Spanish Fun with Noelle

At 21 months, Noelle is working on increasing her vocabulary, and that includes learning words both in English and Spanish.

If you're a Spanish lover, here's a quick quiz for you: decipher the meaning behind Noelle's baby Spanish. Here we go, we'll start with some easy ones (answers listed below):

1. Noelle finishes her bottle, holds it toward me and says, "Más!"

2. Spotting a new toy across the room, she grabs my hand and announces, "Vamos!"

***
Okay, that was an easy start, now on to some more challenging baby Spanish talk -

3. Noelle grabs her favorite doll, brings her over to me and says, "Oh, nena!"

4. Peering into the fridge, Noelle asks for one of her favorite snacks: "shesho"

***
And extra credit goes to those who can decipher this last one -

5. Noelle spots a cockroach in our backyard (yes, we have them), points to it and says, "Chicho!"


Answers

1. más = more

2. vamos = let's go

3. nena = little girl

4. shesho = baby talk for queso, or "cheese"

5. chicho = baby talk for bicho which means "bug"

Series on Mexican Pastors and Seminary Students: Pastor Juan José Olvera

Welcome to the fourth installment of our series covering Mexican pastors and seminary students. This week we'll take a look at Pastor Juan José Olvera, one of the church's leading evangelists here in Mexico.

First Encounter

Pastor Olvera first came to know about the Lutheran Church in Mexico in 2002. At the time, he and his family were living close to the church El Redentor (Redeemer) in Torreón. Pastor Olvera ran a martial arts school just a few blocks from the church.

Pastor Olvera’s wife Claudia had attended the kindergarten run by El Redentor as a child. One day as she and Pastor Olvera were walking past the church, some members recognized Claudia and called out to her. The Olvera family stopped to chat and became interested in the church.

Through this connection, Pastor Olvera met Pastor Sánchez, who serves the congregation El Redentor. The two became friends, and soon Pastor Olvera started taking confirmation classes. “It was the first time a church had answered my questions using only the Bible,” Pastor Olvera says. “There wasn’t any human reason mixed in the teaching.”

Juan José was so interested that some days he studied between six and eight hours. “I think I finished the course in about 20 days. It may have been a record!”

While they studied, Pastor Sánchez noticed his student had strong leadership skills and a love for the gospel. He started talking about the possibility of becoming a pastor.

“At first I really didn’t want to have anything to do with being a pastor. But one day I went around with Pastor Sánchez and saw what he did all day. It got me thinking that maybe I could do something like that too.”



Becoming a Pastor

In 2003 Pastor Olvera entered the seminary program. He studied for four years and graduated in 2007. After graduating, Pastor Olvera was called to serve the congregation in Juárez.

Unfortunately, violence in Juárez increased shortly after the Olvera family got settled. The Mexican Lutheran Church pulled Pastor Olvera, his wife and their two daughters out of Juárez in 2008.

The family moved to Torreón, where Pastor Olvera continues to serve today. He currently oversees two congregations in the area: Jesús Pan de Vida (Jesus Bread of Life) and Santa Trinidad (Holy Trinity). In both of these locations, Pastor Olvera focuses on evangelism efforts. “I love going from house to house, telling people about Jesus. I show how He can change their entire life.”

In Jesús Pan de Vida, Pastor Olvera is training lay leaders to focus on evangelism. “We have an evangelism group that consists of seven people.” He teaches them once a week and each class lasts about two hours.

Pastor Olvera is also helping the congregation carry out a building project. The group recently purchased property and is currently building a church on it. Pastor Olvera has members involved in the construction of the building, and they look forward to worshiping in it by the end of the year.

In Santa Trinidad, Pastor Olvera is training a group of evangelists as well. And he has set up three different preaching stations near the church, as a way to reach as many people as possible.

Thank you, Pastor Olvera, for your efforts to reach as many as possible while it is still day. We wish you God’s grace and blessings as you continue to do the work of the Lord.

Join us next week as we cover another pastor in this 12-part series.

Hurricane Alex Damages Church in Monterrey Area

El Buen Pastor (taken pre-hurricane)

You may have heard reports on Hurricane Alex, a hurricane that hit in early July and did considerable damage to Monterrey.

The Mexican Lutheran Church has two churches in the Monterrey area: La Santa Cruz (Holy Cross), located in the center of the city, and El Buen Pastor (Good Shepherd), situated in Guadalupe, a suburb of Monterrey. La Santa Cruz was unharmed in the storm, but El Buen Pastor suffered significant damage.

