A letter from Rachel Anderson in Mexico
August 2010
A Thank You Note
I now can see all God is doing through Pueblos Hermanos and can help Marta to lead more parenting classes, visit more families, pray with more women and children, and share the Good News of Christ’s love abundant in Tijuana with the church in the U.S.A.
In response to my request to be deeper in the communities of Tijuana, Marta Rojas, Pueblos Hermanos’ community nurse and director of our community health evangelism program, invited me to go with her to visit some families she has been assisting with parenting skills and conflict resolution. The rapid Spanish and strong accents quickly put me in the familiar position of listening to emotions and experiences more than facts and details and then on the floor playing with the children of the family. Their 9-year-old son was intently working on a card. It was a familiar card, covered with hand drawn and cut out stars, hearts and crosses. With gentle prodding, José began telling me that it was for Marta. Slowly I teased out the story of how he and his family first met her when she taught a hygiene class at his school and then as his mother began attending her parenting class. He also told the common story of his family’s journey from southern Mexico to the border. His father came first to find work. Once he found a job, he sent for José and José’s mother. The difficult journey was filled with ever-too-common violence, so soon after arriving, José’s mother began burying her pain in drugs. While neither parent disciplined José and his new younger sister physically, their mother seemed to yell at them all the time. For a brief moment I was able to decipher a bit of the conversation behind me between Marta and José’s mother and heard her tell Marta that she had become her abuela — grandmother — because Marta was doing what her grandmother would have done if she still lived in her southern village. About the same time, José finally admitted the truth behind the card. “My mom doesn’t yell at me anymore. Not since Marta began coming.”
A while later, Marta and I left. Standing at the car, she stopped, took my hands told me that this is why God sent me to Pueblos Hermanos. I now can see all God is doing through Pueblos Hermanos and can help Marta — as my language skills grow — to lead more parenting classes, visit more families, pray with more women and children and share the Good News of Christ’s love abundant in Tijuana with the church in the United States.
The 2010 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 275
