncomfortable.

As author Rob Bell said “Christian is a great noun and a poor adjective.” What exactly is it that makes a band “Christian?” One can point to modern praise and worship bands like the Newsboys, Mercy Me, Casting Crowns etc, and the answer is fairly straightforward. But what about the rest?

What are the criteria? Being under a Christian record label? Mentioning Jesus at least once in each song? Being composed of solely baptized members? What if all the members are Christians but their social justice themed songs never mention Jesus? What if the bassist isn’t a believer? Is 80% Christian enough to squeeze them into what has become the “Christian music” genre? If a band is officially a Christian band do I have to agree with everything they sing about?

For some Christians, this is a black and white topic. “Is U2 under a Christian record label? No? Then find me a “Christian” alternative.” “I hear Anberlin doesn’t mention Jesus in their songs and sometimes plays in bars, they must not be a Christian band.”

It is not that black and white for me. And I struggle to convey that to my youth with my limited Spanish.

Is the Lord of the Rings a Christian series? Well, Tolkien was Christian, and one can find Christian allegory if you search for it. But not all of his characters are good, and I’m sure you could find scripture condemning what some of his good characters do. Christian book or not? Not that easy. Do “Christian” architects only build churches? Do “Christian” painters only paint pictures of the crucifixion? Christian is a great noun and a poor adjective.

Getting back to the topic at hand, I enjoyed myself. I am no stranger to metal, being quite a fan of Europe’s Female Fronted/Goth/Epic/Symphonic metal bands.

The second group of the night was a band called Graffiti. During one of their final songs, containing a rousing chorus of “Speak Spanish or Die!” I remembered another thing that bothers me about “Christian” music. Some bands do Christianity more damage than good. In fact, there are a lot of “secular” bands that do a lot better presenting the gospel than some “Christian” bands.
The song ended with the lead singer pointing directly at me, followed by an uncomfortable moment where everyone in the room stared at me. My youth found this hilarious. I might have too, but as scary as all metal bands look, I can never tell when they are kidding or not.

The final band, Armadura, was actually quite impressive, sporting an incredible electric violin player and a throng of costumed soldiers and flag bearers who added an impressive amount of choreography and dialogue, depicting different biblical scenes (from what I could tell). Nothing that will ever be coming to MY home congregation, but many gifts but the same spirit right?

Last year's poster, but same festival, coming up in a few months

Greetings friends!
You may have noticed an uncharacteristic absence in posts from my usually faithful blog. This dry spell corresponds quite accurately to the complete loss of my laptop hard drive and everything on it. As of right now, it is in the hands a professional who is evaluating whether it would be more worth my time to repair it, or sell it and buy a new one. Either way, I will be using an internet café for at least another week. While I have my information at home backed up on another hard drive, I will start fresh again here in Mexico. Sigh. Such is life.

I have a lot to say (shocking eh?) but as it is most timely, I will start with my Dia de los Muertos/Halloween experience. I’m not sure if Mexico technically celebrates Halloween, but the rampant consumerism of the holiday has caught on to the point where you could convince me it does. But the real big deal is Dia de los Muertos.

Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a Mexican holiday that celebrates and honors loved ones that have passed away. It has been celebrated for over 3000 years, making it a fascinating blend of indigenous and Christian traditions. Traditionally, alters are set up with pictures of the honored loved ones, and the person’s favorite foods are prepared and set on the altar. The time is spent celebrating and reflecting on the lives of those who have passed on.

Kind of makes me feel a bit shallow for going house to house dressed up as Garfield and asking for tootsie rolls.

Being the festive culture they are, Mexico celebrates Dia de los Muertos for three days, Oct 31-Nov 2, with the 1st being set aside to honor deceased children and infants, and the 2nd for adults. In the week preceding, stores and houses are decorated with skeletons and witches, and combis decorate their dashboards and put festive decals in their windows.

When the day(s) finally arrived, I tagged along with Silvia and some of her family to see the celebrations in the Zocalo (city square). One of the perks of living 30 minutes from the center of Mexico’s capital is that I have the chance to see Mexican culture at its highest. Dio de los Muertos is no exceptions.

The Zocalo is packed out with people. Little skeletons, witches, and Harry Potters totter around with little pumpkin baskets asking for money or candy. Trick-or-treating is popular here too, but children most often receive money (to think, I could have started saving for college years ago had mom driven me a little further south on Halloween).

Adults often take up the chance to dress up too. For a few days the city’s Goths need to find something a little more creative than black and eyeliner to stand out.

The Zocalo is filled with what look like stationary parade floats, all set up and sponsored by different businesses and organizations, honoring different traditional Mexican families or groups of people. There are also traditional dances, free concerts, and a stadium where men in only loincloths entertain the masses with a traditional game in which they must score points by using only their hips to force a ball up a ramp and into a hoop.

I returned the next night with some of the youth to see the spectacle at night. It is truly breathtaking, with everything lit up in eerie greens and reds, and Mexico’s largest cathedral towering overhead.

While enjoyable, I regret that the environment took on more of the feeling of a county fair than anything truly spiritual. I am told that in the more isolated small villages of Mexico, the festivities are considerably more authentic. Some of the older members of my church I talked to lament the rapid secularization that is happening in Mexico, and Dia de los Muertos is only an example.