El Buen Pastor is located across the street from Santa Catarina, a river that runs through Monterrey. When heavy hurricane rains hit, the river overflowed - and flowed right into El Buen Pastor. The photo below shows how it knocked out the fence that enclosed the church.



Pastor Vázquz, who serves the El Buen Pastor congregation, reports that two meters of water swept into the building, filling it with mud and garbage. In addition to the front gate being torn down, much of what was inside was damaged, including: all of the congregation's hymnals and Bibles, the lectern, benches, fan, stereo (used for music during worship), the kitchen area, and personal items belonging to the member that lives on the property and serves as caretaker.



Please keep the members of El Buen Pastor in your prayers as they work with Pastor Eduardo Vázquez to start repairing the damage. If you'd like to send them a message, please do so in the comments section below. I'm sure they would greatly appreciate hearing from you.

Series on Mexican Pastors and Seminary Students: Pastor Esequiel Sánchez

Welcome to the third installment of our series covering Mexican pastors and seminary students. This week we’re featuring Pastor Esequiel Sánchez (pictured above with his wife Mary and their three daughters), a strong leader in the Mexican Lutheran Church.

Early Start
Pastor Sánchez grew up in the small town of Acuña, just across the border from Del Rio, Texas. “While there, I met a pastor from the Missouri Synod (LCMS) that had a Hispanic congregation,” Pastor Sánchez recalls. He was a teenager at the time and started taking confirmation classes with the pastor. “In two and a half months, I was confirmed,” he says.

Shortly after getting confirmed, the pastor of the congregation went on vacation. “He asked me to cover while he was gone. I read sermons on Sundays, and that’s when the idea of being a pastor first sparked an interest in me.”

Pastor Sanchez became active in the congregation, and as a young adult he went to study to be a pastor in the Missouri Synod. His studies led him first to Austin, TX, and then on to St. Louis, MO. In 1991, he graduated from the seminary and began serving in the United States.

After some time, Pastor Sanchez headed back to Mexico, this time to serve in mountain villages outside of the city of Monterrey. While working in the area, he met a WELS missionary, Ernest Zimdars (now serving in California). Missionary Zimdars was serving the congregation La Santa Cruz (Holy Cross) at the time. He offered to share Lutheran magazines with Pastor Sánchez .

“One day I went in to the city of Monterrey with my wife – we were headed to the doctor and I stopped by the church (La Santa Cruz) to pick up some magazines. There were two pastors there, waiting for me. One of them was Pastor Larry Schlomer. They interviewed me on the spot.”

Both Pastor Sánchez and the other pastors were surprised to find each other – Lutherans are a rarity in Mexico! After talking to them, Pastor Sánchez made the decision to study under Missionary Schlomer and join the IELC, which is the name for the synod body of the Mexican Lutheran Church here (more on the IELC here). He studied for two years with Missionary Schlomer and graduated in 1999.

“When it comes to theology, in Austin and St. Louis I got my training wheels,” says Pastor Sanchez. “But with Pastor Schlomer, I learned how to ride a two-wheeler on my own.”

While studying , Pastor Sánchez served as a student pastor at the congregation in Monterrey. When he graduated, he was called to serve the congregation in Puebla. Then in 2000, he was called to serve El Redentor (Redeemer) in Torreon, Coahuila. He remains there today.


Recruiter and Visionary
“By God’s grace, I’ve met men with great gifts to serve in the ministry,” says Pastor Sánchez. Indeed, Pastor Sánchez is the Mexican Lutheran Church’s leading recruiter. He has the ability to not only spot young men with gifts to be a pastor, but also talk to them, encourage them, and lead them to make the right decision regarding the ministry (as I mentioned last week, Pastor Cajas decided to be a pastor after talking to Pastor Sanchez, and you’ll meet others that were brought in through him in the coming weeks!).

Pastor Sánchez is also a visionary leader for the church body in Mexico. He has the gifts to see opportunities that the Lord grants the church, grasp them, and by God’s grace, carry out projects that make a difference. In the coming years, as the history books are being written about the Mexican Lutheran Church (who knows, perhaps I’ll pen one!), Pastor Sánchez will be listed as a founding father of today’s church here.

