mexico city updates (as sent out in emails throughout the trip)

-----Update #1------

Hola everyone...

I hope this email finds you all well. I just wanted to let everyone know what Team Mexico City has arrived safely, and we are already seeing God at work here...

Flight day was thankfully uneventful and without real incident. We all rallied at church then went to the Van Nuys Flyaway. There was moderate traffic on the 405 and checking in went smoothly. A few people from the 310 came to send us off and even stayed to hang out with us as we had lunch at McDonalds.

Our flight out was delayed for an hr and a half due to issues with pets and the cargo department. Apparently the ac in the cargo dept was not working, so it took them awhile to bring the dogs up and secure them in the main cabin. The flight itself was relatively smooth, but we did have to navigate around some thunder storms... but oh how glorious it was to behold!

We finally arrived in Mexico City at 1230am. Praise God that we cleared Customs without incident AND all of our luggage arrived with us!!! Josiah and Crystal Grauman and some other church members were there to greet us. Unfortunately, they did not know that our plane was delayed so they were there waiting for us for almost 2 hrs. We went home with our host families, and were able to sleep or nap for a few hrs before heading out to church this morning.

The team met at the church that Luis Contreras serves at, and we were able to lead worship as well as be introduced to the congregation. The rest of the afternoon was left open for time with our host families. I have the privilege and blessing of rooming with my sister Grace Yang, and our host family is a young couple named Julian and Bredka Bernardo. They have warmly and graciously welcomed us into their home, and I know that these 2 weeks will be wonderful with these two Christ honoring servants.

VBS starts tomorrow and will run for the rest of the week then the youth conference starts next week. Thank you all of our support and prayers. I will try and update as much as possible. Welcome home, Team Japan!=) Dios te bendiga...

------Update #2--------

Hello everyone!

Grace and Vanessa here... We hope that you all are doing well. Once again, please forgive me for not knowing how to punctuate properly on this comp.

We all love it here in Mexico City! The weather is lovely... highs are in the 70s with rain in the evenings so it drops into the 60s. And its consistently like this throughout the year. They have mild winters as well. It has been really nice to be away from the extreme heat in LA. Did you know that Mexico Citys altitude is 7,600 ft above sea level? Thats higher than Denver! We have had to adjust to that elevation. We wish that we could explore the city more, but it isnt safe for non Mexicans to wander the streets, and Luis and Josiah both are very protective of the team. We have enjoyed views of the city from our rides in the car however... Its huge and driving around the streets is like driving on the 405 with all sorts of people walking around. Yup... Meaning, the traffic is bad and the drivers make their own rules.

So every morning, Grace and I wake up to a wonderful breakfast and time with Julian and Bredka. They have much wisdom and talking to them and spending time with them has been so wonderful for us both. We connected really well from the beginning because of our mutual love and passion for God and the truth. After eating, we go through the devotional book, 365 Days with Charles Spurgeon. What a great way to start the day off! Grace and I also have the chance to pray with each other and share when we wake up and right before we go to bed. We are getting to know each other very well. After just 3 days, we were completing each others sentences and thoughts.

The Bernardos also have a wonderful collection of Christian books by authors such as John Mac, CJ Mahaney and John Piper. Grace is reading Feminine Appeal by Carolyn Mahaney, and I am reading Humility by CJ. We are hoping to finish these books by the end of our time here.

Tomorrow is our last day of VBS at Iglesia Remanente. We planned out the 5 days according to the pages of the wordless book (yellow, black, red, white and green). It has proved to be a very effective way to share the Gospel with the kids. The ages of these kids range from 3 yrs old to 13 yrs old. The Mexico Team is divided into 3 instructional teams to work with the different ages. Praise God for enough Spanish speaking team members to be teachers on each IT. Before the kids arrive for VBS, a team member leads a devotional then we break up into pairs and pray. When the kids arrive, we start with singing and a brief intro (incorporating the use of puppets!) then divide into our groups. We have instructional time, snacks, crafts and games then send them home. The kids are adorable and have been a blessing to work with. Please pray for the salvation of their souls.

Each day is different after VBS ends (around 130pm). We have had one group outting to a local Grovelike mall, we have time with our host families, and yesterday we started working with the church and the Graumans. The Graumans recently moved into a new apt that is full of mold. The gals went and scrubbed and cleaned their entire apt from ceiling to floor with toothbrushes, scrubbers and a whole lot of Chlorox. The guys spent time on the 2nd floor of the church building prepping the room to be painted by sanding walls and fixing things, etc. Tomorrow we are going to spend time with the Contreras family. Praise God that the team continues to grow closer together with each new day.

Prayer requests...
1. Team members are falling ill... Isaac, Tiara and Valeria (new friend that is helping here).
2. Right attitudes toward frustration with communication (non Spanish speakers)
3. Next weeks youth (ages 18 to 30) conference... music team, small group leaders, evangelism in general. Some of us will be sharing our testimonies as well.
4. Leadership and missionaries here... Carlos (team leader), Luis, Josiah, Rosie, Ellen and Spanish speaking teachers
5. Lack of a time and place for music team to practice for Sunday service and youth conference

We miss you all, and we cant wait to share our pictures (Grace and Katie have been taking A LOT of them) and stories with you...

