Confradia

Tuesday we drove to Confradia where we stayed the night at a missionary base at the bottom of the mountain - flipping bugs, crawling over me while I (tried to) sleep with sooooo many bites, what a bad night of not much sleep. Wednesday was a 7 hour drive through the mountains for our first mountain outreach to the Cora people, the last indigenous people who were conquered by the Spanish. They're descendants of the Aztec people. They live high up in the mountains as that's where they fled to escape the Spanish in the 15th century. They speak Cora and live with their own traditions, only a few of the men speak Spanish. We stayed with a local man, Magdalena, and his family. They were so welcoming and kind to us. We slept in kindof stable like rooms which was cool. We enjoyed some local food - fajitas with the saltiest cheese I've ever had (like a mixture between feta and parmesan), beans, lemon grass tea, cheese soup. Pretty good.

Christian, Maria and Tanya making tortillas under supervision...

We went up with a group of Mexican men from a local church we're connected with. They were hilarious, seriously great senses of humour.. I met my very first Mexican ex-drug dealer Aurelio, who was part of the Mexican team of guys. He used to be a drug dealer in the US before he was saved and became a Christian. It was while he was in prison (for selling drugs) in the US that he became a Christian. He wants to go back to the US to share about Jesus in prisons but he has a 20 year probation until he can go back to the US. Anyway, he has had a CD made of him singing worship songs - after our devotions at the waterfall on Thursday he sang one of his songs for us, which was great but so funny - before we knew it he'd whipped out his suit and sombrero and there he was, performing for us on top of the mountain at 5000ft. So entertaining.

Thursday we had a beautiful time of devotions at a waterfall before our group split with some going to minister among the local houses, and the rest of us going on an insane hike down a canyon to swim in a river.

Ministering among the houses involved praying for people, telling them about Jesus and inviting them to come watch the Jesus film that night. Only  we would go for a 3 hour hike over midday in Mexico. Flipping hot with a spot of dehydration for some of the team... It was so beautiful though, totally worth it, and great to do some exercise (we don't do a lot of exercise driving so much), although I was stiff for 2 days!! In the evening we tried showing the Jesus film in Cora to the locals but the DVD really wouldn't play so eventually we had our Mexican friend Aurelio sing which was hilarious and then we prayed for people. That was awesome, I prayed a blessing over a family and they gave me a cucumber to say thank you. Totally organic and grown by them. It totally touched me heart. Many people came to the Lord this evening. Beautiful.

Cora ladies in traditional dress

Friday we drove back to Confradia where we stayed another night at the missionary base. A highlight was showering (we didn't shower up the mountain), a definite lowlight was the intense humidity, to the point that showering made no difference, I was as sticky when I came out the shower as when I went in. Gross. And still more bugs and bites and another poor nights sleep. Needless to say I was pretty happy about getting in the car on Saturday even if we had an 8 hour drive ahead of us as we have AC in the car :)