The Pad

As many of you have heard, I moved into my own apartment early this week. I really couldn't have asked for a better arrangement--great place with 2 Mexican guys who are a part of our RUF core group. Here are some pics to give you all an idea of what my pad looks like.

The complex.

The building.

The living room.

The dining room.

My room.

The roomies' room.

The bathroom.

The laundry room.

On Being a Missionary and Taking Days Off...

My very loving friends had this conversation about me today in relation to my taking a day of rest:

Mike: i didnt think missionarys had days off?
does satan take a day off?
James: no!
Mike: THAT BOY NEEDS TO WORK 24/7!
James: kwiki-mart style!



I love those guys.

Nobody's Perfect

Note:

Tuition at the UNAM for one semester is 20 centavos. Conversion to the dollar...2 cents.

2 cents a semester for college tuition. Believe it.

Interview

You can see an interview that I did sitting on Peter Dishman's couch here.

The View From Up Here

As of late (a.k.a. since I got back from NYC in early August), my Bible reading and prayer time have been given much more structure due to The Book of Common Prayer. If you don't know what that is, as was my position before some great people recommended it to me at Pre-Field Training, the book is published by the Anglican church and contains both some liturgical prayers and scriptures that follow the church calendar. For those of you, like myself, who grew up outside of a denomination that uses the church calendar for Bible reading, this can be a very helpful thing. At the end of the book is a Bible reading schedule to help you read the entire Bible in 2 years. Every day there are 2 or more Psalms, and Old Testament passage, a New Testament passage, and a passage from the Gospels. I'm loving it, and I highly recommend you head over to Amazon.com and purchase a copy if you feel like you need a little more structure in your Bible reading.

I say all of that to lead up to this little nugget of information. Every morning, as I head out to read my Bible, I am blown away as I walk out of Peter's door, take one flight of stairs up, climb a latter, and see this...

When was the last time you prayed for your city with a birds eye view of it? It's a pretty amazing feeling.

Doing It Big in MEXICO.

These are my breakfast weapons here south of the border, and, as I hope is evident in this picture, they are big. What can I say--I'm proud of my breakfast food.

Well, I've been in Mexico for 5 days now, and it's been a whirlwind, a meticulously self-aware, culture-shocked whirlwind. It's weird because I had forgotten almost completely about this part of my time in Puebla. Basically, I go through various emotional stages every day. However, everyday they get less intense. If you got my update/prayer email, you were made aware of this, and I greatly appreciate anyone who is praying for my adjustment to life here. I look forward to being comfortable here and falling in love with the city. It's quite different from Puebla, and I'm fighting the urge to get nostalgic about my time there.

I'm still staying with the missionary here, Peter Dishman, but it looks like an apartment may have finally fallen into place. I originally wanted to live with a family, but it looks like I will have an apartment and possibly share it with 2 guys from our RUF group (the only 2 guys in our RUF group in fact) which would be super sweet. I've met both of them and they are really great guys with a sincere desire for honest community and edifying relationships--wow, what a blessing.

Speaking of blessings and people who want honest community, today we had our RUF (which we call CUR) core group planning meeting. It was supposed to last from 3pm-6pm but instead went from 3pm to 9pm. Great times. These students are very excited about what God is doing on their campus, and they shared their ideas very freely. In addition to their fervor, I have been blown away by the spiritual maturity of these students. It turns out the CUR group is far smaller than I thought, actually just 15-20 people at this point. However, we have a solid group of believers to grow from. Praise God! Most of these students have just recently come to the Christian faith.

One girl, Monce, comes from a family in which the father is part of a pluralistic cult which teaches that no religion should be dwelt on. Instead, each religion should catapult you to another, so that you are constantly climbing a religious ladder of world cultures and beliefs. In addition, her "faculty" (major) here is one of great Communist thought and presence. So, she comes most recently from that worldview. It was wonderful to hear her reflections on Sundays sermon (at a student gathering we do every week here at Peter's house). She talked about how she longs for her family to come to know Jesus. She also talked about the great fear she has as she goes into a Communist faculty as a representative of Jesus. This year in the CUR we will continue to preach the gospel to her...only it can calm her fears and give her rest in the power of Jesus to change her Communist peers' hearts.