Two days in Oaxaca

We arrived safely on Monday evening and began an eventful visit immediately. Mother's Day in Mexico is always on May 10 and there is a custom here similar to Christmas caroling. Students from the churches go around to all the mothers in their church and serenade them all night long. A group from Rod & Connie's church showed up at the missionary house at 12:30 with guitars and accordian and sang for Melinda.

Tuesday morning we began our language study. Jenna, Courtney Johnson, and I are in a group and Melinda and Connie Johnson are their own group. We attend class for and hour and a half, take a break, and then go another hour and a half with another teacher. Today (only our second day) our teacher began to question Jenna, Courtney, and me about our religion and faith and we tried answering -- about 90% in Spanish. I spoke more Spanish in an hour than I have my whole life, I think.

Last night we stayed up late visiting with Kerry Johnson (no relation to Rod), the IMB missionary assigned here, and talked about their work with indigeneous peoples in the state of Oaxaca. Mexico has 62 identified Indian tribes, and 16 of them live in Oaxaca. They speak 295 different languages. More than 200 languages are spoken in the state of Oaxaca. Three million indigeneous people live in Oaxaca. More than 220 thousand speak no Spanish at all. The Zapotc, with whom Kerry works, speak 57 languages. Rod works with the Mixteco, who speak 39. Most of these people do not have a gospel witness in their own language. The Roman Catholic Church, which has been here for more than 500 years, has become a syncretized mix of Christianity, voodoo, and local indigeneous religions. Christians are persecuted and regularly martyered in the indigeneous areas.

We visited three large Catholic churches yesterday, all built during the time of Cortez. They were filled with images of saints that have become much like idols to various gods to the people here.

This afternoon we went to a Mixteco village to celebrate the birthdays of two children whose family Rod and Connie have been working with for several years. The abuelita (grandmother) came to Christ about five years ago. She is in her eighties, about four feet tall, blind, and full of God's Spirit.

Tonight I will pick up Libby Brown at the airport and she will join us through the weekend. Continue to pray for us. Pray for our language studies and the opportunity we are having to share our faith with Zoroida, our afternoon teacher. She seems very interested in understanding the gospel.

Blessings,

rrc