THE PUKE-ATRON!!

Have you ever had one of those, "Aww SNAP!! what the heck am I doing?!" Like you wish you could go back five minutes before you did something really dumb just to warn yourself not to do it?

I had one of those moments the other day. I felt a lil adventuresome and was seeking some cheap thrills last Friday night and thus got myself invited to a bonafide Mexican Town Fair. It had the typical feris wheel, vendors of all sorts, and of course the rides I have affectionately dubbed, "the puke-atrons." Knowing how ridiculously motion sick I get I some how got suckered into accompanying my friend on two of the puke-atron rides. Pukeatron number one was not bad I got light headed and my fried plantains felt a lil unsettled in my gut, but at the present time no hurling my ill-timed snack. The picture below is on the puke-atron number 1. and it cost me a whopping 10 pesos.

But then that is when it all went down hill. I climbed aboard Pukeatron number 2. Sufficed it to say that was the last ride I paid for that night. If you can not tell from the foto this thing spins like a top just on the verge of stopping, when they go all wonky. So not only does it spin ridiculously fast, but it has undulating up and down motions. When I saw only two people getting on I should have known to swallow my pride and just say no. But alas, as the things starts girating and whirling, I presumptiously thought, "ehh this aint so bad." And the ding dang ride must of sensed my thought because it soon kicked into high gear and had I not been holding on for dear life, I might have been flung off the stupid mexican spinning top ride. So after two hellish minutes of being lifted up out of my seat and flung against the "safety bar", the ride slowly came to a stop. I was a nano-second from jumping out of my seat and onto the ground to thank God for delivering from the demonic Puke-atron ride when the operator threw it into reverse. It was only after the first minute that I began pleading with God to not let me go unconscious thereby being flung out off the pukeatron. I swore that I would never ever be prideful and get on one of these stupid rides again. All the meanwhile I was crushing the life out of my friend because I could not brace my self against the other side of the cart and the force of gravity was causing me to repeatedly crush and slam into her side.

When finally, the pukeatron came to a stop I was the last one off, because I was so disoriented. I staggered away like a drunk woman to the side of the road and just laid down. My friend had the decency to wait for me as I sat there completely covered head to toe in a cold sweat. I knew that at any minute my fried plantains were going to make the second debut all over the side of the road as Mexican onlookers just shook their heads at what they saw as an enbreated korean. When I gained enough strength to walk I kept being jostled by the other fair-goers which cause me to flash back to my horrific pukeatron ride and as I caught sight of where my friend was leading me, straight to a taco shack, I excused myself and laid down in front of a liquor store on my back on a piece of cardboard. The proprietor of said liquor store after 15 minutes of watching me writhe on the floor because of the sweat and bugs and alternate praying under my breath, finally worked up the necessary effort to ask me what was wrong with me. I told her I was sick, she then shook her head knowingly and asked how much I had had to drink and said I should chase away the nauseua with a beer or some kind of alcohol. It took all my persuasive skill to ensure her I was not drunk or hungover, just that I had got on the puke-atron and that had made me sick. I finally puked on the side of the liquor store and felt strong enough to walk back with my friends to the car. and thus ends my sad little store. Moral of the story is, don't be to proud to say no to the pukeatron, respect him and you wont have to pay for it later. And if you disrepect the pukeatron by riding it, be smart enough to not sit in front of the liquor store where others suspect you to be a drunkard. the end

heeeelllllooooo nurse!!

Two weeks ago there was a team of E.R. nurses that came down to do a medical outreach into the village of Yaitepec. Yaitepec is village where we had seen so many respond to the invitation to accept Christ. Prior to our first trip there in November there had been only one or two families that were christian. Now there are several cell groups that meet all over this small polytheistic town.

This team always brings with it realness, that sometimes gets lost in christianese protocol. They speak their mind, have their opinion, and are just real about the issues they face and do not use the typical vener of that "everything is perfect and blessed in my life" attitude. So like I said very refreshing.

We saw over 200 patients during their time of medical outreach. Several of these patients made first time decisions to follow Christ. I love medical outreach in the fact that we approach healing from a whole-peron perspective: spirit, soul, and body.

Each time that we have a clinic we have to make consulting rooms. We usually put up clothesline and hang sheets to section of the consulting rooms and prayer room. I have become quite proficient and creative in my methods.

In Yaitepec, not only did I get to hold some cute babies and pull of some acrobatic feats but I also got to translate during the consultations. Which I how I met this cute little guy. He has candy streaked all over his mouth and his chief complaint was that he does not eat. We diagnosed him with "toomuchjunkfooditis" and told his mother to not give him as much money to buy junk food and make him eat during meal times and prescribed the little guy vitamins. He was not suffering from malnutrition too much because he was ripping and running all over the place. well when he was not blasting our eardrums with his little penny-whistle. Aww the joys of momhood. They are so much easier when they are at this age and all they do is eat, sleep and poop, and just to throw a little excitement in the game they change up the order.

Yaitepec, is an indigenous village, or rather they are Chatino people and speak a different language other than Spanish. So we always have translators with us to aid us in understanding one another. Which is why Brother Juventino showed up to the outreach. I have known him for several years now. And for the first two he could not for the life of him remember my name but always just called me la "Koreanita Chulita" [cute lil korean]. Until I finally told him the Spanish translation of my name "Lluvia" or "Rain." Its funny what age does to a person, because everytime he sees me we always, always have the same conversation. And when I try to change it up he kind of frowns and directs us back to the same conversation, with that "you need to stick to the script" kind of look. Anyhow, he is the first martyr for this region. How you might as if he is he is not dead. Well simple, while they were constructing the church in their town called Panixthluaca, the local militant Catholic bunch shot at the workers and he was shot five times. So there he was bleeding out and they pronunced him clinical dead on his long drive down to the hospital. But the christians were praying for a miracle and when they arrived they revived him. And he had been serving strong all these decades in God's kingdom; telling EVERYONE and several times how God resurrected him from the dead.

One finally note. The pastor of this team, Josh, went to the the catholic church and took some snapshots of the parishoners there. Now, just in case you do not know. Mexican catholicism is not main-stream Roman Catholicism and there is a mixture of some anamistic beliefs that has its roots in the Aztec rituals of their ancestors. So some of the catholic congregants do not have the slightest idea of what it is to have Jesus as their Lord and Savior, and think that through rituals and praying to the Saints and hoping on a wing and prayer that their God behavior and faithfulness to the Catholic church will give them entrance to the kingdom. Which is why this precious lady is on her knees crawling to the altar in hopes that the Saints and the Virgin Mary will see her piety and devotion and intercede on her behalf to God to supply her her petition.

Well that having been said we need to pray that the Light of the Gospel, Jesus, would shine upon their darkness and disallusion and they will come to know the truth. There is alot of work out there, but we already knew that because Jesus said, "Lift up your eyes for the harvest fields are white.." "...plenty is the harvest but the harvestors are few..."

p.s. All these photos were brought to your courtesy of the members of this team.