July 2006
Merida, Yucatan

Dear Friends in Christ,

May the grace, peace and love of our Lord Jesus be with you!

We depart from Mexico for Dallas on Sunday, July 9. From Dallas we will be visiting churches during the next year on our home assignment. Please let us hear from you about dates so that we can visit your church! These past few months have been extremely busy completing both family and church related things.

At the seminary I finished my classes and participated in the yearly graduation ceremonies. This year nine students completed their studies. This is down from previous years when we often had classes twice that size but enrolment has fallen in all the seminaries in Mexico. Pray that the Lord calls more workers to the harvest. I also wrote a number of small educational tracts including “The Apostolic Blessing,” “Symbols in the Presbyterian Church,” and “Liturgical Vestments in the Presbytery Church,”—and this was because someone translated my newsletters to the United States and interpreted them as being proof I was an “agent” of the Roman Catholic Church! What in fact I have been doing is teaching about contemplative communities and liturgies. This is part of an effort to deepen spirituality and provide a counterweight to the increasing influence of non-reformed theology infiltrating the local churches. Please pray that this misunderstanding does not persist but at the same time give thanks that many pastors have encouraged me to continue. I was also able to teach with a Chól-speaking presbytery in Chiapas and just two days ago took 200 cashew seedlings to Colon, Chiapas. Our hope is that this will be the start of a small enterprise to help the Tzeltal-speaking villages there. Also in regards to Chiapas, one of my goals while in the United States will be to seek support to establish a retreat facility-model farm project. We hosted a wonderful team from Kannapolis, North Carolina. They worked very hard in hot, hot weather to put a roof on the new dining hall at the Getsemani retreat center.

Family matters have been organized around graduations and dentist appointments. Because dental care is excellent here and we don’t have insurance in the United States we all are having work done. Valerie was head of the list with four wisdom teeth taken out. She looked like a Chipmunk with lots of seeds in her cheeks for several days. Both David and Kristen graduated, one from middle school, the other from high school. Kristen has always wanted to be a nurse but she did not make the ACT test scores to go her college choice in the U.S. She did make the entrance test to the University of Yucatan because that test was in Spanish. So she has decided to try a semester at a community college in Dallas and see if she can improve her English enough to study in the United States. If not she has a place waiting for her in Mérida. Valerie will be a senior at university and is starting to worry about getting a job afterwards. If you have any ideas for a double major, philosophy and French, please let us know. David is anxious to go to 10th grade in Dallas.

Our address and telephone number are below. Our email addresses will stay the same for the time being.
3829 McFarlin Blvd.
Highland Park, TX 75205
Telephone: (214) 521-1460

We live in Him, for Him, through Him.

Don, Martha, Valerie, and Kristen Wehmeyer

The 2006 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 67