RachelsAdventure.com

I just went to the Congreso Juvenil Cristiano (basically Mexico’s equivalent of a CIY conference) and it was a lot of fun.  I started the weekend with prayer.  I anticipated that it was going to be one of those weekends that I survived not one of those weekends that I was going to enjoy.  I was wrong.

Normally youth events are my favorite.  I love large groups of high school kids…it’s where I can “get my joke on” and have a good time…but this was a different story.  Add a language barrier and suddenly, something that would have invigorated me actually terrifies me.  I am not one to shy away from any social setting but I’ve seen this whole new (previously unknown) side of myself now that I live in a Spanish-speaking country.  It’s so different when you can’t communicate (wow, I have so much more sympathy for minorities and English learners in the US…this is hard stuff).  So, I’ve developed this (very accurate!) scale for embarrassing language situations ranging from
1= “piece of cake, I'm practically fluent” to
10=“I wish I had a shirt that matched the wallpaper so that no one would notice that I’m here.”

1-      Pets/Plants
2-      Small Children
3-      Taxi/Bus Drivers
4-      One Teen
5-      Adults
8-      Men with guns
11-    A group of teens

As you can see, the Congreso put me right at the upper end of my scale…and I was feeling it.  I wanted to hide in my room most of the time (wow, who is this Rachel?!) because not only could I not communicate…I was also one of the very few gringos in this whole place and I stuck out like sore thumb.  I got in trouble the first night for skipping my discussion group time (long story short and all excuses aside…I think I’ve explained before that when you are unmarried in Mexico you are considered a youth (even if you are older) so I went as a youth worker but ended up being registered as a youth…let’s just say that churches in Mexico are a very humbling place for a girl who’s trying to convince herself that she’s a fully functional and complete adult without a husband because they keep throwing me in classes with 12 year olds!!!)

I didn’t want to just survive the weekend and I knew that hiding in my room the whole time was stupid… so, I kept praying.  We were divided into color groups and I really wanted a buddy in my color group so that someone could help me understand what was going on.  I could catch most of the dialogue, but suddenly with 20 teens talking at once I missed a lot (oh, did I mention that we had to perform a skit in front of everyone and write and perform a song with all group members participating…see the chart above for my feelings about this)…and wouldn’t you know it, God provided a buddy for me.  I quickly became the group novelty (again, I was the only gringo) and they asked me to “preach” in our skit.  Fantastic.  Can we heap on any additional embarrassment!?  Haha.

The topic of the weekend was the Holy Spirit and the theme was "Muevete" and it all really hit home.  God gave me the opportunity to come down here and serve...that doesn't mean it's supernaturally easy.  Sometimes it's hard and all I want to do is hide in my room.  It's in those moments that (most of the time) I choose to pray and push forward.  Through it all I met some really great people from Pachuca (we have a church plant there) and I hope to get up to visit them in January or February and I even had fun. 

To top it all off, we finished the weekend with commitments and baptisms…the first ones I’ve seen since I got here.  There is nothing like watching someone get baptized…it brings me to tears every time.  A couple of the kids in our group rededicated their lives and it seemed like they had a great time.

Here's a picture from one of the baptisms.  This guy was in my small group (you know, the one I skipped the first night) and it was really cool to watch.  (okay...upload trouble tonight...picture coming later!)