Good News From A Distant Land

Ray and Tiffany returned home today and we return to our routines here in Puebla. We will miss them as we do all of our friends who make their way down here to bring us good news from a distant land. It’s like cold water to a weary soul. Over the last two weeks we have experienced your normal cemita eating, tope bumping, sight-seeing times. They would tell you that one of the highlights was the day I got dragged down to the police station which wasn’t so much fun at the time. I’ll have to tell you about it sometime, but it deserves a post of its own.

While they were here, we visited church after church after church. I think they grew weary with it. I particularly remember the visit to the cathedral. The dark, ornate interior with its well worn stones under our feet was permeated with the smell of incense. A multitude of images looked down on us from their various perches as we made our solemn tour. What a contrast it was to the joyful Sunday morning baptism we attended when three believers made a public statement of an inward reality. The singing, the Scriptures, the fellowship, all in the context of a beautiful mountain setting, was alive and vibrant.

One of the best gifts Ray and Tiffany bought to us was the gift of laughter. We laughed while they were here – a lot. Like the evening we poked fun at ourselves or the afternoon we distorted our most recent photographs. It’s wonderful to have a home filled with laughter and I don’t just mean a chuckle but a good hard belly laugh.

But my favorite memory is our numerous hikes up Serro Chiquehuite, a hill over looking Puebla. It’s a pilgrimage of sorts for the locals that provides a 360 panoramic view. For us it provided a special atmosphere of watching the sunrise, coffee cup in hand while spending some quiet time with the Lord as Chelsea ran free exploring the area. It quickly became a place for us to mutually unite our prayers together and was eventually dubbed “Prayer Meeting Hill”. We expect some mighty powerful prayers to be answered from this spot.