August 2002

Dear Friends,

It’s not that I’ve ever been ungrateful for clean water, it’s just that I did not know how grateful I needed to be for having it available to me in abundance anytime I wanted it or needed it. Not too long ago, a woman and her 3-year old grandson were leaving the Puentes de Cristo mission site in the Lucio Blanco neighborhood. She had filled her two five-gallon garafones with purified water from the water purification system located there. So, with her two big garafones of water and her little grandson all loaded in her wheelbarrow, she began to make her way home. Since there had been several days of heavy rain falling in Lucio Blanco, the dirt roads were very nearly impassable, either in a vehicle or on foot. After she took a few steps into the mud at the gates of the mission site, she slipped and fell. Her wheelbarrow tipped over. Her grandson and both garafones of water were ejected into the mud (which, by the way, had the distinct smell of a sewer). The top came off one of the garafones, water spilled out, and the grandson began to cry, unhurt, but scared at having being thrown out of the wheelbarrow and getting coated in stinky mud. The woman immediately retrieved the little boy from the mud and used an outdoor spigot to wash the gooey brown mud off both of them. Those of us who were trying to help got the wheelbarrow picked up and washed out, refilled the garafon that had come open, and washed off the other one. She then decided to carry her little grandson and the water home in two trips, so as to have a lighter and more manageable load. While the little grandson waited with friends so he could go on the second trip, she began again her journey home, wearing no shoes, pushing her wheelbarrow with one garafon through mud that came up almost to her knees, and was getting the hem of her dress dirty. I remember thinking that I had never gone to that much trouble to have clean water. Thanks be to God for the generosity of the Presbyterians in the Synod of Living Waters (Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi) who, through the Living Waters for the World committee, provide water purification systems in Reynosa and several other places in the world. Because of these simple and efficient systems, God’s people in these areas who need clean water are able to have it.

Also, through the generosity of many supporters, Puentes offers hundreds of scholarships for school children each year. These scholarships include school fees (the equivalent of $20 to $45). In my role as a long-term volunteer with the Worldwide Ministries Division of the PC(USA), I serve as the mission group coordinator and water project coordinator. Puentes hosts about 25 mission groups each year—groups of Christians (mostly Presbyterians) who travel to the Mexico/U.S. border to work among God’s people by constructing buildings, providing medical care, and leading vacation Bible schools in the local churches. Thanks be to God and many faithful followers for serving God’s people in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, in these significant ways.

Since I am a volunteer, I receive a stipend to cover living expenses. I would like to sincerely thank my home church, Westminster Presbyterian, in Montgomery, Alabama, and the Independent Presbyterian Church Foundation of Birmingham, Alabama, for their financial support which provides my stipend.

What I have learned while living and serving in Mexico:

• I’m not really hot until my eyelids are sweating.
• Our Mexican sisters and brothers are among the most generous, kind, helpful, and loving people on earth.
• Fried cow’s heart tastes as bad as I thought it would.
• Dogs are able to remain alive and suffer with disease long after most of their hair is gone.

Beth Peak

The 2002 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 250