Many thanks for your recruiting efforts, leadership skills, and evangelism-minded spirit, Pastor Sánchez. We look forward to seeing what God has in store both for you and for the Mexican Lutheran Church in the years to come.

Join us next week as we cover another pastor in this 12-part series.

Special Thanks to Calvary Lutheran School

The Mexico field recently received a gift for Cristo Rey (Christ the King) from Calvary Lutheran School in Thiensville, WI. Cristo Rey is located in Zaragoza Sur, a low-economic area in the city of Torreón. Student pastor Juan de León* serves the mission congregation.


About the gift, Mike says, "This offering will serve an important purpose: it will fund the congregation's normal mission expenses during the coming year." Pastor Juan de León and several members of the congregation hold Saturday Bible School every week for kids in the neighborhood. When kids come, they learn a Bible story, do a project and get a treat to eat.

The congregation also holds worship every Sunday. Due to the group's limited resources, expenses such as printing out Sunday worship folders and helping the pastor with travel expenses to and from church (by taxi and bus) are heavy financial burdens. "This offering will help ease these burdens so members can use the offerings they gather to focus on carrying out additional evangelism efforts," Mike adds.




pictured above: children attending Cristo Rey

As a missionary wife, I am continually floored by the generosity of others. We deeply appreciate all gifts to Mexico, whether they come in the form of volunteers donating their time, congregations and schools sending gifts and supplies, or prayers from ladies' groups and individual members. As I'm writing this, names are popping up in my head as I remember so many of the gifts we've received over the years. If I wrote them all down, it would be a very long list!**

So thank you once again, Calvary Lutheran School, for the generous gift. And thank you for thinking of the souls in Zaragoza Sur. Your offering will be a blessing to the work being carried out there.

*check back for more information about student pastor Juan de León, as he'll be featured in a few weeks in my series on Mexican Lutheran pastors and seminary students.

** and if you're reading this and have recently sent a gift but never heard from us, please contact us! It could be that your gift took a scenic route to get here or that our reply didn't reach you.

Series on Mexican Pastors and Seminary Students: Pastor Carlos Cajas

Welcome to the second installment of our series on Mexican pastors and seminary students. This week we're going to cover Pastor Carlos Cajas, one of the most powerful preachers in the Mexican Lutheran Church.

From the Streets to a Pew
"I ran around with a gang from the time I was 8 until I was 10 years old," says Pastor Cajas. His parents were separated at the time, and no adult really paid attention to him. He spent his days on the streets of Tapachula, a city in the southern state of Chiapas, close to Mexico's border with Guatemala.

When Pastor Cajas turned 10, his mother took him off the streets and into her home. She also started taking him to a Lutheran church* in the area. While he grew up in a Lutheran church, Pastor Cajas notes that he wasn't a strong member. As he grew older, he drifted away.

As a young adult, Pastor Cajas moved to Puebla, a city of about 3 million located two hours east of Mexico City. There he studied at a technical college and started a family. When it was time to look for a kindergarten, Pastor Cajas and his wife Paulina discovered there was a Lutheran church - Cristo Glorificado** (Glorified Christ)- in the city. "My wife went to a bank to make a payment for school," Pastor Cajas recalls. "Coming back, she told me she had seen a Lutheran church right next to the bank."

Shortly after, Pastor Cajas got on a bus and went to check out the church. As he stepped off the bus, he noticed the church doors were open. The pastor inside, Pastor David Chichia (now retired) was preaching a sermon. Pastor Cajas went inside and listened. He still remembers the date of this first encounter with the Lutheran church in Puebla: April 16, 1987. "The pastor asked me, 'if you died tonight, where would you go'? I said: 'to hell.'"

Pastor Cajas started attending church services with his family, and soon his two children - Andrés and Adriana - were baptized. While he enjoyed coming to church, he again didn't consider himself to be a strong Christian. "I went more out of tradition and gratitude than any other reason."

Then one Sunday, everything changed for Pastor Cajas. He came to church and heard Pastor Otoniel Rodriguez (who is now in Chile as a missionary for the ELS) preach a moving sermon. In it, he clearly separated Law and Gospel. "It was the first time I heard the clear Law and Gospel. That sermon opened my eyes."

Becoming a Pastor
Pastor Cajas worked as a production supervisor at a company in Puebla. He had the weekends free, and used his time to help with congregational needs. Pastors and missionaries noticed his gifts and willingness to serve. "The pastors invited me numerous times to study for the ministry, but I always said 'no.'"

