Mission in Mexico - Part 8

This is another in a group of posts to keep you all up to date on what I’m doing in Mexico.

I recently attended the Mexican Methodist Church Annual Conference for this area. It was probably close to 400 people gathered together — pastors and laity from more than 150 churches in the annual conference.

Before I describe the conference, there is something that I need to tell you. I hate (hate!) having my expectations dashed. It has to do with my childhood, which I don’t need to get into here, but I can say that it has been the topic of more than one therapy session. I’ve worked on minimizing my expectations, I’ve worked on embracing change, I’ve tried to reduce the importance of certain activities, and I’ve meditated for years so that I can appreciate the present moment. And sudden changes still get me. I call it getting the rug pulled out from under me. I can feel my frustration build, and I have to be careful to control what I say. It becomes hard to appreciate what is before me.

Ok. So I’ve been looking forward to going to this annual conference. Manos Juntas was invited to give a presentation, and all the program coordinators prepared materials to display. We all piled into a van to drive about a half-hour away, to the city of Reynosa. Every Annual Conference that I’ve ever attended was in a large conference hall of some kind. But those were in the United States. In Mexico, we pulled up to an unpaved parking lot next to a large pole barn type of building, with a vinyl roof. From the inside, it looked like a giant tent, with metal walls. And it was hot. There is no insulation in this kind of building, and the temperature was 98 degrees.

I understand that this Annual Conference tries to save where they can. But did they not think a year ago that it might be really warm in Northern Mexico in June? The average high temperature here for June is 96 degrees. Well, they thought about it too late. They put up some duct work in the main hall, and had some air conditioning units fired up, but they couldn’t keep up. It was broiling. The air wasn’t moving. Most of the delegates were fanning themselves, and the organizers started handing out facial tissues so people could wipe their brows. I drank two bottles of water, and I felt like I had just stepped out of the shower. My clothes were soaked.

About half-way through the morning session, they announced that — surprise! — we would be moving the whole conference to another location in the afternoon. Then they started to get bogged down in business. This frequently happens in the U.S. too, because Annual Conferences have been shortened to save money. Soon we were very far off from the agenda times.

The conference relocated to a school that thankfully had good air conditioning, but by the time everyone returned from lunch to the new location, our presentation had been scratched. I could see the disappointment in the eyes of the coordinators.

We came back the next day, and again, all the business took too long. We were scratched again. One thing became clear after hearing several debates on different topics — the conference doesn’t have enough money. They discussed pensions, helping pastors’ families pay funeral costs, churches who couldn’t pay their apportionments, and new program materials, and in each case cost was the concern. It began to make sense that they selected such a low budget location to begin the conference.

This financial problem also means that it is difficult if not impossible for individual churches to do social service programs. The only way that nonprofits like Manos Juntas can survive is through the use of some smart money-generating projects and soliciting outside donations. Churches here just don’t have the resources to help.

One of the pastors that I have been working with got moved to a new appointment at the end of this annual conference, and it was a big surprise. We don’t see so many unexpected changes in our conference anymore, because the process has become more consultative. Here they still use the old system where everything is a big secret until the very end of the conference. My new friend is moving to a large church in a city of over a million people, Reynosa. I talked with him about the ministry that his new church does, and he said, “un poco” (a little). He hopes to change that, but the reality is that they have few resources to do so. And this is one of the largest churches in the area.

I’m ending all these reports the same way:

Everything is funded through donations. Giving is easy through the United Methodist Advance site - https://gbhem-umc.my.site.com/hemgm/s/donate-to-campaign?id=a3fPo000000D43R. Every little bit helps.

Please send a prayer or kind thought down this way. They all help, too.