Mountaineers

Sunday, June 10th 2:00 p.m.

We are sitting here in the parking lot at the Soriana Dept. store, and the team from Texas has just arrived. I can´t get over how macho all of these gusy are! They´re just young, but they have that Texas swagger (including the big belt buckles!) to them. Dan´s wife´s name is Kelly, and seems like a very nice lady. We are going to be in charge of the kitchen together. We´ll have to see how cooking for 40 people on an ancient propane stove with no electricity goes!

We went into the Soriana while we were waiting, and on the way in, there was a young woman sitting on the ground with 3 or 4 children aournd her. All of their clothes were dirty, and I could tell that they were quite poor. But the thing that gets to me the most is the look on their faces. It´s something that I find hard to even put into words. It´s the look of survival. The look of hopelessness. I looked right into her eyes and smiled at her, and she just stared back at me. I gave her $40 pesos when I came out again.

Life is hard for the people here in Mexico. It is written on their faces. It makes me love them even more.

I was really excited this morning about the drive up to the mountains, but now I´m feeling a little homesick. I always find the afternoons the hardest, not sure why. The mountains and the countryside are absolutely beautiful, but so different from anything I´m used to at home. It makes me realize how far away I am from anything familiar. It also makes me realize how much I depend on all of the things that are familiar to me to give me a sense of comfort and a sense of who I am.

I can see the mountains looming up in front of us that we are going to cross. Tim says it takes about 6 to 7 hours to get there from his home. This really is an incredible opportunity that very few people get to experience. Tim says that the Huichol Indians are an almost totally unreached group of people. The vast majority of them have never even heard of God or Jesus, or even seen a white man. Tim is hoping to visit a Huichol Village that is about two days away from the camp to see about planting a church there. He said that one time a group of Huichols were walking through the mountains to visit Lorenzo´s church, and there was a little boy with them who did not show up when they arrived at the church. When they went back to look for him, they found that he had died along the trail. They think that he may have had pneumonia or something. How incredibly sad.