Please pray for Griselda and family

Yesterday during church I received a call on my cell phone, which I didn't answer because we were, well, in church. I turned the ringer off...and got another call. I saw that it was from Griselda, who had left with her husband, elderly parents and her two boys several days before, for Cancun and a short vacation.

I answered the second time and left the worship service. Griselda was sobbing one the phone. During a beautiful time at the beach on Saturday afternoon, her father, Antonio, died of a heart attack. Their wonderful vacation was tragically cut short. Now, on Sunday, they were tried to get their tickets changed to come back a day earily, and most significantly, trying to get the funeral service people fly her father's body back to Mexico City.

I received a call from here at 12:30 a.m. Sunday night/early Monday morning, stating that they were back in Mexico City, at a funeral home, waiting for her father's body to arrive. Here in Mexico, because their is no embalming of the body, when someone dies things move quickly.

I called Martin, found him awake, and asked him if he would accompany me to the viewing. I picked him up at around 1, and we arrived downtown at the funeral home around 1:45. When we arrived there was a Catholic priest giving the rosary, where the Virgin Mary's name is invoked time and time again. Then a very solid evangelical pastor preached a great evangelistic message. Then Martin spoke, preaching about life after death and the hope we have in Christ.

God has been working in some really cool ways in Griselda's family. Her sister has been a Christian for about 10 years. Her father and mother made a decision for Christ...are you ready...10 days ago! Griselda and her husband have become increasingly involved in our church for the last 4 months.

We returned to our homes around 7 a.m. after talking to Mauricio and Griselda all through the morning hours. After preparing the kids' lunches and breakfast, I went to sleep...fell into a coma practically.

Martin and I returned for the graveyard service from 5 to 8:30 last night. We sang songs with the guitar and prayed again with the extended family. I got home around 10 p.m. last night.

There's a saying in Mexico... "En la cama y en la carcel se conocen los amigos." You know who your friends are in bed (in sickness) and in jail. Our presence yesterday meant a lot to the family, because it was a way of saying, "We love you." "You are important to us."




























Quote of the Day:
“I simply argue that the Cross should be raised at the center of the marketplace as well as on the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles; but on a cross between two thieves; on the towns’ garbage heap; at a crossroad, so cosmopolitan they had to write his title in Hebrew and Latin and Greek… at the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble. Because that is where He died. And that is what He died about. So, that is where church-men ought to be and what churchmen ought to be about.”
– Rev. Dr. George McLeod, Minister, Church of Scotland, 1895-1991