A Feel For Mexico At Home

There’s nothing quite like experiencing Mexico up close and personal as some of our friends were able to do in a recent visit with us. It’s so difficult to put into words or even capture in pictures the atmosphere and life here. Hopefully some day you will be able to see it for yourself, but in the meantime we thought it would be fun to give you ways of getting a feel for Mexico at home.

* Use ONLY water that has been purchased at a store for drinking, cooking and brushing your teeth. Make it a one week effort.

* Watch or play a complete game of soccer (futbol).

* Have a meal at your favorite Mexican restaurant BUT order something you have never eaten before.

* Send your children to school (public, private, home) in a uniform.

* Listen to a tape, CD or DVD in Spanish for one hour.

* Go to a local mall or shopping center with speed bumps (topes) and drive over them 15 or 20 times.

* Stop in at a local Roman Catholic Church to look at the icons, pictures, furniture and altars. Sit for a while thinking about a country that is 94% Catholic with a spiritual atmosphere that permeates the country.

* Have a cookout and invite friends. Grill out on a busy sidewalk and string up a tarp up over the tables.

* Check your beds for scorpions at night. If you get up in the night use a flashlight to look for them on the floor. Shake out your shoes in the morning.

* Soak all of your fruit in bleach water totally submerged for at least ten minutes.

* Randomly and without warning turn off the electricity for a couple of hours three times in a week’s span.

* Attend a Hispanic Church in your area.

* Carry a pocketful of dimes and give two or three to anyone who helps you in some way (shopping cart workers, bag boys, trash collectors, gas attendants, convenience store help, etc.)

* Take a taxi ride, bargain for the price before you get inside.

* Memorize a sentence in Spanish and say it to a few Spanish speakers.

* Ring a bell when the trash truck arrives to let the neighbors know to bring out their trash.

* Take fifteen minutes to pray for a spiritual awakening in Mexico.

The number you try will tell you about yourself:

2-5 – You have more than a passing interest in Mexico

6-10 – You have either visited Mexico already or should plan to in the future

11-17 – You should seriously pray about joining us as missionaries to Mexico