Pica

One of the most useful phrases in Mexico is "pica mucho?"  Picar means to bite, but in reference to food it means spicy. As someone more accustomed to browned hamburger than hot spices, this is a question of vital importance, a defense tactic against what I consider to be unnecessary sweating and nose-running.

But those spices have a way of finding their way into things you wouldn't think you'd have to ask about--like candy or, as I recently discivered, Cheetos. They lure you into a false sense of security by the familiar packaging, the color, shape, size--even the initial whiff of buttery cheesy crunch that you know will find its way to your midsection.

Then you bite down. And it bites back. You keep eating, hoping you just found a bad one and it wasn't 20 pesos ill-spent, but each piece tastes more disgusting than the last, and you begin to realize that it's just more foreign food skillfully disguised as your favorite comfort food.

I stared at the still-full bag, feeling sick just thinking about eating more. That was Sunday. Monday left the same bad taste on my heart.

Normally I enjoy visiting cathedrals. I can feel the joy of the engineers and architects who designed the intricate details of the building to bring glory to God, to remember the great things He has done, and to turn our eyes heaven-ward. Light and life stream through multi-colored windows, and the collection of history's most faithful remind us of the cloud of witnesses that surround us in our daily walk.

Instead of a cloud of witnesses, however, this cathedral was surrounded by a cloud of darkness. I had been warned ahead of time, but that didn't make it any easier to swallow.

Idolatry. Massive idolatry in the name of the mother of Christ. Here she goes under many names: Guadalupe, Maria, the Holy Virgin, and sometimes even under the old Aztec name of the goddess of fertility. Christian symbols like the fish, the dove, and the cross are found there too, but for every one of these there are 50 virgins to look at. And as Jesus is left dying on the cross in the corner, Guadalupe is the one recieving prayers and praise.

Catholicism didn't conquer the religion of the Aztecs; it only gave them a new vocabulary for it and a few new stories and holidays. Signs of the zodiac are found superimposed on the image of the virgin--who almost always appears accompanied by the sun and moon, two celestial entities worshipped by the Aztecs.

I would have enjoyed joining in fellowship with Christians there, marveling at the way God speaks to different cultures, but with each step I became more and more disgusted by the works-based righteousness and misplaced worship. This is a completely foreign religion.

No, in Christianity we know that the righteous live by faith, and, spurred on and encouraged by the cloud of witnesses, we run the race of faith with eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

I can't pretend to have all the answers or a perfect understanding of the gospel, but I know if we lose sight of Christ and the power of His resurrection, we are fooling ourselves and it will make us sick.

Purepecha

I'm not a linguist...not yet anyways, but I hope to be one someday, and I can't help but comment on language every once in a while.

I encountered Purepecha about a week ago when I spent four days in the village of Quinceo, Mexico. They referred to it as a dialect. "A dialect of what?" I asked. Spanish apparently. False. At least by my understanding of a dialect. A dialect is variation within a language. A language is a common form of communication where the speaker can be understood by the listener. In order for something to qualify as a dialect rather than a new language, it should be comprehensible to the majority of the speakers of the language as a whole. I very much doubt that any Spanish speaker who comes across Purepecha for the first time would be able to understand more than a few words.

I suspect that it is considered a Spanish dialect because of the large number of words that have been taken from Spanish. I could understand a few here and there, but these were still engulfed by Purepecha morphemes.

I didn't learn any words, but I distinctly remember hearing "maestroka" over the early morning vender intercom. I think this was the combination of the Spanish word maestro (teacher) and some kind of Purepecha suffix -ka. 

The last thing I took note of we're the sound did the language. One man there who grew up speaking English and Spanish and learned Purepecha later in life said that he didn't have much of an accent in Purepecha because it sounds similar to English. Since I don't understand Purepecha at all, I was a little skeptical of this remark, but I did hear the -sh sound, which is rare in Spanish. Additionally, I think I heard some clicks...or maybe they were abnormally strong -k sounds. 

I wish I could say more in depth or more profound, but this is it, and I felt it would be good to record my observations of my short encounter with the Purepecha language.

Quinceo

Backpacking lesson #5586: you don't have to go backpacking to feel like you're roughing it; all you need to do is get rid of running water and air conditioning.

Strangely, those are the two thing I hear people complaining about the most back home (because I work in a plumbing shop). We do that a lot: receive blessings, grow content with them, and then throw a huge fit when they break down or get taken away rather than remember that they were remarkable gifts in the first place.

