MEXICO CITY

By Jeanie DeBeer

A short summary from Jeanie...

Mexico City has been a sensory blast since arriving the very first day! It’s bustling with activity, colors, music, art and food all day round. The history is extremely rich, filled with tragedy & victory. The Mexicans are currently celebrating 100 years since the revolution and 200 years since the independence from Spain. The word among the locals is that something big will happen this year. Of course we know that God has an amazing plan for this city and since day one I’ve seen and felt God’s presence in the city.

Our daily routine usually differs, but here’s a short summary of what our lives has been looking like since arriving.

Week 1 was pretty much spent reading the bible out loud, doing public proclamation and prayer walking. We mapped the centre of the city and pinpointed where the strongholds originated. Since then we’ve been going out on evangelism, teaching in churches, taking the local church into the most dangerous parts of the city to evangelize, uniting the churches in the city, seeing many people come to Jesus, witnessing healings & miracles and caring for the poor in the city. It has been AMAZING.

I would love to tell you one story in particular. The indigenous people of Mexico are the Aztecs and they perform rituals and dances to their gods in front of the cathedral in the Zocolo (centre of the city). The very spot where they worship is right where their temple was built before the Spanish build their cathedral.
The Aztecs sacrificed thousands and thousands of their own people to the gods and copious amounts of blood was spilled on that very spot. The first day we went to the Zocolo, I sat on one of the benches and started praying very quietly for them while they were dancing. The next minute the chief came up to me, very angry and started to threaten me. He said that my praying interfered with their worship. One of the guys from my team stepped in and assured him that we were not here to harm them in any way and that we have as much of a right to be there as them. God spoke to me in that moment and pointed out one of the warriors and told me to make friends with them.

Two weeks later we were worshiping and doing evangelism on the same spot, and again the chief got extremely upset. After a long quarrel with them and the police it was decided that we can stay. Needless to say, the chief wasn't happy at all. Half an hour later I felt that this was the moment to befriend the warrior that God had pointed out.

I went up to him and started talking in VERY broken Spanish, basically saying that I come in peace (don't laugh) and that I want to befriend him. He accepted my offer of friendship and also agreed to let me teach him English from the BIBLE! The next day we started our teaching sessions and he read the bible out loud in front of his peers. I gave him his own bible and saw how he hid it from the others. We will continue to meet for English/Spanish lessons for the remainder of the time here. God is incredible and has such a humorous way of turning situations around when you allow him to be God.