July 26, 2004

Greetings from Yucatan!

Dear Friends,

May the grace, peace, and holiness of our Lord Jesus be with you each day.

This summer the Wehmeyer family is all together. Valerie is home from college and has been teaching English. Kristen is babysitting and getting ready for a church summer camp. Hopefully David will go too, but he is reluctant to get very far away from his computer games. He is helping around the house a bit more and had a loud wake-up call at the end of seventh grade because he flunked biology and will have a make-up test in late August. This has meant he has had to study some each day during vacations, not a pleasant exercise for a 13-year-old.

I have had two trips recently. The first trip was to Oaxaca to help with a mission work team from West Lafayete, Indiana. For the last several years, Covenant Presbyterian Church has been going to a remote region in Oaxaca to help the Mixe people. This year they divided in four areas: dentistry, construction, vacation Bible school, and a horse clinic. I translated for the horse clinic (English to Spanish, I can’t speak horse!) and learned a lot about these four-footed friends. It was a lot of fun and very practical for the local men who still use horses for carrying packs, transportation, and a little plowing.

I was pleasantly surprised that liturgics was given some prominence in presentation by the Ministry of Education (the NPCM’s General Assembly is now organized into four national ministries) and because I was elected to be the minister of education for the Presbytery of the Peninsular (a two-year post) I will now be able to pursue this interest as a part of the national program.

Here in Merida construction to expand the Gethsemane Retreat Center is continuing. We are adding nine bedrooms and doubling the garden areas. As usual, costs have been higher than expected, but we are praying that with a little support we will be able to finish as planned in late August. Any churches interested in sending a mission work team to continue helping build Gethsemane or other local ministries, please feel free to contact us. We will be glad to assist in any way possible. Two sisters, Ivonne and Neli, have just returned to us after a year in Whitby, England, where they studied Benedictine life together. They are two of the founding members of the community that is being formed in Gethsemane and which we pray will continue to grow. If you are interested in learning more about Benedictine spirituality or contemplative life please send an email. There are many resources available, and Christians for over 1600 years have found this form of life to be a practical means of deepening their relationship with the wonder of God.

I have already mentioned several prayer requests. Let me close saying many Mexican brothers and sisters are praying for the church in the United States because there seems to be increasing difficulty in choosing between ones personal opinions or accepting the teaching of holy Scripture as the only rule of faith and practice.

We are pleased to be your ambassadors in Mexico for the Kingdom of God.

Don and Martha Wehmeyer

The 2004 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 138