Last week, I spent about four days in Quinceo, a mountainous village in Mexico populated by 6,000 indigenous people and standing at about 8,000 feet elevation. The people there speak Purepecha, which, according to the Ethnologue, has about 55,000 speakers worldwide. Many people also speak Spanish, and a handful speak English, so although communication was sometimes a bit difficult, it was never impossible.

We were received with open arms and eager generosity. They offered us their best, which meant making sure we had toilet paper and constructing a quick make-shift door for the bathroom. Although the church there had experienced some persecution, its members were full of grace; everyone wanted the chance to show their hospitality by giving us a meal--so much so that we struggled to force ourselves through five full meals one day in order to not appear ungrateful.

The people don't have air conditioning at all--and probably don't need it because they are high in the mountains--but they also don't have heating, and houses are by no means tightly sealed from the outdoors. The family we stayed with had electricity; I honestly have no idea how many other houses did. They pulled their water from a well and spent at least an hour a day hand-making tortillas with comfortable expertise. (Indeed, one lady, whom I had hardly seen smile in our four days there, bust out laughing at our feeble attempts to imitate their culinary skills.)

Most people there are Catholics (whether by practice or name only, I don't know). The pastor of the Protestant church had grown up there, moved to America for about 10 years, became a Christian, and felt a calling to go back to his village to minister to his people. Unfortunately, his family experienced some measure of persecution at the leadership of the catholic priest. But the church has grown, little by little, and its members live with great energy and enthusiasm to spread the gospel. Nearly every evening after the church service, one or two of the women would ask us to go with them to evangelize to one of their neighbors or relatives.

They all seemed happy, although of course people often smile extra for guests, so my point of view might not be the best gauge. Our last day there, we were informed of the family's plans to make another bathroom, this one complete with a door, running water, a sink, and a shower. We all rejoiced, thinking how nice that would be for future visitors. But then I felt a twinge of guilt: how much time had we spent there lamenting the comforts of home? Not the whole time (we spent much time being grateful and building relationships), but probably more time than we should have. And how much more, when we're back home, surrounded by all those comforts, do we spend our time wanting more?

That's why I love 'roughing it' every once in a while. Lose the comforts we have grown accustomed to and remember that they are blessings--gifts. Remember there are more important things to spend our time thinking about. Remember that God, who sees to the needs of even the sparrows and the flower, also looks after us, no matter which corner of the earth we are found in.  And He certainly has been looking after the people of Quinceo. Although they live with less, they were not starving; their basic needs are met and more and more are coming to Christ all the time, giving them--and us--something we can really rejoice about.

Made for Pain?

Semis overturned.  Trees uprooted. Houses shredded to pieces. Mementos litter an unchartable land.  Tornadoes remind us of the fragility of life with their wails like train horns blasting through the turmoil, quoting Matthew 6:19, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust (and turbulent winds) destroy."

We thought we had built immovable structures. With hours of planning, careful precision, and meticulous maintenance, everything was perfectly in place--accessible and aesthetically pleasing.

But then the storms came.

The winds clawed their way in, snarling.

We discovered boards were made to snap, roofs were made to cave in, cars were made for crushing, clothes were made for rips and tears, bones were made to break, skin was made to be punctured, and hearts were made for sorrow.

Why wouldn't God make things a little stronger? Why couldn't He make bones unbreakable and skin tough? Why did He create such a monster that could destroy a car, a house, a life? Why does God make things so fragile? Why was it all made to fall apart? Were we just made to feel pain?

No!

We were made to heal. Even a pile of rubble can be reused, recreated into something new. And our bodies! Oh, what marvelous pieces of creation! New cells come to life all the time, bustling with energy, renewing life within us.

God created amazing things, but all physical things are temporary and subject to fall apart. Evil is in the world, and sometimes it feels like everything we thought was secure is caving in around us. But keep reading, because the story doesn't end there! After the terrible storm tells us not to store up treasures on earth, the winds die down, the clouds thin, and a brilliant display of colors streaks across the sky, declaring that life goes on. There is a Healer; indeed, God has always made a way for healing--although not always in the way we expect. Through this Healer, we can store up treasures in heaven, "where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal" (vs 20).

The question of evil in the world and God's role has always been a tricky one to answer. Scripture makes it pretty clear that God is good and created things that are good and that mankind is responsible for the Fall. But--not to gloss over that--the great truth is that God, knowing we would Fall, created a way to renew life through His Son and we were made to heal.