Greeting and Peace to you, friends and family,
First of all, I would like to thank all of you for your prayers, thoughts, cares and support of all kinds and forms through all the crazy escapades and adventures life takes me on, but especially for your recent support of the trip I had the blessing of going on with a wonderful team from Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community to Chiapas, Mexico. I am always so blessed by the community that surrounds me to encourage, hold me accountable and challenges me to go the next step in life. It will be so difficult for me to express the gratitude of my heart and the amazement of the trip as a whole, but I will do my best in this short report.
After few troubles getting to Matzam and one piece of luggage missing somewhere between the U.S and Tuxla airport, we made it to our destination, the beautiful village of Matzam in Chiapas, the southern most region of Mexico right near Guatemala. The people there are Tzeltal, descendants of the Mayans, and speak their own language of Tzeltal. This is the 5th year our group has returned to the Chiapas region to work with Pastor Pablo and his wife Jan who work with the Presbyterian churches in the areas surrounding where they live in the town Ocasingo, of which Matzam is one of. The need there the last few years has been building a new church building around the old one, which they have outgrew. So when we got there this time the job before us was tearing down the old church with an arsenal of hand tools. With sledgehammers, digging bars, chisels, pick axes and plenty of bote’s (buckets) in hand, we started Monday with the week's work. We thought for sure that the destruction of the old church within the new shell was going to take most of the week itself, but with the 16 of us, and the 40-so Tzeltal men, who we were working along side of, we knocked it out in one day! So, the rest of the week was mostly hauling the rubble from the church and dumping it over a small hillside at the other end of the community compound, where they were using it to build a new foundation for a kitchen; they recycle everything! We finished off the work that week by laying over 2 tons of concrete, by hand mind you, on the ground so that the new church could be used as soon as it dried. With the old church out of the way, and new roof and floor completed, our week’s manual labor was such a feat looking back on it. Interspersed throughout the week were other adventures as well. We played and “taught” 100 some kids from the villages the first two evenings through a program they do through the church, and despite our lack of preparation and expertise, it was an amazing time with them; sometimes you just need an excuse to gather and share time together, I guess a bunch of crazy white people singing songs and playing silly games was a good one. On Thursday we visited a neighboring villages church and shared a meal with them before their service; they were so hospitable and welcoming. Nearing the end of our week, we embarked on our annual pilgrimage up one of the mountain peeks towering over the villages. with the village at it's foothills and already being above 7000 ft above sea level, it was only about a 3 hour hike up and down. i remembered vividly the beauty of the environment from my first trip in 2009, but no matter how amazing i remembered it to be, nothing compared to being there again; in the midst of the jungle foliage, on top of the hills, among the cattle, with wind ripping through your hair. After reaching the top, pastor Jeff lead us in a time of silence and prayer, and in that moment with a ragtag, eclectic group of Americans and two Tzeltal friends, i felt that still quiet voice whisper to my soul, "life is beautiful, don't forget"
It’s amazing what people can do when, out of love for one another, embrace a vision, work hard, volunteer time as a gift to one another. None of the workers were paid; we weren’t paid, they weren’t paid. On both sides, we sacrificed our own means of income for a week, and came together and gave what we could, no matter how old, young, rich, poor, American or Tzeltal. We shared our lives together for a week and when I think about it, it was really such a minimal sacrifice, but there was such a huge reward in our lives from that time. I really believe that when we as people come together, sacrifice ourselves, give of our resources, talents, and time for the sake of each other as a gift, we see something beautiful, we see the kingdom of God. This idea of “divine gift economy”, which was rich in the New Testaments book of Acts as it describes the early Christian church, has been something I have been thinking about a lot lately and I was so encouraged to see it in action that week. It happened between people, who in ever other situation, have nothing to do with each other, but because we recognize each other as brothers and sisters, we bridge the gaps and tear down the walls that usually divide us. We surrender our previous affiliations and obligations to meet together in humility to learn from each other and work together, and this wonderful thing happens. The week ended with a church service we shared together in Matzam, outside as the cement was drying. Their congregation’s “presidente’”, who serves as a lay preacher, closed out the service letting us know that they pray for us throughout the year and truly consider us as part of they’re family; I was almost in tears with this revelation. We were family, despite all our differences and the thousands of miles that usually are between us, because family is love; God is love, and we together see this in each other. They handed out bread and soda for everyone at the end of the service and I couldn’t help but think, “this is communion”. We sang the doxology together all in our own language, some in English, Spanish, but mostly in Tzeltal;
“Praise God from whom all blessings flow
Praise Him all creatures here below
Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Amen”
it all started with a few of us friends talking about wanting to do more with our talent, but not just for business or success, but for fun and creativity. some of us are career artist, some of us freelance on the side and still others just create art as a way of expressing themselves. wherever we fall on that spectrum or in the sphere of artistry, we all felt the same longing: to do more with it and to encourage each other as well. one conversation led to another and then we started planning "meetings" at the local coffee shop, so hipster, i know!... love it, and next thing we knew we we're planning an art show and inviting over 35 of our friends who aspire to grow in their artistry to join in. everyone responded well and excitedly to the invitation, and 20 committed to having at least one piece in the show vaguely themed "something from nothing", to be interpreted however the artist felt. we debated whether to have a theme at all, but decided it was good to have something, even something general and simple, to draw some inspiration from. we reserved the space at the HMBFC building and started brainstorming how we were going to actually hang the artwork. after grabbing a bunch of scrap wood and pallets from basements and dumpsters throughout the week, we converged on the space Friday morning and started transforming it into a make-shift gallery space, constructing creative utilitarian ways of displaying the art. what we came up with, we we're really happy with. it was raw, creative, and gave the room some needed dimension. 6 o-clock came and people started showing up, and it got busy! a ton of people chatting, admiring, eating and just plain hanging out; it was amazing! good times, good friends, and good art! here's some photos from the event. cheers! 
