One in particular was a 600+ mile drive I did in one day. Not “I was in the car while we drove.” More like “I drove over 600 miles in about 14 hours while the girls kept me awake and entertained.” Not gonna lie, I really enjoyed it, even though I was too close to the pedals and my driving leg hurt for three days from being too cramped. The whole trip was filled with laughter, from start to finish, with some occasional ridiculousness and a fair dose of confusion. I learned a lot. Namely, that Mexican road sides are like a nagging back seat driver. Every quarter mile or so there was another sign telling me how bad my driving was. It was awful.

Click here to see my route in Mexico.

My favorite stretch of the trip was between one place and another. I can’t remember their names for sure, but I think we had just left Saltillo and headed to Zacatecas. As soon as we left Saltillo (and boy was that city a doozy, the bridge to the toll road was out so we had to take the libre, which is winding, mountainous, and chock-full of topes, which mean speed bumps that are neither advertised nor painted, so as to trick you into thinking you can go a regular speed, but then will mess you up something serious) we noticed that we had about a quarter tank of gas. I asked Angela how far that would take us, to which she replied “pretty far, I get like 42 mpg.” I decided to keep going forward, just expecting to run into a gas station soon and fill up. About two hours and 160 miles later (yes, I was driving that fast, lay off), we were approaching the red line with no cities in sight. We’d passed at least a half dozen pueblas, but you’re lucky to find electricity in those, much less a gas station. I asked everyone to pray. We prayed for about 5 minutes all together, then spent the next half hour in silence, the girls praying and me thinking of what the backup plan would be if we ran out of gas. We finally rounded a corner and all the stress melted away, as we saw a much-beloved PEMEX sign. We filled our tank, emptied our bladders, and hopped back into the car. Thirty seconds down the road, we all started laughing about how Angela was praying for multiplication, because we saw another gas station. Then another one two minutes down. Then another one five minutes down. “ANGELA! You had them multiplying in the wrong direction!”

Here are a few pictures from the trip:

Other highlight moments include quoting Demitri Martin, flying over a giant tope so fast that Katlyn (who was asleep) hit her head on the ceiling of the car, me finishing a sandwich before getting out of the store, Katlyn and I making up stories on the spot (hers was about a purple elephant, while mine was a tragic tale concerning cockroaches and bullies), driving back a half hour to Nuevo Laredo to go get our visas because they changed the system without telling anyone, listening to Christmas music, and cresting the final mountain pass that reveals all of the midnight sparkles of Guadalajara in a single moment, causing all three of us to squeal with delight (well, less of a squeal and more of a squeak). Eventually, after that incredibly long drive, we made it home around 1am, but realized that none of us had brought our keys. Brilliant, really. We called Jen and woke her up, shuffled in, and promptly crashed. It was a journey, for sure. I’m thankful to have gone on it and I can’t imagine having had a better time, unless there weren’t any topes.

My next seven months will be spent in Guadalajara before I return to Yakima. There will be Spanish classes, SAGU classes via the internet, weekly ministries with children, youth, and college students, countless outreach teams, hilarious adventures with Mexicans and Americans alike, delicious culinary exploits, and so much laughter I’ll lose weight from it. Souls will be won. Lives will be transformed. Dreams and visions will be realized. I will change. I will grow. I will become the leader and the man that God created me to be.

I have several goals for myself while I’m in Mexico. Some are defined; others are more general. I also have some that don’t belong on the internet, but need to be shared between myself and my accountability partners and my leaders. For the time being, I’ll post what goals I can here.

• Grow into discipline in my prayer life and devotional life
• Eat healthy and exercise regularly, bringing about healthy and lasting weight loss
• Earn a 4.0 in my college classes
• Learn to balance the many aspects of life
• Discover what it takes to be the man I want to be: Christ-follower, Pastor, Husband, Father
• Learn how to make some awesome Mexican food.
• Learn to play piano
• Figure out what to do after Engage

There’s a lot to get done. Shoot, I’m still way behind on my fund-raising, too. I need to raise about $8000 in the next seven months or else I’ll either be sent home or have to spend time paying it off when I come back. For now, I’m off to pray, read, and prepare for this week of free time. After that, it’s back to work with gusto. Hup Hup!