Gloria a Dios!
Grace and Vanessa

------Update #3-------

Hello again...

Grace and Vanessa are back! This update may or may not be our last one for our time here. The team will be home Sun night.

Its been raining a lot here in Mexico City. Oh, random facts for you! You can run red lights after 11pm for your safety, and a drivers license can be purchased at the local supermarket. You dont have to pass a test or anything. A lot of people learn to drive here just by driving. Well, we all do, but that explains a lot about the driving here. Oh! And last random fact... If a soldier that is taking down the flag in the Zocalo drops any part of it on the ground, he can get up to 2 wks in jail.

VBS ended well last Friday, with 2 kids from the Primary (7 yrs old to 9 yrs old) group who raised their hands during the invitation. Their names are Omar and Milca. The team was so amazed at how gracious the Lord was in guiding us through the whole week. We ended with a deep clean of the church (Vanessa mopped the whole church... literally), a team dinner at Chilis and then dessert at an ultra modern Haagen Dazs cafe. Oh if we only had those in LA. This Haagen Dazs cafe has 2 floors. The first floor was set up like a restaurant and then the top floor was set up as a clubby loungeish area. It was nice to unwind and indulge in 3 chocolate fondue platters. PLUS, in their bathrooms, they had really rockin, vertical sandwichy hand dryers. Stay tuned for pics... Yay for sweet fellowship!!

The weekend was spent with the team and the host families. On Sat, we explored Chapultepec, which is a castle turned museum in the middle of the city. We had lunch at a Buca Di Beppolike restaurant called Italiannis (Mexican chain) then watched Ratatouille... Yes, both of us have seen it more than once. But it was still entertaining for the 2nd and 3rd times respectively. Sun was spent at Iglesia Nacaulpan, where we led worship and then listened to a message on Matthew 5 verse 6. We had a taquisa afterward (food), and we got to spend time with the congregation. After the taquisa, Grace and Vanessa went with Bredka and Julian to visit Bredkas family in the south part of the city. They are nice people. Unfortunately, a tragic accident involving Graces camera occurred, and now Vanessas camera has taken over the job of taking pics. Its ok though, its just a piece of metal... Grace keeps saying this to herself... Its only temporal and it will burn. We drove around the Zocalo then went to the Folklore Ballet of Mexico (an evening of Mexican culture).

This week has been different from the last. Our mornings are spent either working at the church or the Contreras household (boys and painting) or in Bible study breakfasty fellowshippy time (gals). The youth conference started yesterday, and again, God has been so gracious in allowing it to run very smoothly. It runs from 6pm to 9pm nightly. We have had about 75 youths (ages 13 to 50... yes, note the ginormous age range) in attendance these past two nights (75 nightly). We lead worship then have a testimony (Jhaneth and Tiara have shared so far), then a message based on the overall theme of An Eternal Perspective. We eat a snack then break into small groups by gender and age (2 gal groups and 2 guy groups). The small group time is very important and effective in ministering to the attendees in a more personal and discussion based environment. Oh yeah, and on a side note, the gals wrote a rap to encourage the bros... You can ask Miranda for our lyrics. We performed it for them tonight... twice. Pastor Luis wants to record it and put it onto cds. Right.

About 90 percent of the team is or has been sick since we last updated you. This, however, has not brought down the team at all... We still function and serve at our best, and its by Gods sustaining grace that we are able to rejoice in our trials. All sorts of medicine has been used to fight our infirmities ranging from Chinese medicine to American medicine. Please continue to pray for our overall health.

Prayer Requests...1. Youth conference... msgs will be clear, youth will come with ready hearts to absorb and apply, small group time would be effective, and the Gospel proclaimed

2. Health... again, 90 percent of our team is or has been sick since we last updated you... meaning, everyone except for Vanessa

3. Leadership, missionaries, church and host families ...that our team would be encouraging to all of them

Until next time or until we see you...

Gracia y paz en el nombre de Jesu Cristo,
Gracia y Vanessa

-----Last Update--------

Hellooooo!!

And we have reached our last full day here in Mexico City. It's a bittersweet feeling as we are torn to leave the people here, yet we are also filled with joy to be returning home to you all tomorrow night! What a true blessing it has been to be here as God's instruments to a nation in desperate need of the true Gospel.

The team has been working hard since our last update. We spent Wed thru Fri mornings at the Contreras household cleaning, painting, organizing and doing all sorts of projects for them that they will probably never have time to do themselves (Robin had LISTS and praise God we finished all of the items on all 2,000 of them). We spent Thurs afternoon at Iglesia Remanente's pastor's house for lunch and fellowship. They served us pozole (soup with special corn and chicken) and then sang some songs for us in Spanish (like everyone's fave Via Dolorosa). We then shared some songs with them and ended the afternoon with group worship. It was a really nice time. Fri was Robin's birthday, so we celebrated with flowers, Haagen Dazs ice cream bars (she doesn't like cake), and the gals made up a song for her to the tune of Avril Lavigne's Sk8r Boi. Tomorrow is also Josiah's birthday, but we won't be able to see him before we leave.

