Mexico Mission 2023

A sad highlight last week was the discussion we had at a protocolario event with the United Nations' refugee agency's (UNHCR) Mexico office to mark our church's contributions to their programming to assist refugees and internally displaced persons in Mexico. Media focus is often on the immigration pressure on the southern US border without delving into the magnitude of the challenges in Mexico. Mexico is among the top five countries worldwide in terms of asylum-seekers with people from110 nationalities requesting international protection this year. Mexico isn't only a country of origin and transit for refugees and asylum-seekers en route to the US, is has also become to a refugee destination. As context, Canada has had 26,585 refugee applications this year (January to September) while Mexico has had 127,796 (January to October). The US has indicated it will accept up to 125,000 refugees annually for resettlement but those rejected entry into the US add to the homelessn...

It has been a relatively quiet week. A highlight was our being given a number of tasks to work on. Sister Schlachter is tracking down information from vendors that is needed to close the remaining 2023 projects.  She is doing a great job and all in Spanish. I put together a simple Excel template for a directory of vendors and a presentation to help guide implementing organizations to submit projects proposals aligned with our objectives and priorities - both are for team discussion this coming week. Our 2024 humanitarian aid project budget is about 60% larger than it was for 2023 and we understand that we may be joined by two additional missionary couples early this coming year to help us confirm and implement projects.  We worked from home this week as office space for us isn't ready yet. Our internet connection is reminiscent of dial-up, painfully slow or non-existent which added to our challenge this week. On Friday a tech fellow worked most of the day to install a high-spe...

We received our flight information on Wednesday November 8 and advised that the administrative assignment for our mission had been changed to the Mexico Mexico City West Mission instead of the Mexico Mexico City East Mission. This was why getting our flights took longer than expected. We are working out of the church's area offices on the north west side of Mexico City in a very nice, relatively quiet Jewish neighbourhood called Lomas de Tecamachalco  instead of from a "home"-based office in a rough and tumble barrio north of the Mexico City airport.  Alex and Liz graciously hosted us for dinner the night before our departure from Salt Lake City and Alex drove us to the airport on Friday morning for flight to Mexico City.  The area office missionaries and staff made us feel very welcome from even before our departure.  Our flight and once we got out of customs was like coming home to a home we hadn't yet been to - they took us out for dinner, provided us with groceri...

  It has been another full week! Our 9AM "interview" at the Mexican consulate on October 31 didn't get off to the start we expected. After greeting us and inviting us into her office, the Mexican official asked if we had brought the "missing paperwork" for ourselves and the other couples that had interviews that morning. I had brought copies of the documents we sent in but she was looking for "anuencias" (approval from the Mexican Immigration Authority) and an additional check to cover the visa fees for one of us. Thankfully, she wasn't fussed and made a call to the church visa office ... and left a voice message because they didn't pick up the phone. Eeek! I sometimes don't get to my voice mail for a day or two. While she waited for a response, she had us check the accuracy of the information she had for us and then took our photos and electronic fingerprints and sent us back into the waiting room.  I was envisioning at least another week...