Last night, I picked him up by the armpits from behind, faced him towards the ceiling, and spun like a madman. He giggled. Not just a chuckle. He giggled. I could see his smile lighting up the ceiling. After I put him down, he looked at me with those eyes and that smile, and promptly collapsed in a dizzy fit of giggles again. As soon as he could stand, he reached out his arms, looked me in the face with those undeniable eyes, and barked “ma!” Was he calling me mama? No. He was saying “mas,” which is Spanish for “more.” He loved it. We spun and we spun and we spun until neither of us could handle any more. After that, he simply sat nestled up to me on the couch, something I’ve never seen him do.

I can’t describe the feeling I experienced in those moments, but I know I’m looking forward to it again. I think this is the closest I’ve ever been to feeling the love of being a father, even though I know it was nowhere close since I am, in fact, not Seth’s father. In fact, I am not anyone’s father and I don’t expect to be for a rather long time, seeing as how I’m not seeing anyone now and not allowed to while I’m in Guadalajara for the next two years, and even when I am allowed to I’ll have to wait patiently until marriage and until we’re ready. Honestly, It might be a very very long time from now. However, God opened my eyes and my heart and gave me a little glimpse of how He sees us and wants to interact with us. He simply wants to pick us up and spin us until we are so dizzied that we cannot help but express our delight in Him. He wants us to want to nestle up with Him just to be close. That was a good night.

Tuesday night we opened up the youth center (La Fusion) and had a pretty good turnout. There were a few troublesome boys (namely Carlos Chavez, whom I would ask all of you to keep in prayer) but I was simply assigned to them the entire night, which worked out great.

The real kink in our schedules this week has been the presence of a bunch of missionaries throughout the house. We have future Engage Site Directors staying with us, doing ministry with us, and talking with us to figure out how to tweak their own sites to be more beneficial, efficient, and successful. Most of their sites will be opening up in 2011 and include Paris, the Dominican Republic, Greece, and Nicagragua (I think). They have been an absolute blast and I’m very grateful to have met them and will be keeping them in prayers.

A little background to explain: I’ve been a grammar nazi as long as I can remember. I was the guy who you knew would correct your paper for real if you handed it to him, rather than simply glossing over it and telling you it was good. Honestly, papers usually aren’t very good. They need a lot of work and it’s so hard to find someone who can tell you so without making you cry. I’ve been that guy.

This is why I’ve almost broken into tears on more than one occasion this week. In Spanish, there are two past tense conjugations. One is called the preterit and the other is called the imperfect. They are entirely different conjugations and their uses are only slightly different. Often, a sentence will appear to fit into one category, but because the verb is irregular you have to use the other category.

Everyone told me this was the hard part. I didn’t care. I thought that since my English grammar was great, my Spanish grammar would be easy. It isn’t. In class earlier this week, I got 0 out of 20 correct on an exercise. Zero. That’s the same as none. I was infuriated. I was angry at myself, angry at Spanish, angry at God for creating the language and the whole Tower of Babel incident, and I got angry with anyone who tried to comfort me (namely Brittany. Gabi would have, but Gabi and I react the same when we’re upset, so she knew to simply be near me without saying anything or touching me. Brittany did the exact opposite and I treated her very poorly, for which I later apologized).

Later in the day, we had to talk about bars and alcohol for the entire period for our conversation class. This did not help my mood.

For the afternoon, I coaxed Gabi, Justin, and pretty much anyone who would listen to help me out with this stuff. Justin and Jen pointed me to StudySpanish which was extremely helpful. There are free quizzes and lessons and it was very easy to use. Gabi never got the chance to help me that night, but she and I walked to class this morning (before my exam) and she explained a few little rules I’d totally missed. I also asked for prayer this morning for the exam after our devotions, and it worked. I ended up getting a 93 on my exam and I feel relatively comfortable at this point.