By God's providence, the youth (correction... ages 13 to 60... ha) conference went very well. Josiah spoke on evangelism on Tues evening, relationships and marriage on Wed, Carlos spoke on justification and sanctification on Thurs, and Fri was a big Q and A time to clarify issues that came up over the course of the entire week. Jhaneth, Tiara, Katie, Luis D (not el pastor) and Grace shared their testimonies. The small groups worked out well, and we got some good discussions going. Jhaneth, Grace, Miranda, Vanessa and Crystal worked with the older women's group (20ish and up). Thurs evening was a special evening for our particular group because there were 4 new, non believing girls (Mayra, Genesis, Angelica and ?) that showed up. We split our small group into 4 smaller groups with Vanessa, Jhaneth, Miranda and Mayte (a faithful sister at Iglesia Naucalpan) leading each one. In our groups, we shared testimonies and discussed the doctrines of justification and sanctification, but what was truly amazing was that we were all able to share the Gospel to the girls in each particular group. By God's sovereignty, the new girls understood English and left interested in learning more. Grace only had one Alto! tract to give out, so she gave it to one of them hoping that they will all read through it together. We were going to hand out a Roman Catholic tract to them, but Carlos decided that it would be too much, so we held on to it. And God's providence strikes again! On Grace and Vanessa's ride home, which is always usually a Spanish speaking lesson, we were able to share the basics of the Gospel with our driver (a man named Flavio who works for Julian) who comes from a Catholic background. With our combined Spanish skills (barely Level 1 combined... really), we laid out the very main points... God is holy (Matt 5, 48), man is sinful (Rom 3, 10 and 23) and faith in Jesus Christ who died on the cross for our sins (2 Cor 5, 21). We also spent a lot of time talking about how good works cannot save anyone (Titus 3, 5). He said that he understood, and as we arrived home, our conversation ended. We encouraged him to talk to Julian and Bredka more. Grace gave the Catholic tract to Flavio (the one that Carlos told us to hold on to), and asked him to read over it so we could discuss it on the drive home the following evening. As the Lord would have it, the girls did not show up the following evening, and Flavio did not end up picking us up from Remanente either, but we know that the Lord is working, and we praise Him for using us! Just think about it... two of the team members with the most remedial Spanish skills were able to hash out the Gospel in English and Spanish to people that somehow understood them.

Today, we went to see the Aztec pyramids in Teotihuachan (about an hr and a half outside the city). Miranda was surprised that it wasn't sandy there like the ones in Egypt. There are two main pyramids (sun and moon) and many smaller ones where they sacrificed humans to the minor gods. We climbed to the top of the sun pyramid (a bit larger than we imagined... Carlos RAN up the entire thing last yr) and had a devotional and prayer time led by Luis D (not to be mistaken with Pastor Luis). How cool it was to be able to go through God's Word and pray on top of a pagan monument. We explored the rest of the area afterwards... the main walkway is called el Calzado de los Muertos (Avenue of the Dead). Everything about that place was so... magnificent yet so empty. We kept hearing people around us asking questions like, How did they build these things? The Aztecs, so motivated by what they believed in, used the hands and knowledge that the true Creator God (Psalms 24, 1) gave them to build these amazing structures that ended up being used to worship false idols. And they are all in hell now. So what does it all mean? Tourists from everywhere marvel and stand in awe as they walk through the ghost town that is these pyramids. The structures are filled with echoes of strength and extreme devotion all directed to the wrong place which resulted in the ultimate consequence. How sad is that! Can you imagine if all that energy was directed toward the work of the one true God? But did they ever even know Him? Then we are reminded that God is sovereign. We are just as sinful as these Aztecs were. We are NO better (Rom 3, 10 and 23 again). And how gracious He was to choose His elect before the creation of the world. It's all about HIM and never about us.

This afternoon was spent eating lunch and shopping in San Angel, and our evening is to be spent with our host families for the last time. Julian and Bredka bought some churros for us to share. The food in Mexico is not like the Mexican food back at home! What an enlightening cultural experience this has been.

Tomorrow, we will worship at Iglesia Naucalpan, have lunch, then bid Mexico City farewell. Lord willing, some of us will return next summer. We will remember the people, the food, fellowship, serving the pastors and missionaries, the laughter and memories, but most importantly, Christ's supremacy and the work of the church here. God's work is being done by His faithful servants here, and we see that through the growing seminary and the Word centered teaching at Iglesia Naucalpan and Iglesia Remanente. Praise God for the people He has placed here!

Prayer Requests

1. Flight home... Safety and ... Oh, we forgot to mention that Carlos doesn't have a U.S. passport. He came into the country without one. Here's to praying that he (and the team) can leave without a hassle.

2. The souls of the kids, the youth and Flavio.

3. The team would truly apply the lessons learned here to our everyday lives when we return home and not fall back into complacency.

4. Iglesia Naucalpan y Remanente and the seminary... Rosie, Ellen, Luis and Robin Contreras and Josiah and Crystal Grauman.

Solo por Su gracia,
Grace and Vanessa