Over the course of the past two weeks I have had numerous interesting experiences, none of which cohesively tie together, so I'm just going to skip the clever segues and skip from one to the next as they come to my head.

SPICY FOOD
Spicy is the achilles heel of my otherwise quite invincible digestive system. I love new foods. I can eat just about anything with very few repercussions. But I have a problem with spicy. Which lends itself to an admirable amount of irony given my current location.

Mexico loves spicy. With everything. They put chili and lime on all snack foods, fruit, and even some deserts, and the salsa slathered on generously here could burn through iron bars. This is problematic for me, and unfortunately it's not just the sweating, crying, and runny nose. My first week here my host mother in Cuernavaca gave me a fairly typical Mexican soup, and it being my first week, I felt it more important to tough it out and be polite. I finished it up and was quite proud of myself until 2:00 AM when I sat straight up in bed, and I can vividly remember the two hours that followed.

So now I have started from the bottom and am gradually working my way up. I tell everyone I need to “acostumbrarme poco a poco” or “ accustom myself little by little.” I have the pastor's family on strict orders to up the dosage every week, because as of now, the word has gotten around to every family I eat with, that I cannot tolerate spicy and though people are more than happy to accommodate, “He can't eat spicy things” is said in about the same manner as though I had a sexually transmitted disease.

I do not understand the masochistic tendency to eat spicy things. Soon one level of spice isn't enough, and one needs to move on to another. The pain is intense, but people love the rush they get. Does this not sound an awful lot like heroin? Either way, I will be glad when I can eat what everyone else is eating and not stick out like a sore thumb.

MEETING FOREIGNERS
The other day there was another American on my combi ride to work. Besides glancing up when I got on, she completely ignored me. I found this baffling. Not that a female would completely ignore me, but that with as few foreigners as there are in this part of the city, there would be no interest to find out what the heck they're doing here. I have met perhaps three so far, and have been completely ignored by all of them. Fascinating.

MAKING A GOOD IMPRESSION
Every Friday morning I eat breakfast with a family down the street. Last week while they were preparing my food, I accidentally leaned wrong against their bi-level glass coffee table and the thing exploded. After they patched up my bleeding finger, I was told to sit back and drink my tea while the family spent an hour putting their beautiful coffee table in a burlap sack. I havn't felt quite that lousy in a long time.

GAMES
Recently I have been playing a lot of “Tourista” with the pastor's kids (Alva 21, Manuel 18, Cha Chas 10), which is basically a Spanish version of Monopoly, where the world is represented and the properties that you buy our countries.

This is an interesting take on the world. I can buy the U.S. for $40,000, which is almost twice the cost of Mexico and more expensive than all of Central America combined. I have won twice already by acquiring the U.S, buying out Mexico, and then building hotels and taking all the money from my poorer third world neighbors. God bless America. Not my brightest moment as cultural bridge builder.

Noticing that the house was low on games, Cha Chas and I went to the market, bought four decks of cards, and I taught them all Nerts (Dutch Blitz for those of you without class). It has been a smashing hit. Generally they are playing when I arrive in the afternoon, and I still get at least two hours in before I head for home. I was unbeaten the first few weeks, but recently the tides have begun to turn. Time to find another game...

I have thought quite a bit about my health in the past few weeks. This is a new phenomenon for me, as my Ortman metabolism would likely allow me to drink gravy for the rest of my life and still look like a string bean and feel like a million dollars.

No, I am not gaining weight, but my diet is as close to “drinking gravy” as it has ever been. I’m told that Mexico is a close third in obesity behind Australia and the US, and it’s not because Mexicans are lazy. It’s because 90% of what they eat swims in grease.

There are a lot of different types of food here, but they are almost all variations of the same ingredients, and virtually all deep fat fried. Breakfast, dinner and supper. Mario took me to McDonalds for the first time last week and I realized much of what I have been eating is greasier than the meal I had there.

Nothing is ever baked. Every oven I have seen here is used exclusively to store pots and pans, saving space in their small kitchens. The other night I went out for fruit for desert: Deep fat fried bananas covered in cream, caramel, and strawberry jam. And like everything else I have eaten here, it was delicious. I just have to wonder if my arteries are thinking the same thing.

This is coupled with the fact that I spend virtually every hour of my day indoors. There is nowhere to get exercise of any sort unless you buy a membership to a gym or are luckily enough to stake out one of the precious few soccer fields in the area.

Even when I am outside, I doubt I am doing much better. Mexico City is known to be one of the most polluted cities in the world, supposedly exceeding the World Health Organization ozone level standard 300 days out of the year. There are emissions from the over 4 million older vehicles, not to mention to trash from over 20 million people.

The pastor’s house sits right by the most polluted river I have ever seen, which runs right through the city. Trash flows thick through it every day, and rats run along the edge. It smells strongly of sewage and most people have found that throwing their trash in it and letting it flow with the current is the best way to be rid of it.

The other night we had a particularly big rain and the river was flowing high. The pastor’s family and I, as well as everyone in the streets began to cough and sneeze and feel sick. This only lasted a few hours, but it was a scary reminder of the price of living this close together with so many people.

I do not know how a year here will affect my health, but the truth of the matter is, when I am done, I get to come home to the fresh air of the Midwest. How blessed I am to be able to return home to the open prairies and breathe clean air, the way God intended.