Even though Pastor Cajas didn't think the ministry was for him, he had a heart for helping the church. When the congregation was left with a vacancy in 1992, he stepped in as leader. He served the congregation for the next years, until a new pastor arrived in 1995.

A few years later, a pastor approached hims once again - this time successfully. "In 1999, Pastor Esequiel Sánchez convinced me to study for the ministry," says Pastor Cajas.

Pastor Cajas began pre-seminary studies in 1999 and entered the seminary in 2000. Missionary Larry Schlomer taught him, and he served as a student-pastor for the Puebla congregation during that time. He graduated in 2004.

At that time, he was called to serve in Mexico City. He stayed there until January 2010, when he accepted a call to return to Puebla - this time to serve new missions in the area. These congregations are located in lower class neighborhoods. "I work with people that are very poor," says Pastor Cajas. "It's hard to see so much suffering, but I know what these people really need is the Gospel message."



Family Man
Spend a little time with Pastor Cajas, and it won't take long to see how deeply he cares for his family. "I always said, I'd study for the ministry if God would look after my children," he says. Indeed, God has taken care of his children, providing schooling for them and even scholarships to help fund their studies along the way. They are also strong Christians. "I feel so blessed to see that God has taken care of my children, not only physically but also spiritually."

Over the years, Pastor Cajas has taken in other relatives in need and treated them as family - he even refers to a niece that he and his wife raised as his own daughter. "Everything that we have we share."

Gifted Preacher
Pastor Cajas is the kind of preacher that gets people on the edge of their seats - and keeps them there. The last time I heard him preach was in August 2009. I still remember the sermon (and I spent most of the sermon chasing around a toddler in the back of church - this is the kind of preacher that holds your attention!).

His sermons are now open to the public - literally. The Mexican Lutheran Church recently launched a website for their church body, and it features videos of sermons preached by Pastor Cajas. You can see and hear him preach a sermon here.

Thank you Pastor Cajas, for your tireless work in Mexico. Thank you for your vigilant efforts to preach first the Law and then the Gospel to all who will listen. We pray that God bless the churches in Puebla and bring more souls to him through you.

Tune in next week, when we'll look at another pastor in the next installment of this series.

* this church, while Lutheran in name, is not associated with the Mexican Lutheran Church or WELS.

** Cristo Glorificado is associated with the Mexican Lutheran Church and WELS.

Introducing the New Volunteers

Last week our two new WELS Kingdom Worker volunteers, Tim Patoka and Ryan Kolander, arrived in León. They'll be here for the next year, teaching English and carrying out evangelism efforts. Here's a little more info on Tim and Ryan:

Tim (pictured above interviewing a student signing up for English classes) comes to us from Stafford, Virginia, a suburb about a half hour south of Washington, D.C. He's currently studying to be a pastor at Martin Luterha College in New Ulm, MN, and will be a senior when he returns next fall.

When he heard about the WELS Kingdom Worker program here in Mexico, Tim's interest was piqued. "I wanted to learn Spanish, experience exploratory mission work, see another country and get to know the people there," he says. When he first arrived in Leon, he notes: "it wasn't what I was thinking of at all - no drugs, violence, pollution, etc. Leon is a nice, simple town where the people are proud of their heritage."

After spending nearly a week on the field, Tim says, "I'm super excited to be here! I can't believe I'm a teacher, as my mom is a teacher and I never thought I'd do it too. Now I'm in the classroom and loving it (also, teaching is harder than you think!)."



Our second volunteer, pictured above helping a student choose a time for classes, hails from Brookfield, WI. Ryan just graduated from Martin Luther College and will continue his studies to be a pastor after finishing his year in Mexico.

What brought Ryan to Mexico? "I wanted to do something in a Spanish-speaking country to work on my language skills for a year," he says. "I've thought about being a missionary, and wanted to see how things work in a mission field."

Ryan's first impressions of León have been positive. "I love it," he says. While he admits his first time teaching English in front of a class of 15 students was a bit nerve-wracking, he's confident things will get easier (also random note from Rachel: he's 6'5". To put this in perspective, I'm "tall" here and I measure just 5'7").

As you may know, English classes are a key part of the outreach efforts going on in León right now. We're very thankful to have Tim and Ryan here to help out with the teaching and mission work. Here's a to another fruitful year in Mexico through the WELS Kingdom Worker program!