Back in Las Moras!

After spending nine months back in the US, we returned to Mexico this past May, refreshed and ready to get back to work. It almost felt like cheating – returning just in time for our favorite part of the year out in Las Moras. But at the same time, after such a great time back in the States with friends and family, we also felt acutely our return. Yet we were excited. Fun as it was to be back home, it was good to be back in Mexico, to feel like we were back at work again, with jobs and purpose and goals for the next few months.

First, though, we had to get there. Our trip back to Mexico from Wisconsin was crazier than we’d expected, with bad weather and tornados along the stretch from Missouri to Texas. But we made it all the same, with the help of great friends along the way.

Visiting with friends at the MTC in Missouri

After meeting up with our team in El Paso, we headed into Mexico and to our biannual Mexico field conference. We always enjoy field conference. It’s a great time to reconnect with fellow coworkers spread across Mexico, to be encouraged from the Word, and to relax for a few days in the company of like-minded people. Even if your coworker takes the last normal and you’re stuck with decaffeinated Coke.

Mexico Field Conference

After field conference, we headed south. It was time to do paperwork for Kester and prepare to return to Las Moras. It took a couple weeks, but Kester was pretty excited about getting his visa:

Kes’s Visa

While we waited on Kes’s visa, Pete and our coworker Tom also made a quick trip out to Las Moras to deliver a couple loads of supplies and check on the houses. When we got back, it was time to load up on supplies and head in before the rainy season began.

Loading up on Fruit and Veg for Rainy Season

We also had the added privilege of having another family here in Mexico, who was still in Spanish study, help us move back into the village. We enjoyed having Don & Chrissy with us for a few days, and the people enjoyed meeting them as well.

Visiting with Don & Chrissy

Returning to Las Moras was somewhat surreal. Our home in the mountains very much feels like home, but after almost a year living in Wisconsin, it was kind of crazy to remember that we call this house at the end of the road in the Sierra Madres home.

Our home in Las Moras

There are so many adjustments to living in the mountains, things we’d become accustomed to, and forgot about after heading back to the States. Things like not having filtered water out of the taps. And not having power during the night. And depending on the rain and local springs for water. Even just the feeling of isolation, being that far removed from the local stores, the local hospital, even our local church.

Las Moras from the Air

At the same time, we feel such a privilege to live where we do, to do the work we do, to have the support of our family and friends and churches back home. It’s a joy to be able to be part of bringing the Word to those who have never heard it, to see people understand more and more of who God is and how much He loves us.

Liesl Visiting with A back in June

Thanks for being part of our work with the Nahuatl!

 

April is for Traveling

Is it June now? Yes it is. Has the blog not been updated for a while? Yes, that’s true too. So we can pretend nothing happened, and start the updates with where we’re at today, or we can give you an update over the past couple months. Let’s go with the update. We’ll start with April.

April was awesome. It started with time visiting with my mom and sister, an amazing lamb roast at Musky’s for Easter, and then things got crazy. From April 10th to May 2nd, Liesl and I were on the road visiting friends, supporters, and family throughout the Midwest, South, and East coast. Here’s a quick map of where we went:

It took us 3 weeks, but this is where we went!

First stop was with our good friends Matt & Tara in Chicagoland, the same Matt that did this to my truck:

Matt fixing up our truck

Great people, good times. From there, we headed to northern Indiana, where we met with some close friends and coworkers. Then it was down to Indianapolis for a couple nights with Liesl’s cousins, and some of our supporters, who took us out to see some of the fun Indy sights:

Indy 500 Speedway

On the canal in downtown Indy

From there it was on to southern Indiana to visit some close friends and former fellow NTM’ers Ryan and Sarah. It was our first time meeting their two kids, who engaged us in some epic NERF battles.

After Indiana, we headed to beautiful Gulf Shores, Alabama, for a week with Liesl’s family. Being in Mexico, we’d missed out on the past few Muscanero family vacations. This turned out to be a memorable one, as you can see below:

Kester & his great-grandma Carol at the seafood market

Kes in the pool

Out for oysters!

Lovin’ the beach!

Muscanero family photo on the beach!

We loved our time with all the Muskies, and look forward to the next one. From Gulf Shores, we then headed off to Charleston, SC, to visit friends from our training. In between visiting at their home, riding around their neighborhood in their golf cart, and just generally having a great time, we also got to check out downtown Charleston. We now get why people love Charleston.

Charleston!

