Rambling Reaction to the News

Jim and Christopher, almost 25 years ago to the date

Father-son hike, January 1986

Twenty-five years ago today, as the media has been reminding us, the Challenger exploded.  Today I watched the video clip on the Fox News website and listened to President Reagan's memorable words for the first time.  Back when it happened, Jim and I were on a mandatory camping trip, out of radio contact, as part of Jungle Camp field training.  This was the first news we heard upon returning to base camp.  Wow.

Like everyone else, we were shocked and dismayed at the report.  As a result of this disaster, according to today's news report, more people became interested in the space program, and more astronauts were recruited.  Similarly, I have heard that missions recruitment was higher after the senseless murder of five missionaries in Ecuador in 1956, and again after the murder of Chet Bitterman in Colombia in 1981.

Interestingly, the news clip which followed this historic one about the Challenger was a report about the missionary woman who was recently murdered in northern Mexico.  That, too, was a tragedy.  In this case, the news reporter interviewed a former missionary to Mexico who declared that it is simply too dangerous to work here any longer.

I take issue with this conclusion.  To me, it would be regrettable if one woman's death caused missionaries to pack up and abandon their ministries, or if it resulted in short-term teams canceling their scheduled trips to Mexico.

When people ask if we feel safe here in Oaxaca, I say yes without any hesitation.  We believe we are exactly where we are supposed to be, and we trust in the sovereignty and protection of God.  We also rely on the power of prayer.  We do not presume that bad things will never happen to us, but we do know that God will sustain us and accomplish His will and purposes through anything He allows to happen in our lives.

Reading the news, would I send a child of mine to Virginia Tech if that's where he wanted to go?  Absolutely.  Would I go to Arizona?  Sure.  Would I go to New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, or any big city in America?  Yes.  Would it make me apprehensive?  Maybe momentarily.  Hopefully, I would just do what I have to do, and life would go on like it does for the overwhelming majority of people who live, work, and go to school in potentially dangerous places.

With that said, I understand why people might hesitate to come to Mexico in light of current events.  I would never encourage anyone to come down against their better judgment if he prays and senses he shouldn't come.  If teams do come, we would never intentionally put them in harm's way, but nor can we guarantee with any certainty that nothing bad will happen.  It is out of our hands.

In general, we feel very safe where we live.  In the villages where we work, drugs are not an issue like in the cities or in Northern Mexico.  It's not like these unreached people groups have the option to simply leave the country even if they did believe it was unsafe in their areas.  We must reach out to them where they live.  They will not be reached by Christian television, radio, or written materials.  They need to hear the gospel message and to see it being lived out.  That is why we are here.

For 2011 we were honestly hoping to see four or five teams come to Oaxaca.  Please pray that God will lead exactly the right people to come at precisely the best time to accomplish the greatest amount of good for the kingdom of heaven.  Pray for each team leader to have wisdom and for us as we lead them once they arrive.  Pray against a spirit of fear which would hinder work that needs to be done.

Likewise, the school where our children take English and Science classes three times a week is actively recruiting teachers for the 2011-2012 school year.  Please pray for the right individuals to volunteer in spite of the news, trusting God to care for them as missionaries have consistently done for all these years.

Actually we feel safer here today even knowing the news than we did when starting out in Guatemala back in 1986 at the end of the civil war which we knew nothing about until we arrived.

Loker family in Guatemala, August 1986

God is good.  He is loving, merciful, faithful, powerful, sufficient, gracious, and kind.  For us, that is more than enough.  (We still appreciate prayers, though!)

Tejate - a traditional Oaxacan drink

After eating the higaditos on Saturday, we were offered another special treat: a cup of Tejate. (Click on the link to see a photo of the actual drink.)

First of all, I confess that many teams have asked me about the lumpy frothy drink served in the open market in Oaxaca, and I have simply gagged unobtrusively and said I didn't know.  Something about seeing a woman with her bare hands in a big bowl, swishing unknown ingredients around, adding water as they go... I don't know, it just didn't appeal to me enough to ever try it.

