In Birmingham, I spoke with leaders and churches who are asking, “How do we follow Jesus in a culture where authenticity is so rare and nearly everyone is superficially religious?” I’ve sat with many people also asking, “What does it look like for us to follow the Way of Jesus when we live in affluent suburbs far removed from the struggles of people living in poverty?”
Late in October our family spent a week in Tijuana where I spoke at a Y.W.A.M. discipleship training school. After Hailey and I had such a meaningful time in El Salvador last May, I have been praying for an opportunity for our whole family to experience life in a developing country. The border between Tijuana and San Diego is one of the most dramatic boundary crossings in the world. On one side some of the most affluent people in the world live in multi million dollar beachfront properties. On the other side of the border five thousand people arrive every month hoping to find survival employment in one of the many multi national industrial factories. A middle class family in Tijuana earns $400-$600 a month and pay the same prices for food, clothing and fuel that we do in the United States.
I taught on the disciplines of Jesus to a group of 18 students from Canada, Europe, the U.S. and Mexico. Half of the students speak Spanish only so I worked with an interpreter (quite a challenging and exhausting task). Pastor Pato, one of my interpreters, leads a church in Tijuana. He told me about the escalating violence in Tijuana, frequent kidnappings, and the subsequent loss of tourism—all related to the downturn in the U.S. economy, the drug cartel and corrupt government officials and police. Last week after a men’s prayer meeting, two men from his congregation were mistaken for a gang member and were shot and killed. Pastor Pato spoke about the challenges of helping people follow the Way of Jesus in an environment of great fear, poverty, violence and loss. He is one of my new heroes living an ordinary and courageous life of faith.
While in Mexico we got to spend an afternoon at Siempre Para Los Ninos, an orphanage in one of the many colonias of Northwest Mexico. These colonias are where the migrating poor settle and build their own shacks or small houses—usually without plumbing or public utilities. The children who live at this home were either abandon by parents in poverty or prison or their parents have died by violence. We had a wonderful time playing games and face-painting with the children. In a curious turn of events the children decided that it would be more fun to paint us! So Lisa and I ended up with precious children’s drawings all over our arms, legs and faces.
