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Five-Year NQR-WWVP Milestone

     The church-planting partnership between Whitewater Valley Presbytery and the Mexican presbytery of Northern Quintana Roo (NQR) is reaching the five year milestone in 2006. To see the growth in the partnership, one could look at charts showing the annual increase of people traveling on the VBS Blitz or the impressive number of children and adults treated during dental mission trips; one could show a list of the twelve churches planted with our assistance and support (two more than initially anticipated); one could even look at the bottom line and sense the generosity of our churches by counting the thousands of dollars donated for this mission so far.

     But that’s only part of the picture.

     To perceive just how deep an impact this partnership has had on our presbyteries, no chart or spreadsheet can do it justice. Stories paint a fuller picture:

• There’s the story of the little boy who came to a VBS offered at one of our partner churches in NQR. He wasn’t a church member, and he came without his parents. He was curious about the visiting Americans and all the activity at the church. The little boy came faithfully all five nights, engaged in the learning, enjoying the crafts and games. And when the Indiana Presbyterians went home, the little boy kept coming to church, asking the church planter when those nice people were coming back to teach him and play with him. There’s the story of the bilingual teenager from our presbytery who chose to spend a week in NQR rather than go with his family and friends to Disneyworld. Each Christmas, this teen and his siblings get to make three requests for presents from their parents. They choose two, and then they have their parents set aside the money for their third wishes to help the NQR church where they have gone in previous summers.

• There’s the story of the women in an NQR church who cooked for a construction team from Whitewater Valley hard at work undoing hurricane Wilma’s destruction. The women joyfully cooked for the team, but out of a deep concern for the health of their guests, the women bought the best produce they could find and fervently prayed over the food cooking in those pots and pans, so that their American guests would not get sick. Their loving prayers worked: no one got sick.
• There’s the story of the NQR bilingual young adult leaders who came from Mexico to teach at a VBS at John Knox church in Indianapolis. Though the event was initially planned as a community outreach in Spanish, the versatile Mexican teachers adapted the curriculum and their lessons so that the children (Spanish speakers, English speakers and bilingual kids) felt equally welcomed in the Lord’s house.
   

    Members from both presbyteries shared these stories during a joyful dinner on March 3 in Zionsville. The dinner capped a week-long visit to our presbytery by four members of the NQR church planting commission.  The commission members were Rev. Josué Chan, commission chair; Rev. Enrique Celis, presbytery moderator; Rev. Samuel May, pastor of Emanuel Church in Cancún and Rev. Ramon Celis, partnership coordinator. Our presbytery’s Hispanic Ministry Lead Team hosted the Mexican pastors during a busy week that included a retreat, planning meetings, informal gatherings with churches connected to the partnership throughout the presbytery, and some much-needed down time.

     The partnership enters the second half of the decade healthy and optimistic, passionate and called to ministry. The next five years will deepen church to church connections, strengthen leadership training on both sides of the border, and call us to a renewed commitment to church planting in Northern Quintana Roo and new ministries with Hispanics in Whitewater Valley Presbytery.