MOVIE NIGHT

Our set up for movie night

Movie night started a little slow, on our way out of the hacienda, we met one of the girls who would be attending. She was just getting off work. We offered her a ride, but she had a bike; nevertheless, she said, her co-worker, whom we did not know, could use a ride. So, we gave her a ride. It turns out that she is the sister of one of our best friends in town. Now we have a new friend in town.  On our way from her house we stopped at the local "pulpería" (think 7-11) to get ice. We had to go to church first and load all the church chairs into our SUV, which we were able to do in only one trip. Then we went to our friend's house where the meeting was going to take place. As you can see from the picture, we used their porch. We like it better there than inside Christ for the City's house because it is too hot. You can see the church chairs, the projector, DVD player, and one speaker on top of the table. The rest of the speakers are under the table. You can see them if you look carefully. We were ready to go at about 6:00 pm, but nobody was there. I took this picture just before 6:00. The sun was setting behind the screen.

John went to get the hamburgers that we had ordered from one of the local restaurants. They came in individual foam containers with fries. The problem was that nobody had arrived. By the time we ate the burgers, they were cold. Slowly people started coming. I guess 6:00 was too early for them. Even though it was Saturday, many of them were working. Their habit is to get home from work and take a shower before dinner. We ended up with seven couples out of the twelve we were expecting; therefore, there were enough hamburgers for seconds and thirds. We also had a game. I thought it would be fun to hear how they proposed marriage. We separated the men and the women, and the men were to write how, when and where they proposed. Wow! It was quite enlightening for us! It turns out that most of them are not even married, so we had to switch to how they got together. One cute couple said that they got engaged in bed! We had three stories that matched and gave them prizes. It was very interesting for us. Although that wasn't our intention, we learned a lot from the game.

The movie's title was "Scars." It is a Mexican production about domestic violence. It is very strong and has a powerful message. I wanted to talk a little and present the plan of salvation after the movie, but as soon as it was over, people started to get up and move about.So, we just talked a little about the movie. They were impacted on how even verbal violence affects the children in the families. Most of them have lived with, or witnessed domestic violence. We decided to meet at seven next Saturday. I am going to try to lift some scenes from the movie for discussion. We are going to continue talking about conflict resolution.

Yesterday we visited one of the couples (the ones who got engaged in bed) who live with his parents. They want to borrow the movie to show it to his parents. I can only guess that there is violence in the house. She told us that her father was a policeman who used to get drunk and even threatened her mom with his gun once. Her parents are divorced now. We will give it to them after we are done with it. Pray that the movie will continue to impact lives as they show it to relatives. Pray also that this couple will come to a saving knowledge of Jesus.

We went to church last night. There were five people in attendance. We are very disappointed with this little group. Our plan is to work with the couples and try to build a new group, but we hear that the Christians have a bad testimony in town, so we are not sure what it is going to happen. People may not want to attend church because of all the stuff that has been going on. It is a tiny town with a lot of gossiping. The other group in the other town is going strong. Yesterday they had soccer matches during the day, then a Christian music group was going to have a concert. Pastor Alejandro was going to bring a message at about 8:00. John was going to preach at our church, but the pastor decided to postpone it for next Sunday when he can bring a group from the other town.


On the lighter note, for those of you who are acquainted with the German Bakery, they now have mango strudel! That's being international!! I was thinking about you, Rubia!

Until next time...from the beach...!