Today we will receive an RUF group from the University of South Florida, which will spend its spring break this year learning and serving with us at the UNAM. Please pray for campus minister Paul Joiner, who has been under the weather and who gets migraines fairly easily at these altitudes. Pray also for the six students coming with him as they travel here today and participate in our activities.
Apparently, the only used cars that can now be imported to Mexico are from 1998! Nothing older, nothing newer. Period.
Cars newer than that were banned from imports as unwelcome competition for Mexican car dealers, and anything more than 15 years old was seen as a potential environmental and safety hazard.
But now, under pressure from Mexico’s new car dealers who say “vehiculos chatarra,” or jalopies, undercut their sales, the Mexican government is allowing only 10-year-old used cars to be legally imported into Mexico.
In my case, as a “temporal importer” (meaning my car has US plates and will go back across the border), I’m OK. But if I ever want to make the car a Mexican car, it will have to be next year, when my shiny new (to me) 1999 Camry (”El Cid”) will be in the 10 year magic window.
Yesterday was a big day for RUF here as we moved our main study from its normal location in the center of “the islands” (the massive central quad of the UNAM) to the Baptist Student Center located just a few feet outside of the campus wall. We also changed from a small group, sit in a circle and discuss dynamic to a larger group dynamic, with people facing the same direction, some music, and more of a sermon than a discussion. We had pretty good turnout in spite of the fact that not everybody knew how to get there, and are looking forward to enjoying the indoor location and the new dynamic. Please pray that this move will be timely and that our group will continue to be knit together by the gospel.
This week we are also making the jump toward student led small groups in the schools of Engineering, Sciences, Administration, and Philosophy and Letters, and with another possible study among graduate students. The groups will for the most part be studying Mark, and so far information meeting response has been good and the small group leaders are excited about their groups. Please pray for many interested students to come to informational meetings in the faculties today (most of the info meetings are this afternoon), and for the studies this semester to be a great way to reach many students for Christ and to equip our student leaders and RUF students to serve.
Remember that among the 178,000 students in University City, just a few of them, definitely under 100, are connected to a Christian group on campus. Pray that many that have never heard the gospel will come into contact with it, and pray that many closet Christians on campus would plug into a group and grow in their identity in Christ.
Today I took a quick ride around campus on my mountain bike, and spent some time in the architecture cafeteria thinking and praying about the semester. On my way out, I was handed this flyer, and I knew I was back on campus.
It says “Latino, this 2008 don’t buy anything from the USA. No more Mexicans and Latinos dead on the border at the hands of gringo immigration or in the desert! Pass the word! For legal and humane immigration!”
I thought it was ironic that he was handing the leaflet to a gringo. Maybe he did it on purpose. Whatever the case, I’m for legal and humane immigration as well, although we may have different ideas of what that means, and I suspect at least some of the companies that he suggests we boycott may be lobbying for the same thing, as long as it means a continuing supply of cheap labor.
After a leisurely breakfast in Monterrey (since we needed to get back late into Mexico City in order to drive legally), we made the drive to San Juan del Rio, where we met Ruth’s parents for dinner, and then drove with them into the DF. It was great to have their help, since we were able to put my bike in the back of their car - the bike (plus Texas plates) could prove a tantalizing sight for Mexico City and Mexico State policemen (and not for being illegal). So we made it in late, unloaded literally several hundred pounds of things from the trunk, and packed it in.
Yesterday we had our kickoff event, today a staff meeting, and on Tuesday we will have our first Bible study of the semester. Please pray for our students and our group as the ministry gets underway this semester!
We’re in Monterrey today, in the shadow of the great mountain that gives this city its name, and just a few blocks away from Mexico’s premier private school, the Tec de Monterrey.
Yesterday we ran as many errands as possible in San Antonio before heading south, and then after a little bit of fun at the border with customs inspections and car stickers, we finally made it across and streaked south on the toll road, where it was just us, a dotted line of trucks, and a smooth, mostly even surface. I can’t say that paying a 17 USD toll made my heart leap with joy (Mexico has some of the most expensive toll roads in the world), but I was happy not to be on the “libre”, where life can be more dangerous and the centimeter clearance that the frame of the car has over the wheels might not have held though the surface changes.
Now it is off to breakfast and then toward the Federal District, where we will hover on the outskirts of the city until my excellent “new to me” car can circulate legally, since Thursday it is supposed to rest.
We made it into the travel section! “Heads up: Mexico City; A Campus Serves as a Needed Oasis in a Crowded City”
Well, we have crossed the 2500 mile marker on our trip to Dallas and back. It has been a good trip, and we’ll have to post some pictures of long stretches of Mexico highway, sometimes cutting through strange cactus forests, at other times rumbling through mountains, and every once and awhile girded by sweeping double rainbows hanging in the mist. We probably don’t need to post pictures of the smooth roads of Texas, cutting through clusters of strip malls and outlet stores between well-ordered cities, always across the expansive flatness of the lone star state. Last weekend we were at Park Cities PCA’s missions conference, where we hung out with many members and with many missionaries. It was a good time for all of us. And now, one sermon and the long road home. Many thanks to all who have received us in Mexico and in the US!
Tomorrow Ruth and I will leave our pleasant lake top valley for the cold north of southern Texas. We’ll be visiting some of our supporting churches and hopefully some of you!
Every morning or so Newton (our 4 year old) hops on my lap and we snuggle while singing a local, family diddy about snuggling. This morning he let me in on his Christmas Philosophy. He told me all the things he wanted: a four-wheeler, a skateboard, legos, and more. Then, he told me how he was going to get it. “Aunts, uncles, cousins, you and Mommy, you can all get it for me.” I pictured this family gathering with the sole intent on planning how we as a family can muster all our resources and give him all the gifts he wanted. Newton isn’t far from the truth of what we have now in Christ and what we will be and have with Christ. Ephesians 1 explodes our limited view of God’s grace by showing all that we have in Christ - a spiritual inheritance loaded with words like “lavish, exceeding, riches…” And, that is just the present.
I have become a big fan of the Avett Brothers. In one of their songs they sing of a lover trying to win back his beloved. Toward the end of the song you hear the beloved echo her willingess to return (it’s a little garbled, but I think that’s what it’s saying). Then, the lover returns with, “If it’s the beaches, the beaches’ sands you want, then you will have them. If it’s the mountains’ bending rivers, you will have them.” I pause everytime I hear this and think of the great promise of our Lover that we are not only an inheritance to be gifted to the Father, but the promise of an inheritance Jesus is preparing for us now. Not only do we get spiritual realities we can’t comprehend, forgiveness, righteousness, communion with God, but it will all play out in a big, fat, beautiful, new earth. I’ve always thought of us “going up to heaven” but when Jesus returns He promises to bring Heaven to Earth and redeem all that exists between those poles. Does Newton like Skateboards? Whose to say he won’t have one? Do I like bending rivers? He will grant them. Much to ponder and (like the Earth itself in Rom. 
much for which to groan.
Fritz is the RUF Campus Minister at Western Kentucky University.