August 16, 2007

Greetings from Mexico:

We arrived in Merida in mid-June after a wonderful eleven months in Dallas. David did wonderfully in English-speaking high school, although every day was a contest between homework and X-box! Kristen was able to finish an English course and was admitted into pre-nursing at Brookhaven College, and she is very content there. Martha was busy hosting our many guests but found time to take several quilting courses and ring with a hand-bell choir at Highland Park Presbyterian, our gracious hosts for the year. I was able to attend three conferences of interest to me. Two were with Presbyterian Benedictines learning about mission orders and living in community. The third was a “Wee Kirk” conference in Denver. If you have never participated in one of these workshop-conferences I very much recommend them. They are held all over the country, so I am sure you can find one near your home. Look up dates and places on the Presbyterians for Renewal Web site.

As I traveled and visited with the different churches, I was struck anew by what seems to be a total disinterest in supporting Presbyterian and Reformed churches around the world. Many mission committees send support and short-term work teams to all kinds of mission agencies or programs that are task-oriented and only indirectly support the work of local churches. Clearly, no one is going to teach Reformed theology except seminaries and churches of the Reformed tradition. In non-Reformed agencies, doctrine is usually dropped to a minimum because their interest is to fulfill a need. If I may, I encourage Presbyterians to try to serve through Reformed agencies around the world because of the unique understanding we have of the gospel is being overwhelmed by the many no-doctrine churches, and this leads to great confusion or chaos among the believers.

Since we returned Merida we have been living at the Gethsemane Retreat Center in Chablekal. This summer we hosted three American mission teams, and six different Mexican churches have stayed from a couple of days to a week. We try to greet and care for each visitor as though it was our Lord who had returned from a long journey. Pray that we can find a house before September, as we would like to have some stability for David as he goes to the eleventh grade.

I was called as stated supply for the Door of Salvation church, a church Martha and I started 16 years ago. The church has had several Mexican pastors since then, but they asked us back so we are happy. I explained my conditions for returning would be that the whole church make an in-depth study of the liturgy and the diaconate, and we would have the Lord’s Supper every Sunday. These three things were welcomed and we will work on liturgy until Christmas and then start studies on the diaconate. My reasoning for connecting these two is that Christian worship should lead us into service, and the enormous problems around us impel us to return to the liturgy for renewal and guidance.

We covet your prayers for a house, for Kristen in Dallas, for Valerie beginning a master’s degree in Latin American literature in Lubbock, Texas, for Martha: her leadership in the hand-bell choir, family therapy, editing my Spanish publications, and homemaking. Pray for me as I try to share the importance of find a place for monastic life within the Reformed tradition and for restoration-renewal of Reformed liturgics, for my teaching at the San Pablo Seminary (they are always short of staff and resources), and for the Berea Bible Institute in Palenque (for indigenous Ch’ol speaking people). One last prayer is for a scholarship of 150 dollars a month for two years for Basilia Diaz Mendez. She is 19-year-old ch’ol woman who would like to study for a two-year college degree in computer science.

Our email has changed so please note: donaldwehmeyer@hotmail.com; We are not able to check at the Internet café every day, but we try to do so at least twice a week.

May the Lord bless you and keep you, may His face shine upon you and give you peace.

Don and Martha Wehmeyer
Merida, Yucatán

The 2007 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 66