From Charleston we headed north to visit friends in Suffolk, VA, which included a trip to the Norfolk Zoo – Kester’s first zoo! – some golf, some fried crab balls, and an overall great time. From there we jogged north to visit friends in the Annapolis area.

Getting around Annapolis

After spending a couple days with Michael and Jen there in Annapolis – checking out the charms of Maryland, their new candle line, and even learning how to eat crab – we began the long trip back to Wisconsin.

There was packing to do and goodbyes to say. If April was for traveling, May was about more traveling…this time, back to Mexico. But that can wait for the next blog post.

A Return

Well, for those of you who once regularly viewed this blog, you probably noticed something. It hasn’t been updated in a while. Hence, the title of this post: “A Return.” It’s a return to blogging, a return to sharing a glimpse of our lives with you. It also seems apt since, at this point, we’re nearing the end of our big return to the U.S. – an eight-month furlough/home-assignment/whatever-you-want-to-call-it.

All smiles arriving in the US!

Since this is the big return to the blog, though, we should probably get you up to speed on a few things. First, we stopped blogging last March because that was right around the time our satellite internet in the tribe failed on us. It took about three months, but we finally got it up and running in late June of last year. So that’s good.

Satellite internet – when it works you love it; when it doesn’t…you don’t update your blog.

What’s interesting, is that we now aren’t even there. We returned to the States in September for the first long period of time since we left for Mexico in 2010. We’ve spent the past few months reconnecting with our sending churches, our supporters, and of course, our dear family and friends.

Having a blast while reconnecting with friends in Chicago!

It’s been a good, though busy, time. We’ve spoken at churches, small groups, youth groups, Sunday schools, you name it, and we’ve enjoyed sharing what God has been doing in our lives and in the village of Las Moras.

Pete preaching at our sending church Walnut Hill Bible Church in Baraboo, WI

We also had our first Thanksgiving and Christmas with our families in years. Some people asked why we came back for the coldest months – we reply, we came back for the best ones – holidays with family are hard to beat.

Thanksgiving with Muskies AND Hypkis!

Christmas morning at the Hypkis!

The last big holiday we’ll be here for is Easter. Even though it seems like we haven’t been here that long, we’re already gearing up to return to Mexico in May. We’ll spend a couple weeks visiting friends and supporters out south and east, then return to Wisconsin for a couple weeks, and then begin the long trip back to Las Moras.

Our friends Matt and Chris helped get our truck ready to face the mountain roads again

By mid-June, we hope to be back in the village, working with the Nahuatl. Once there, we’ll begin preparing lessons in concert with our coworkers who are preparing the Bible translation and literacy lessons so that we can begin teaching the Word of God for the first time in the Nahuatl language. That’s right folks, we are all done with language study – we tested out of it back in April of 2014, you know, when our satellite internet was down.

Pete & Ben checking one of the lessons

Liesl and Jan doing some comprehension checking

Our coworker Rachel checking translation with our consultants and a language helper

It will be an exciting, though busy, time in the tribe. Lots of work do, lots of adjustments, cleaning our house after a long break away, and oh, getting used to parenting out in the village. Yeah, we had a kid. His name is Kester Lewis, and he’s awesome. By the time we get to Mexico, he’ll be six-months already, and we’re looking forward to sharing life with him as we seek to serve God and bring hope to those living in Las Moras.

Brand new parents with a crying baby

Liesl and Kester at Thanksgiving

Our son showing some personality

Almost 5 months!

That was an incredibly brief summary of where we’ve been and what we’re up to. I’m sure I’ve left things out, and I’ll try to bring them up in future posts if need be, but at least you’re caught up enough now that we can begin posting and hopefully you’ll come along for the ride.

Our home awaits us in the village

Salud!

The Three of Us

Playing to Win

They play for money.

The men here, when they play volleyball, play for the reta – a challenge, a bet, laid by each team on opposite ends of the volleyball net. Sometimes it’s as low as 20 pesos per game, sometimes as much as 100 pesos – standard scoring to 15 points.

Playing volleyball in Las Moras

Teams are made of at least four guys, but usually five or six to a side. The money they put down on each game is often money they don’t have to waste. A day’s wage is only about 150 pesos, so 20 pesos a game can be more than an eighth of what they earn.

Do the math – if you earn eight dollars an hour, that’s a full hour of work you risk on one 20-minute game. If you play best out of three, and lose the first two, you just lost about a third of what you earned in a day.

Or, you could win that much, too.

The desire to win what you haven’t earned, at the cost of losing what you have earned, is nothing exclusive to Nahuatl culture.