Finally I have actually tasted Tejate and even learned to pronounce the name properly, not to be confused with Tecate, which is a brand of beer.

Tolerable is the word I would politely use to describe it (the Tejate, not the Tecate).  Truly it wasn't bad at all.  The texture is a bit of a put-off, but the taste is mildly nondescript.  Not sweet.  Not anything recognizable.  The amazing thing was how stuffed I felt after drinking half a cup of it.  It is a very heavy drink to follow liver and eggs, bread and hot chocolate, especially when I've been on a restrictive diet the past few months.

Doing a bit of detective work on the internet, it looks like the main ingredients are maize flour and cacao beans and fermented flor de cacao , which I kid you not (click on the link for proof), is the Funeral Tree.

Thinking it would be nice to provide a visual aid, I took a short video clip with my digital camera.  Being even more thoughtful, I turned the camera sideways to zero in on the Tejate-making process, blocking out all the other distractions.  Note to self:  horizontal videos are much more effective.  Just turn your computer screen sideways to view this.  Either way, it is likely to leave you with your head cocked to one side wondering why this drink should be such a special treat.

As a friend pointed out, it is an interesting study in the old mixed with the new.  Outside the women are stirring a cauldron of soup and making Tejate by hand when probably inside one of the shrink wrapped wedding gifts is a brand new blender they might have used to simplify the process.  They still choose to do things the traditional way.  That's just how it is in our little town of Mitla and other indigenous areas of Oaxaca.  I respect them for that.

Little Wedding Livers

 This delicacy is typically served in Oaxaca on the morning of weddings, and therefore called higaditos de boda, which translates as "little wedding livers."  Generally the family begins a day ahead of time, preparing the spices and the broth, and then the day of the wedding they make an enormous cauldron of the soup-like dish to serve to all well-wishers who come bringing wedding gifts. 

Last night, as you know if you read the post Mexican Weddings on my other blog,  I was to serve as "ring bearer" for the wedding of some friends' daughter.  (More on that in a separate post.)  Earlier in the day I took Bekah and Jonny with me to a special afternoon meal at our friends' house. 
First we were served little loaves of bread to dip in hot chocolate. Whatever we didn't finish was added to the huge decorative loaves of bread they gave us to take with us.  At any party in our town, the guests expect to be given plastic bags or buckets to take home extra food.

The next course was the higaditos which we ate by using corn tortillas as a scooper.  This makes the meal twice as filling, and we were struggling to pick up as much liver and eggs with each scoop until finally we were given spoons.  We're always thankful for spoons!  Just when we were despairing of ever getting close to the bottom of the bowl, the hostess gave each family a small plastic bucket (with the bride and groom's name and the wedding date printed on it with a permanent marker as a souvenir) to pour the leftovers in to take home.  

By this time my kids were antsy and begging to be excused, so I sent them home with the bread and the bucket of wedding livers.  This was a social faux pas because the hostess intended to fill the bucket the rest of the way with yet more of the dish to take home for another time.  Too bad.  Some of us really like it. 
 

 In case anyone is interested in tasting this treat, here is a recipe I found online.  Enjoy!

Eggs with chicken livers: Higaditos by Karen Hursh Graber © 2008 

This recipe, with its fresh salsa, is adapted from Seasons of My Heart by Susana Trilling.  I suspect the version they make here is much more elaborate and time consuming.

Ingredients

For the sauce

• 4-5 plum tomatoes, roasted and peeled
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled
• 2 fresh green chilies, seeded if desired
• Salt to taste
• 3 sprigs cilantro
• ½ cup water

For the higaditos

• ½ cup vegetable oil
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 1 pound tomatoes, finely chopped
• 1 pound tomatillos (tomate verde) husked and finely chopped
• 6 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
• ¼ pound chicken livers, boiled and finely chopped
• ½ cup parsley leaves, finely chopped
• ½ teaspoon dried oregano leaves
• salt and pepper to taste
• 15 eggs

Preparation:

Grind all sauce ingredients in a molcajete or food processor, leaving the sauce a bit chunky.
In a large, deep non-stick frying pan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion, tomatoes and tomatillos, and cook until soft. Add the garlic, livers, parsley, oregano and salt and pepper to taste. Continue to cook for10 more minutes.

