Mexican Missiology II: The Rise and Fall of the Good Old Days

(Once again, Facebook has messed up my post.  Please see the original version http://americanchilango.blogspot.com/2010/04/mexican-missiology-ii-rise-and-fall-of.html)

In the summer of 1997 we moved to the north outskirts of the city and just so happened to plop right into the neighborhood where the Burkholder missionary family also lived.  This was the beginning of what I have creatively labeled "The Good Old Days" of my life as a missionary kid.  I have countless fond memories as a missionary kid, but these were "The Good Old Days".  The Burkholders had three children and Jared was a boy my age.  I believe I was ten and Jared was eleven when we began our mischievious friendship that lead to countless escapades that tottered on the edge of getting us in serious trouble.  But it's not the mischief that causes me to call those times "The Good Old Days".  Rather it's the network of friendships with missionaries in the city that rapidly accumulated after we met the Burkholders. 

It happened that the Burkholder kids attended a school for missionary kids, located in the neighborhood on the other side of the main road.  Although my parents never trusted the school enough to let me attend it, we did get accuanted enough with the teachers and families for them to allow me to attend some classes and some activities and make a slew of American friends.  During these years, a new missionary family, the Gigers, from our same mission board arrived in the south side of Mexico City.  They had kids my age too that I got quite close to during our missions conferences and visits to the south side.  Then a missionary family, the Ellisons, with 6 kids and counting moved in about five minutes walk from our house.  Nathan Ellison was my age and became another very close missionary friend.  So in a period of about two years, I had made a ton of close missionary friends.  This accumulation of new friendships also marks the time when I was able to witness some of our parents work together as teams.

In 1999, Bruce Burkholder and my dad worked together to organize and teach a Bible seminary to better prepare Mexicans for ministry.  About that same time, the Ellisons decided to join my parents in their service to Maranatha, despite a few theological differences between us.  A while later, my Uncle Jim and his family arrived in Mexico to join us in both the seminary and Maranatha.  At that time my dad became convinced that Maranatha was ready to have its own national pastor and Rene Baez, who was studying in a seminary in the US, would soon be prepared enough to be that pastor.  When we got back from a year of furlough, the Bailes, Metze, and Hyde families also joined the teaching team at the seminary.  Ministry was booming, the future was full of possibilities, and I had tons of American friends in Mexico.  Little did I know that much of this was about to come to a grinding halt.

The Gigers only lasted less than a couple years and before family problems drove them back to the States.  The Bailes didn't last much longer.  Some friends from the missionary school also left the Mexico scene and then the entire school moved.  I think the Ellisons were expecting child number 10 or 11 or probably 8 when they decided that we were too non-conservative for them and left Maranatha and eventually Mexico.  When Rene Baez became the pastor of Maranatha we too left all our friends at Maranatha to plant our own church with Uncle Jim and fam.  We soon found that we had too many differences with Uncle Jim to work together on a church plant.  Here, my dad and Bruce were trying to better prepare the Mexicans for ministry when so many of the new missionaries weren't even surviving missions in Mexico. 

There was a number of other sad occurences as well, but the most heart breaking for my family was when Bruce developed heart problems and was forced to return to the States with his family.  Six years after I had met Jared, our mischievious friendship had changed.  We were no longer encouraging each other to get into trouble but instead encouraging each other to glorify God with our lives.  To this day, the Burkholders are beloved friends of the family and saying goodbye to them seemed like the end of "The Good Old Days".

Ministry happens to get people extra involved in people problems. I've been able to observe the aftermath of all those "goodbyes" and they seem to have intensified a lot of people problems in the Kingdom of God.  Churches planted by the departed missionaries have often divided and struggled to survive.  National church leaders have tendencies to abuse authority and for that very reason, my dad had doubts that the seminary would survive.  In my time here in Mexico, my dad and the two missionaries still helping with the seminary have run into some conflicts and seemed to be one meeting away from dropping out.  Dad said to me, "It can get so overwhelming.  Sometimes it seems like God is pushing missionaries out of Mexico.  Maybe Mexico's age of Baptist missionaries is over."  Could God be shutting down the missions to Mexico machine?  It's hard to say since, against all odds, my parents are still going strong.

As a kid, Dad would say that he was willing to be a missionary anywhere except China and Mexico City.  He hated the city.  Somehow my parents ended up visiting a friend in the city and committing their lives to spreading the Good News there.  Our first years as missionaries nearly sent us home because of my mom's medical complications.  Then just when Dad was about to decide to leave Mexico, Mom got better.  Who knew that after all the comings and goings, my parents would be the ones to hold down the Mexico City fort?  God did.  And so far it seems God wants them to stay.  Despite all the problems that seem to be weighing down other churches, the new church plant of my parents is exploding.  Since my visit, the average attendance has shot from 80 to 100 people.  In that ministry, there seems to be less indication than ever that my parents should leave Mexico City.  They are finding needs and meeting them, doing their best to reveal God's goodness.  Even my dad's patience in the seminary seems to be paying off.  We were expecting Dad to come home from a meeting with the news that he would not be teaching in the seminary any more.  Instead he returned to announce that problems were being solved.

The good old days may be over but that doesn't mean that God doesn't have a future and a hope for Mexico.  Looking to Him is best.  Good old days are dangerous if they make us look back longer than we look up.  If it takes leaving the good old days in the dust, bringing tears and confusion to our lives today... if that's what it takes to get us to look up... may it be.