Mexico

This past weekend Liz and I were invited to go on ARM's (Arizona Reservation Ministries) staff retreat.

I can't tell you how thrilled I was to be invited. We thought "should we go?" After just a short time we said yes.

We went to "Las Palomas" resort in Puerto Peñasco, it's on the top of the Gulf of California (Gulf of Cortez if you're from Mexico). By the way this picture was taken from our balcony. As you can see it was a beautiful place. It was quiet, it was hot and it was HUMID! My glasses fogged up as soon as I left a room that had air conditioning. I mean humid. You know when you see a movie, that reminds me the guys killed the girls at "Scene-it", anyway, when you see a movie with someone in Mexico and he has that light cotton shirt and it's sweaty and dirty. You know, the guy with the dirty white straw hat. Yeah that guy. That's how humid it was. I was the guy in the white straw hat. (I didn't really have a straw hat I was just painting the picture.)

Well, we got to talk with the staff, pray with and for the staff and we got to hang out with and get to know the staff. It truly was an amazing time.

Not too far away is this neighborhood that reminded me of Llantes in Mexico City. We made a wrong turn and ended up in this little town and it tore at my heart. On one side of the train tracks was your typical Mexican cinder block houses and dirt streets on the other was "Shacks" built out of whatever these people could get their hands on. Off in the distance was the resort area. Here are people living in these shacks and I'm sleeping in a really nice, comfortable and cool place. I didn't feel real good right then. But, God reminded me, just as I learned when I was in Australia, there is poverty everywhere. There are people everywhere that need the love of Jesus. This is why He is sending us to Arizona. That is why He wanted us in Mexico last weekend. He wanted us to relax, unwind and just have some fun. But He also didn't want us to forget that there is work everywhere we go.

My work? In Arizona? Not yet! He has me in Anaheim for a reason. Before I can go to Arizona God will use me here. Before I can go to Arizona I must listen and do what He has me here to do.

I don't understand why God wants to use me, why He speaks to me. I don't understand...But I'm glad he does.

In Him

Robert