EMMC to Guadalajara: Part One

We arrived this past Monday night at 10 p.m. from a 9 day crusade to Guadalajara, Jalisco and its surrounding areas. Last February I asked Emy and the Marshalls to describe their crusade experience to Acapulco in one word. They came up with quite inspiring and deep words. Well, if I had to describe this crusade in one word it would be: exhausting! I first was disappointed in myself for labeling a crusade with such an "unspiritual" word, but then I remembered that there are passages in the Bible where Jesus himself invited his disciples to come away from the crowd for a time of rest and renewal. We have been enjoying such a time of rest of this week here at home as we get back into our routine. Certainly, crusades always make you appreciate the little things in life: more than one bedroom for 15 people, beds, enough tables and chairs to eat at, warm water in which to bathe, no mosquitoes at Refuge Ranch, etc.

When I began to think about why this crusade was so exhausting I discovered that the main reason is that we have three more children in our family since the last crusade that we did together. Last summer we went to Oaxaca on crusade, but Pati had not yet passed away, so Joce was not a member of our family, and neither Daniel nor Lolis had arrived. The crusade experience can be somewhat tiring in and of itself due to the long work hours, uncomfortable living conditions, unfamiliar surroundings, etc., but doing all of that while caring for twelve children takes crusades to a whole new level of exhausting. I am comforted in the fact that it appears that I was not the only one who found the crusade exhausting! Check this picture out!

Rosa, our cook, catching some shuteye in the most comfortable place available - on top of boxes and bags in the pharmacy area!

We ministered in two very different locations during this crusade and today I will share some highlights with you from the first location where we spent three days working.

This is the church with whose leaders we partnered for the first part of the crusade.


It is located in a HUGE housing development designed to give people the opportunity to become home owners. However, the development reminded me of the housing projects in inner city Chicago, but rather than high-rise buildings, these were sprawling everywhere! There were literally thousands of tiny box houses in row after row after row. The homes consisted of a tiny living room, kitchen and dining room area with one or two bedrooms set behind that and a small bathroom squeezed between the two. For every two or three occupied homes there were several unoccupied homes which local vandals had taken upon themselves to completely destroy - breaking all the windows, removing entire doors from their frames and gutting the homes of the pre-installed sinks and toilet fixtures. Graffiti decorated every available surface in the entire complex; the streets were full of young men with nothing to do; and the air carried the sound waves of loud urban music most of the time.

The church is located in one of these "homes." The living room serves as the sanctuary while the two bedrooms serve as classroom space. Our family also stayed in one of these homes that the owner is currently not using. It was a one bedroom home that was completely empty, so Victor and I and the four smallest children spread out on the floor in the bedroom while the other nine children (Erika was with us also) created what appeared to be a huge patchwork quilt with their sleeping bags on the floor of the kitchen/dining/living room area. We literally were always stepping on somebody or somebody's sleeping bag to get from one place to another!

The living room area where nine of the kids slept the first four nights.

Morning devotions with the crusade team

Each morning the crusade team and our family had devotions outside of the church before eating breakfast and diving into the day's work.

I (Julie) worked with the local children using songs, games, puppets, crafts, music and Bible stories to share the love of Christ with them. Above you can see us playing a parachute game with a beachball and sheet in the street. They loved this game! I held one kids club mid-morning and another one mid-afternoon. Here in Mexico there are not enough public schools for all the children, so school is held in shifts. There is a morning shift and an afternoon shift, so I held two clubs each day in order to reach the kids who weren't in school at that particular time.

The kids really loved the puppet shows as we started out our club time together. It was amazing and encouraging to hear how they interacted with the puppets. Kids' club attendance ranged from about a dozen to over 30 kids. We had a small group of young girls, 9/10 years old, that would hang around at the crusade site literally all day. They were hungry for some love and attention and enjoyed helping me prepare craft items, as well as helping take care of Daniel and Ana.
Angie, like last year in Oaxaca, set up her work area to do fancy hairdos for the girls and give them play crowns as she transformed them into little princesses. She even designed her own evangelistic flier to share with the girls how they could become true princesses of the King of Kings! After the first day, many of the local neighborhood girls wouldn't do their own hair, but would show up at the crusade so that Angie could give them a fancy hairdo!

When things got busy Angie "employed" her helpers, Erika and Lolis, in order to keep up with all the girls wanting their hair done!

One of the reasons that we like to participate once a year in a crusade is that it gives our kids the opportunity to continue to build relationships with other quality Christian adults. Here Fidel and Amado, a paramedic, enjoy breakfast together.

One of the highlights of our first location was Diana's opportunity to work as an assistant to the gynecologist, Dr. Nelly. She loved it! Diana has always been interested in studying to be a veterinarian, but this experience opened her eyes to other possibilities, like gynecology. This is another reason why we like our family to participate once a year in a crusade is because it opens the kids' eyes to different career and ministry opportunities and is an incredible way for them to witness how people can use their careers to serve the Lord! It also gives them opportunities to continue discovering their own talents, gifts, abilities, likes and dislikes. It was fun because several times throughout the day Diana would come up to me and say: "I am learning so much!"

While Diana enjoyed working with the gynecologist, one of Josiah's favorite jobs was working with the optometrist.


Since Diana was working with the gynecologist and Josiah was working with optometrist, Ruth decided to try her hand at medicine and "assisted" Dr. Eli, a general physician. If you asked four year old Ruth what she was doing she would say: "Helping the doctor." This was serious business! In fact, when I went to take this picture she was looking around, slightly distracted, but as soon as she saw me with the camera in hand, she quickly "went back to work" and paid attention to what Dr. Eli was doing!

Not to be left far behind, two year old Daniel did his part to help out by setting up chairs for kids' club. He actually tried to carry this chair on his own, but one of the neighborhood boys quickly jumped in to help!


The highlight at both locations was the last day of kids' club when several of our kids and other crusade staff dressed up as clowns to entertain the kids and share the Gospel with them. Erika (Magda's daughter), Lolis, Josiah, Caleb, Ruth, Ana, Mia (another volunteer's daughter), and Vero, Adrian and Amado (crusade volunteers) did an incredible job leading songs, several hilarious skits and a very impacting evangelistic skit about a broken heart. Erika and Josiah, especially, are naturals at clowning!

Thanks for "listening" to my stories and I look forward to sharing with you about our second half of the week!