We just had our practice for El Colli and now we’re getting ready for our various Thursday ministries. I’ll be heading to our men’s bible study and then off to play soccer with the kids from our youth center. It should be a fun night.

Hygiene might be the one thing I miss the most from home. I miss not sweating just from walking 5 minutes. I miss not being sticky every moment of every day (the stickiness is from my excess sweat, not the non-existent humidity). I miss being able to sleep through an entire night without being assaulted by legions of mosquitoes. I miss being able to wear clothes more than once before washing them. I miss being able to wash my hair once a week instead of once a day. I miss being able to occasionally go to bed without taking a shower (the dust covers you here). I miss being able to use tap-water to brush my teeth, rinse my toothbrush, and rinse the excess toothpaste out of my mouth. Honestly, I miss my cushy American lifestyle, and I’m still living in a nearly American style here. I’m not living in conditions anywhere near what the people we serve live in their entire lives, yet I’m complaining for the world to see. Help me pray through this, please.

We’re all harassing each other non-stop. I’m certainly no saint, and if I’m going to be honest I must admit that I may be the worst culprit on this one. I’m constantly throwing jabs and barbs and making fun of everyone and pointing out their flaws and whatnot, and it has to stop. This is no way to build trust and togetherness and an effective ministry team. I’m feeling genuinely repentant right now, so we’ll see if our interactions change. I know mine will, but I hope and pray that my changed heart will lead to a questioning team around me. I want to be the example of how to live supportively with a team, rather than an example of how to tear one down.

That’s all for tonight. I’m going to try to get some homework done here at the cafe.

Most of our day was spent staring at the front of the living room while we were flooded with information on Mexican culture, respect, and talking with Pastor Daniel, who heads one of our partner churches. He gave us many many insights on both the Mexican cultural heritage and on today’s customs and practices. He also filled us in on a lot of little things worth remembering, like hand gestures, slang phrases, and celebrities. We should be a lot more culturally relevant because of his time spent with us.

Much of the day was also spent studying the history of the church, particularly Catholicism and the path to Mexico’s present-day picture. Today, between 75-95% of Mexicans will identify themselves as Catholics. Much like in the United States, many of those who affiliate themselves with a church do not necessarily practice the beliefs or even attend services. We also got the opportunity to speak on Skype with a highly-respected theologian who grew up in a Protestant church, but converted to Catholicism. He gave us many insights into true Catholic dogmas, practices, and the original and present-day reasoning behind some of their traditions. He also was happy to answer the peppering of questions we threw at him, occasionally regretfully admitting that some of the Catholic traditions were very poorly understood in specific churches. However, that isn’t the point. We were trying to have a conversation on unity and working as one body for one Christ and for one purpose, so we each brought faults to the table. He told us the history of the Catholic church in Mexico and explained why it was so strong here. Additionally, we gained some insight as to the challenges we would face as white, American, pentecostal missionaries. We have a lot of work to do and it’s going to be way harder than we thought, but worth every drop of blood, drop of sweat, and tear.

I woke up early enough to finish packing, or so I thought. As it turned out, I woke up early enough to wash my face, brush my teeth, contemplate packing, head to Northtown instead, and head to the Red Lion to drop off support letters for Brian’s family. I then ran into his grandma and a couple of elderly ladies that became interested in hearing my story and then had stories of their own to tell about my beloved Pastor Jon (apparently he was quite the crackup back in the day at camps. Actually, he still is). I got to church in time to actually breathe for the first time in days, while passing out a few letters and trying to soak in the moments.

Every part of church today was incredible, from the time of worship, to the prayers, to Pastor Gary Modine’s incredible message on Mt. 7:24-27 and the power of building your life intentionally. Pastor Jon took the time at the conclusion of worship to have everyone pray for Mike, Gabi, and myself, and I was surprised not to have any inappropriate laying on of hands (ahem, Jared at GC). He also orchestrated an offering for us, which was a wonderful blessing.

