November 25, 2009

Feliz Navidad 2008

He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
- Luke 1:32

Dear Friends,

Merry Christmas greetings from the Wehmeyer family in Mexico!

Our prayer is that this year’s celebration of the birth of our Lord will bring many wonderful meditations to your heart. I always find the fact that God became a human being both beyond comprehension and at the same time perfectly reasonable. There is simply no better way for God to prove His love than to walk among us in person!

Don and Martha Wehmeyer and their children, David, Kristen, and Valerie.

As I turn the pages of my calendar, some of the highlights of this past year for our family have been: Martha finished her master’s in family therapy; Kristen was admitted into the R.N. program in Dallas after two years of pre-nursing courses; David got a 23 on his ACT and has applied to go to college; and Valerie lived 10 weeks in France with an religious order of sisters from the French Reformed Church. We received eight mission teams, including two Intervarsity teams from Lubbock and Houston. The Door of Salvation Presbyterian Church, where we are also serving, added eight new members, and we currently have six more in the new members class. We hosted the General Assembly of the National Presbyterian Church, taking care of 450 people for 9 days in July. During the year I made trips to Chile, Belize, and Atlanta. Then, last week Martha and I traveled to Managua for a retreat of all PC(USA) mission personnel in  Central America and Mexico. That was the first time in about six years that we have met our colleagues in the region. Please keep this area in your prayers as there are still tens of millions of people who do not know the love of the Lord Christ for them. This is particularly sad during Christmas when the gift of new life is so clear in the hearts of believers and so absent in those who have never heard the good news. One thing that did not happen—although it had my full support—was an increase in the number of newsletters we send out! I will try my best to do more in 2009.

It has been a few years since I have shared the story of the Mexican piñata, which originally was a Christmas event and then gradually became a part of all big celebrations from birthdays to weddings to anniversaries. The colorful piñata was originally shaped as a seven-pointed star. Today you see piñatas of Daffy Duck and Spiderman, but originally the seven-pointed star represented the seven deadly sins. The colorful piñata itself represented the attractiveness of sin. The blindfold meant that a person must fight blindly against sin until there is success, and then the good fruits spill out. Another Mexican custom is the posada, which really means the “inn.” Families or neighbors from one street go to the house of a friend for a Christmas party but before entering they sing a song. Some commentators think this tradition was started by Augustinian monks who wanted to turn an Aztec custom celebrated in December into a Christian celebration. “Las Posadas,” as they are called, are very popular, and some schools “symbolically” lock the kids out until they sing the visitors part of the song while the teachers inside sing the part of the innkeepers.

What do we have planned for the near future? Martha and I are scheduled to teach in Chile in January. We are working with the Presbytery of the Pines and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Chile. I also am determined to send more newsletters, prepare classes for next semester’s seminary, work on writing new courses for a diploma in liturgics, finish a book about recovering the importance of Baptism for our lives, and continue workshops focused on spiritual life at the retreat center in Chablekal.

We covet your prayers and are most grateful for your loving support. Without your help we couldn’t stay in the field. Please don’t hesitate to write, I try to answer all emails within two days.

When our Lord was born the universe changed. God became more than a provider of life and sustenance, God became a companion and living example of love, truth, mercy, and peace. These are Christmas qualities that can shine from us all through the year.

We wish you all a very merry Christmas and joy throughout the year.

Please keep us, all missionaries and the whole family of God, in your prayers.

Don and Martha Wehmeyer
Merida, Yucatan, Mexico

The 2008 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 256