Before we came to Mexico, I spent seven weeks living with the Keetoowah – a band of the Cherokee people – in Oklahoma. The local casino served good, cheap burgers – and even at 12 noon, had a number of people working the slots.

A friend of mine who was teaching me to speak Cherokee would often join us for lunch. His wife worked there at the casino, and he spent a fair amount of time there as well.

He knew which slot machines were hot, which not to touch. At times, he’d point to a certain machine, saying it was “hot” – others, he would say, should not be touched.

Behind all of it was his assumption that the system could be played – it could be gamed – it could be beaten.

That’s the same assumption my Nahuatl friends have as they play volleyball, hoping to serve, set, and spike their way to a few extra pesos.

Yet when I ask them if they’ve won lately, like my Keetoowah friend, they usually tell me they’ve only lost.

Deep in the heart of man is the desire to beat the system. We often believe it’s possible, even probable. But the outworking of that assumption both in volleyball and slot machines, is usually loss.

Some of the volleyball players

In the same way, we like to believe we can win at life. If we play our cards right, as my late grandfather-in-law once said, we can get past St. Peter and pass through those pearly gates.

In doing so, we try to win a game that’s already been won. All we have to do to join in that victory is believe.

But as my same grandfather-in-law said, that’s too simple.

And so, like him, my Nahuatl neighbors choose to work, and strive, and play that volleyball game in the hope they’ll win – without thinking about what they’ll lose.

They don’t know about Him who won it all yet. One day they will. One day soon. And when they do, my hope, my prayer, is that they’ll believe He’s won it all, too.

In doing so, they’ll live in victory, just as each of us can through Christ.

Grasping Grace

A couple months ago I wrote in our newsletter about a woman named Agustina.

Agustina is a single mom of three. Her husband was killed in a shootout three summers ago. She gave birth to his son a few months later. And a few months later, her mother left to work on the coast. She lives alone in an adobe house across the creek from our home.

Agustina is sharp. She’s quick to laugh and to smile. She sometimes has a short fuse. She works hard.

She’s also the first Nahuatl to trust in Christ.

A year ago, she was talking to Liesl on the couch while I walked through an Old Testament lesson with a man at our kitchen table. Agustina overheard us, and began listening so intently to what I was saying that she couldn’t continue her conversation with Liesl.

As she left that night, she said to Liesl, “What Pete was teaching, I want to learn that, too.”

So she did. Over the past few months, our coworkers Rachel and Katie took Agustina through the entire chronological teaching. Agustina had read the whole Bible before. Now she said it made sense.

But as we talked with her, it seemed clear that after a life lived in folk religion and its constant attempts to earn the favor of the spirits and patrones, that the concept of grace – the fact that there was nothing she could do, good or bad, to earn God’s favor or separate herself from Him – was a hard one for her to grasp.

I wrote about that in our newsletter, asking our friends to pray for Agustina that she would more deeply understand the meaning of grace.

Months later, I received a note from an old friend whom I very much respect, saying that she was praying for Agustina – but also, that she recognized Agustina’s struggle to understand the depths of grace within herself.

I was inspired by this honesty, and then convicted.

Grace is the greatest enigma the world has seen. It defies the world’s system of give and take and you-get-what-you-deserve. Grace is undeserved and delivers the undeserving. Grace is love, hope, newness, relief, rebirth, the imperfect made perfect and accepted by a perfect God.

And while I can say that, and claim that I understand it on a cerebral level, sometimes, in the ups and downs of daily life, I struggle to live as an object of grace. I try to earn what can’t be earned. I try to deserve what is undeserved. I try to obtain more of what I have in limitless quantity. I marvel that I do not lose what cannot be lost.

Grace reveals my lack of understanding, but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand it at all. I know the feeling of rain on my skin without understanding the formation of the clouds, and in this dry season, I am grateful for it. I can feel the power of my truck as it climbs these mountains without knowing the individual working of each piston, valve, seal and gasket, and I am grateful for its work when I arrive at home.

Even though I don’t fully know Him, I know the peace, the hope, the joy of receiving God’s grace.

His grace only makes me want to know Him more.

And the more I understand of grace, the more I am convinced that over the course of my life, I will never fully understand it, but will see grace in new lights, live it in new experiences, find it where I didn’t know to look for it. In so doing, I will find the unascertainable depths of grace always sufficient, always life-giving, always hope-filled, yet never fully grasped.

In that way, my prayer for Agustina is just as much a prayer for myself – that I would daily more deeply grasp grace, live grace, and know the God who gives grace freely to all who accept it.