Beat the eggs well and add to the pan, mixing them in gently. Push the eggs away from the sides of the pan as they set. Continue cooking for another 10 minutes, until the bottom is set and browned.

Using a spatula, divide the egg mixture into quarters and flip each quarter. Continue cooking until set and remove the eggs section by section, draining any excess oil. Cut into smaller pieces to serve. Serve with sauce and warm corn tortillas. Serves 8.

Link to Source Article

More photos:

I guess we'll be having bread and hot chocolate for breakfast a while

Enjoying a family style meal with some dear friends

No pressure to clean your plate; just take the rest to go

Gifts are generally displayed in clear shrink wrap

Victor and Ruth, the happy couple

January Update

Dear praying friends,

While many of you are being hit with terrible winter storms, I was on the verge of putting away the blankets earlier in the week.  Then some sort of front blew in, and it is unseasonably cold.  I just checked the weather report on our ministry website, and it is currently 45 degrees F in the middle of the afternoon!  That, folks, is cold with no indoor heating.  Not that I am complaining, mind you.  I'm watching your weather reports and thankful to be here and not up there.

Jim is up in Orlando this week attending some leadership meetings and our Missionary Ventures World Conference.  Please pray for wise decisions to be reached and for people to be encouraged at the conference.  After that he will go see his mom for another week and a half or so, hopefully connecting with some supporting churches and potential teams while he is in Ohio.  Please pray for just the right teams to be recruited for 2011.

This year I opted to not go to the conference, but instead made a brief trip to visit my own mother in Dallas after getting Hannah settled into her new school and housing in Colorado.  For more information and photos you can read my M&M blog (Memories and Musings).  Thank you for praying for our road trip from California, which went without incident.  No roads were closed due to ice or snow and Hannah got there in time for class on January 3rd as scheduled.  Now we are awaiting results from some blood work done last week for a mystery ailment causing her hands to turn black at seemingly random times.  We'd appreciate prayer for Hannah's health, too.

Mostly I just wanted to ask for prayer this month, which is resembling last September, with Jim and me taking turns at single parenting while the other makes a necessary trip.  Pray that I succeed in managing things here at home and on the field, and that we maintain good communication while separated.  With modern technology Jim can stay on top of field operations via email, phone, and Skype from anywhere, but marriages somehow benefit from a bit more close contact.  My heart goes out to those whose husbands are deployed.  It isn't ideal, but it can't be helped.

Thank you for standing with us in ministry and also personally.  We truly are blessed with some very wonderful friends and supporters.  May the Lord grant you peace and joy in this new year, 20-Eleven.  We love you all.

Partners in reaching the unreached,
Jamie and Jim Loker

To receive these updates by email, send a blank email to prayerupdates-subscribe@lokerfam.com

And the winner is....

No one exactly, though some of you were very close with the word "gift."  The fact is that on Christmas Eve the neighbors came by with a bucket of Atole, which is a yummy cinnamon flavored oatmeal drink.  They also gave us a bag of tamales.  That was one bucket, on top of the other bucket which I never returned to another neighbor who shared some barbacoa on Day of the Dead.

A few other buckets were given to us as New Year's gifts from local businesses.  Two came from Taco restaurants.  What you can't see on the back side is the message which is hand-written with a Sharpie saying Feliz Ano Nuevo and the name of the establishment.  The big round bucket on the bottom of the pile came from a street vendor where the kids bought tacos one night.  It is unmarked, so we still do not know the name of the place we refer to as the "Blue Graffiti" taco stand.

Other years we have been inundated with calendars, which is the typical New Year's gift from businesses.  For some reason this year we are getting more buckets than calendars.

The chocolate will go to my friend Faith, who left Mexico last year with intentions to return, but never did.  She knew the answer and didn't spill the beans (or the atole, as the case may be).

Better luck next time!