After church, the chaos began. Brain came over to help me panic-pack. This included filling two queen-size sheets with clothing and various other items, then filling my jeep and his taurus to the brim, then dropping all of that off in a swirling tornado-like vortex known as the Goodwill parking lot. We were ninja-fast. When we got back to my apartment, we ended up packing several boxes with random stuff I wanted to store at his house, shoving them into his car, and then realizing that he was almost late for work and had to go. We also sold some furniture and a set of golf clubs while moving them out to the jeep, then packed it with a table, 4 chairs, 2 large whiteboards, a bookshelf, a giant dufflebag, a backpack, a large tupperware container, a small end-table, and various items I always keep in the jeep. I hauled that all over to Ashley’s mom’s fiancee’s house for their garage sale, but I’m just now realizing I forgot to tell Miles I wouldn’t be putting it all in his garage sale. Ummm….oops?

All of that was done while juggling calls and texts from I don’t know how many people, but more than I wanted to deal with. The blessing of the day came from the guy moving into my apartment. He told me to just leave anything in there I didn’t want to deal with; that he would either keep it or throw it out. That saved me one extra trip and probably at least 45 minutes.

I finally headed off to the yard sale house around 4:15, when we were hoping to leave town by 4. Oops again. After dropping off stuff there and being persuaded to write letters, we packed the jetta and set off on separate sets of errands. I had to cash out my change, which took no time at all. After that, I went to the Wakefield house and chatted with Mama and Papa Wakefield while Steve-o was ignoring our calls and texts. He had something to give me before I left town, so I had to wait a good 10+ minutes for him to show up. Then it was off to the church to sell an ipod I found, then off to Pastor Don’s place to reconvene with Brian and Ashley, as well as to sell my jeep and all the random stuff in it. Guess who couldn’t find the title? That would be me. Don’s a chill guy, so he said not to worry about it and that we’d figure it out as soon as we could. This was a blessing. After spending a few minutes chatting with Don, we headed to meet up with Fawn and her Brian at Starbucks. They’re always entertaining and it was good to see them again.

We finally hit the road around 5:15. After much deliberation and several coin flips, we decided to go on I-90, despite knowledge of an RV fire. We were informed that the fire had already been cleaned up, so we decided it was probably clear and we wouldn’t hit the traffic too badly, if at all. (Note: Brian did not agree. He made multiple protestations for taking White/Chinook Pass, then made even more declarations of the famous words: “I told you so.”) Needless to say, we hit the traffic. We hit a stop and go backup of about 30 miles, with another 20 miles of “what the crap are you doing? GO GO GO PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD, GO.” We were having quite a good time of it, despite the stress normally associated with traffic and a manual transmission (not that any of us has difficulty driving one, but it still requires slightly more attention and focus in heavy traffic). Ashley and I would periodically jump out to walk next to the car, eventually making Brian pop the trunk so we could grab the ipods. Then we jammed out to some ridiculous 80’s dance music while Ashley and I were hanging out of the car with our doors wide open. Eventually, we decided on a Chinese Fire Drill (For the uninformed: The Driver yells “Chinese Fire Drill,” then everyone in the vehicle has to jump out, run around the car one full rotation, then get back in a different seat). I ended up in the driver’s seat and stayed there for the rest of the trip, while I had Brian handle all of my texting and Ashley handling dj responsibilities. It ended up being a very long trip, but Brian and I had a great discussion on pentacostal doctrine.

We finally arrived here in there apartment in Covington, and now I’m going to try to fall asleep on a leather couch when I’ve been sweating all day. I’ve never felt more ready to embrace the stickiness around me. Bring on this week; I can handle anything with God on my side.

Please jump around, enjoy the place, and comment anything and everything. There’s an about me page with my testimony and links for contacting me, as well as pages for videos and support information.

Thanks so much for coming to check it out and may God bless you richly.

Willem