The Christmas Hoopla is over. The New Year's celebrations have drawn to a close. That easy week between the two holidays has been met with this morning's day back in the office.
I was reflecting this morning on the fact that for the last 8 years, I have filled this time between Christmas and Easter and between NFL and MLB (yes, I live my life by the Church and sports' seasons) with ardent preparation for our adult mission trips to Juarez where our church would typically build four homes in an impoverished area outside of Juarez known as Anapra. The preparation would include recruiting, fundraising, prayer, making travel arrangements, building arrangements, paperwork, more prayer, collecting donations of school supplies and toys, writing devotions, planning ahead on worship, brushing up on my Spanish, etc. And in the process of planning and implementing, in the preparing and in the traveling, the success of every trip would be evident in the lives transformed, community built, homes completed, relationships rekindled, faces remembered, gratitude embraced, and love won.
But this year, I will have to find a new way to full that time, or better explained, a better way to fill that hole. We will be building two homes there this month, hiring Mexican labor to do so
The two trips had to be canceled this year due to the growing violence that finally hit too close to our daily route to and from Anapra. Now, this may not come as a surprise to many....especially if you pay attention to national news coverage. This border city across from El Paso, TX, has been the subject of media coverage
and has earned the titles of "Murder Capital of the World" and "World's Deadliest City" as it eclipsed 3,000 murders in 2010. The events of this city was also the topic of an AP story that ran yesterday on the cover of our local newspaper in Champaign. While I can defend most of the violence as targeted (cartel on cartel, gang on gang) or isolated (at night or in the Valley of Juarez), it is the unexplained tragedies that stem from attempts at vigilante justice and the random attacks due to a lack of due diligence from law enforcement. The attack on the main thoroughfare from our team house to Anapra was enough for me to give in to the constant question of whether or ongoing involvement was too much a risk.I made the decision on December 17, moved through the Christmas season, and enjoyed the break after Christmas. But coming back to work this morning, the decision is hitting me hard and disappointment is casting a shadow over my own understanding of who I am as a pastor. In the midst of the wonderful benefits that the families, the team, and the church receives from our commitment to Juarez, I walk away from every trip with the reassurance of my calling as pastor. More than any other venture or responsibility that occupies my yearly calendar, it is those two weeks every year that remind me more than any other that I am called to be in a local church to build community and to form disciples to transform the world because it takes the whole church to make this ministry in Juarez such a success.
So there is disappointment this morning and a hole that needs filled. I was told recently that I needed to perhaps develop a passion for something else rather than Mexico. Yet, everything I know about passion or feel in passion says that passion doesn't work that way. So "finding a different passion" isn't the answer. But in the midst of this disappointment ... there is hope. Because I know that "greater things are yet to come and greater things are still to be done in that city." The place that was once bustling with business and tourists, that once was a place of amazing colo
r, will again find its peace. And the groups that flooded the city in mission through the many organizations will return to the poor and hungry who will still be there ...waiting for us.In many ways, hope is all we have. But on the other hand ... hope has an amazing sustaining power in our lives. I hope for the city. I hope for the church. I hope for the people. In that hope I know that peace will again one day reign and the love will win. I pray that I will be a part of such great things to come.
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