Today while teaching second graders their way around a keyboard, I was thinking about how God sees things.  You start teaching second graders to type by showing them where to put their fingers on the keyboard: asdf &;lj.  At least I think you do; I’m not a real typing teacher.  You tell them, “those are the ‘houses’ for your fingers.  Your fingers always stay in their houses except when they visit their friends above and below them.”  Then you have them do simple exercises to learn where their “friends” are on the keyboard: a-q-a-z &j-u-j-m.  You always have to remind them to keep their “fingers in their houses”.  And of course, they always want to just use one finger to hunt and peck the keys.  What’s interesting is how often a student asks you to see what he’s (or she’s) done and you see a nice row of a-q-a-z-a-q-a-z…  Then you ask to see them do it and they use their right index finger to peck out those letters!  No, you tell them, I need to see you doing it with the right fingers.  It doesn’t really matter if you have the right (or wrong) letter on the page if you’ve used the wrong fingers to type them.  The process, how you do it, is much more important than the results.

And today it hit me, that’s probably how God is.  He cares so much more about the process, how we do something (and why) than he does about the end results.  In the end he can bring about his purposes just fine, much better, probably, without me than with me.  He wants me to grow, to develop, to become more Christlike more than he wants me to accomplish a set of goals.  So often we (Americans!) are set on accomplishing goals, building stuff, making stuff, doing stuff.  And that’s ok, assuming the stuff is God-honoring to begin with.  But our stuff is really pretty small when we really think about it, compared to God’s works.  He doesn’t want our stuff, he wants us.  That means the process, how we type, is much more important than the results, what ends up on that page.

Here’s an article by the Economist magazine on drivers’ licenses in Mexico. It’s so true. I just got a license here, because I couldn’t renew online in Washington. It cost me $600 for three years (quite a bit more expensive than in WA), and took about an hour to go with my documents, take an eye exam, take a written exam (a lot of civics questions), get my fingerprints and photo taken, and that was it. No complaints personally; who wants to take a driving test? But for the good of society, there really should be a bribe-free way of taking driver’s tests. And I’ll have to take the test in Washington again someday, I suppose. Sigghhhh.

Well, of course the big news is EBM’s demise. I haven’t really had the heart to post much about the happenings (it would be the perfect thing to blog about in our day and age), or about much else, for that matter. We’ve been just trying to keep our head above water in September, not just with mission agency stuff, but with ministry and family as well. So, we’ll let the prayer letter do the talking….after the jump!
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These are a few weeks old now, but here are some photos from our project to help the flooding victims here in our neighborhood:

Well, we’re off to Acapulco for a week. It’s our transition from a fairly active summer to a busy fall season. It’ll be Gavin’s and Fiona’s last week of freedom and joy before they start their academic careers. It’s all downhill from here!

But first, we’re sending out our prayer letter for August. It’s a rough summary of what we’ve been up to, not a lot new for anyone following here. But then again, that’s not a lot of people, is it??!!

So here’s our August prayer letter!

Well, it only took two+ years, but I finally finished NT Wright’s book, Jesus and the Victory of God. It’s really quite good, for what it is, an historian’s approach to Jesus in the tradition of the Quest for the Historical Jesus (or as Wright places himself, in the Third Quest). I’m not going to review it, other than to say, it’s an orthodox, if non-traditional, approach to the Jesus of history, and Wright uses the historian’s tools basically to uphold the Jesus of Scripture, and show that the best explanation for the early Church and the rise of Christianity is one which accepts the historicity of the Gospel accounts, putting them into their first century Jewish context. All in all a very good 650 pages of reading.

I just was going to quote some of the final lines from the book. Wright is at his best when he is examining (and finding wanting) much of contemporary scholarship’s explanations for Jesus, setting Jesus in his First Century Jewish context, and looking at the resurrection. Here are some good words:

If Jesus was as I have described him, and if his death was the end, it was the end. He becomes like Judas the Galilean or Simeon ben Kosiba, only somewhat more interesting; …a Messiah who died at the hands of the pagans, instead of winning YHWH’s battle against them, was a deceiver, as the latter rabbis (and Christians) said of Bar-Kochba.
Why then did people go on talking about Jesus of Nazareth, except as a remarkable but tragic memory? The obvious answer is the one given by all early Christians actually known to us ( as opposed to those invented by modern mythographers): Jesus was raised from the dead.

Good stuff, and worht 659 pages of reading to get to!

We finished up today. It went really well, but any lesson heavily focused on food that concludes with actual great food is always going to go well! The students conspired to bring chiles en nogada and a couple other dishes … Mmmmm. Again, Barbara-Lee was great, and the opportunities are limitless…not a groundbreaking discovery in the field of missions, but true. Again, if you’re interested, there will be good food involved, too!!

Here’s a link to the photos.

And here are a couple photos:

You may notice the new Video link at the top. I’m adding a separate page for videos, just to see if it’s worth doing. We don’t do a lot of videos, but every so often we do, and that’s where I’ll put all the links together. There are some really old camp videos up there for now, just for fun.

One of the things we’ve wanted to take advantage of over the years is the demand for English. Even before we were “missionaries” Barbara-Lee was working on her Masters in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), which she finished after we joined EBM. Our first time in Puebla we didn’t do much with English, partly because of ministry circumstances and partly because of family circumstances (three little kiddos). We did do a couple English camps and some English work at some local universities, though. Here in Pueblo Nuevo as we work on meeting needs in the community, English is once again in heavy demand, from people off the street, acquaintances, in the school…all over. We decided to start out at the school, offering a course to teachers over the summer. Demand has been a bit underwhelming; we only have three takers, but it’s a start, and frankly, we’d rather start small and grow slowly than get slammed early.

Having three students lets us go one-on-one with them, Eddie, Barbara-Lee and I. It’s been good. Their English level is pretty basic, lower than we’ve done with camps in the past, so Barbara-Lee has adapted. It seems like they’re catching on well and enjoying themselves. And Barbara-Lee is good. I mean very good (I’m not just saying that because I’m her husband). She’s come up with really creative activities, she picks up on students’ strengths and weaknesses, she’s encouraging, but firm. She makes it a pleasure to participate…and I’m an English speaker! So the students will come away from the week (16 hours of English) well equipped in some basics. Of course language learning is not a one-week deal (or one month, or one year…), and they’ll need to keep working on things. … Click for more! Read more…

After our good meeting with the health clinic last Friday, all the attendees decided that the gringos needed an introduction to Mexican food (actually, I let it out that Eddie needed an introduction). So they decided that they would make chalupas for us. Mmmmm…chalupas…. For those who have been corrupted by Taco Bell or just don’t know, chalupas are tortillas covered in green or red salsa, a dry cheese, onions and shredded meat, then fried in lard. Horribly bad for you, and probably most of the very kind people there with us today sacrificed a year or two of life for us, but they’re soooo good (unless they’re cold). This was so typical of Mexicans, so generous and kind and eager to share their culture. So we gratefully benefitted! It also was their way of welcoming us to their team. So we are part of the community health team here now! We trust that there will be lots of opportunities for ministry that come out of this. And more good food!