A letter from Bill Soldwisch on the U.S.-Mexico border
April 2004
Easter sunrise and the Dios Es Amor congregation
Easter Sunrise service is a tradition in the Mexican Presbyterian Church. At dawn the whole church gathers, the women often dressed all in white, and the worship service is usually led and the preaching done by the women of the church—after all, it was the women to whom the risen Jesus first showed himself and called them to witness to his life. Most of the Presbyterian churches in Tijuana had a 6:00 a.m. service this year, however the “Dios Es Amor” mission in La Planicie was meeting at 5:00 a.m. They wanted to be in worship as the sun rose. I was invited to provide music with my daughter’s guitar, and amazingly was able to rise at 4:15, leave by 4:30, and arrive at church just before 5:00.
I have worked with this congregation since it began six years ago, and I have seen it through growth, celebration, and crisis, new converts making powerful testimonies and the sadness of families moving away, and yes, even the sadness of families leaving in anger and upset. The church has had its ups and downs. I was interim pastor for eight month when they suddenly lost their lay pastor four years ago. Never more than a dozen adults were gathered since that time. But Pastor David Gutierrez and his wife Carmita have brought the right balance of love and strength, of calmness and energy, and above all, deep faith and commitment to their Lord, and things have been happening.
I had been away for a good while, so it was a wonderful surprise to see more than 25 adults arrive with their children for the pre-dawn worship. After the culto we visited, set up the tables and prepared the food for breakfast. I had to say goodbye after breakfast, going on to the Nueva Vida Church in El Pipila, while the Dios Es Amor congregation went on to the Amistad Park for a day of fellowship, games and more worship in the open air.
Mission team evangelism
The primary of focus of our bi-national ministry, Pueblos Hermanos, is to aid the Mexican Northwest Border Presbytery in growing churches that are self-supporting, self-governing, and self-reproducing. Church growth is slow for Presbyterians all over northern Mexico (though there are parts of southern Mexico where the Presbyterian church is growing faster than the Pentecostal churches, which is amazing for Latin America). It’s such a joy to see God moving in people’s lives and building up a community of faith.
The Nueva Vida congregation, three miles over the hill in El Pípila, is showing growth also. New people are coming to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior as a result of evangelism campaigns and home Bible studies. The people of the congregation are taking more and more responsibility to make the church work—just before Holy Week the men of the congregation dug the sewer connection ditch across 40 feet of concrete (not the result of poor planning—the city decided not to put sewers down the street the church had their original line going).
On the Saturday before Palm Sunday, we received a mission team from the River of Life Chinese Community Church of Diamond Bar, California (Los Angeles area), which has been working and helping to support the Nueva Vida congregation since the roof was started on the first church building ten years. We went door to door inviting people to come to a church show—music, stories, dramas and mimes, and good news from God. I had the good fortune (oops, Presbyterians in Mexico never talk about good fortune—it’s God’s providence—and when you stop to think about it, maybe we Presbyterians in the North should consider this perspective, like our fathers and mothers in the faith did) to run into a family that was just moving in to a home a block from the church facility—they had recently begun studying the Bible and were looking for a church close to their new home! They’ve attended two Sundays,
The team from River of Life Church did lots of praying with us (I spent the night with them, as they had no men with them this year, so I got in on their team devotional time as well as the prayer time with the congregation), shared testimonies (which I translated), taught us an easy song in Chinese (well, easy for everyone but me), and put on two beautiful mimes showing the power of God to make our lives real.
House building
Holy week (I think a lot of folk in the United States call it Easter week) was a marked change of pace, as we worked with the 118 folk who came from La Jolla Presbyterian Church to build six houses and two school rooms and put on children’s and youth outreach ministries in eastern Tijuana. Efrain Romero, our mission team coordinator, had been purchasing the building materials as well as coordinating the pouring of the slabs (as well as actually being the mason making it happen with the last two). This was an exciting and hectic time; the plan was for the families to finish the roofing paper on their houses, which they did (except for the first house, which was totally finished by the LJPC folk—that team was really fast and had good builders on it).
The week after Easter a team from First Presbyterian Church of Carson City, Nevada, worked with the “Dios Es Amor” congregation in La Planicie, sleeping in the church facilities, eating with them, praying, talking, worshiping with them, and working on some construction, including finishing one of the school buildings that hadn’t been finished the week before. This was another real change of pace—besides being a normal-sized group (around 10) it was a group of adults primarily, which has a whole different dynamic than a primarily youth mission team, but more on that in another letter.
God’s grace and peace be with you all.
Bill Soldwisch
The 2004 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 138
