Mexico Mission 2023

Our first Informe Anual of humanitarian aid programming was on Thursday this past week. They took my very pragmatic recommendation in November on the need to organize a call for project proposals and made it into quite a remarkable spectacle in the stake center by the Mexico City Temple. Other than the invitations, everything else was pulled together in about a week and half just before the event. The just-in-time approach is one that I have seen time and time again in my work with Mexico.  The event brought together many of the key implementing organizations for humanitarian aid projects that our church funds, to recognize their work and to communicate our project priorities to them for this year. It was good to be able to put faces to the names of people in these organizations that we have been communicating with by email, WhatsApp and phone calls. Hopefully we will get an ample number of quality project proposals as an outcome, which was our team's objective. We still have a ha...

Our church is a long standing, non-denominational funder of humanitarian aid projects and emergency response efforts here in Mexico as well as in other areas of the world, globally investing over a billion US dollars a year donated for this purpose by members of the church. With respect to project administration, many of the positions are filled by volunteers like us (in our team there are two FT paid employees and four FT missionaries).  For the past few weeks we have been busy getting ready for our first-annual humanitarian aid report with implementing agencies to communicate this year's aid priorities to them and call for project proposals here in Mexico. The event is novel in many ways and we are fortunate to be able to contribute. It will take place on Thursday January 25 at Mexico City's Temple Square. As I mentioned in previous posts, this is the kind of work I dreamed about being a part of over thirty years ago. It's even more rewarding being a full-time volunteer a...

It has been a very quiet week. A highlight was testing our equipment at the church offices located next to the chapel, the intent is for us to begin working from there instead of from "home". It's about a 10 minute walk from where we live, though Sister Schlachter can make it in 7 minutes if she doesn't have to wait for me to catch up. We hope to get a key for the front door and that they can get the internet connections up and running soon.  We discovered today that the key they gave us works if you pull it out 4 or 5 millimetres before you try to turn it and then you have to push really hard inward as the door is made of solic wood and is high enough for a mounted rider to pass through. As I have mentionned befor, Saturday is our preparation day - there is a very good selection of fruit and vegetables, though they need to be washed and sanitized before we can use them or even put them in the fridge to prevent cross contamination. We bought a couple of buckets to spe...

As I mentioned in a previous post, gifts are exchanged in Mexico on January 6, el Día de los Reyes (Day of the Kings or Magi's ) and not on Christmas Day. Día de los Reyes marks the Bible account of wisemen from the east giving gifts (gold, frankincense and myrrh) to the Christ child some time after his birth, consistent with His many title s, of which King of Kings is one.  What to our surprise, Sister Schlachter and I received a  gift and a very kind, handwritten note from Melchor, Gaspar and Baltazar, the same three kings of old (Melchor a king of Persia, Gaspar a king of India and Baltazar a king of Arabia or perhaps Ethiopia).  It says, "Elder and Sister Schlachter. Congratulations on your desire to come here to serve and love so many of our sisters and brothers in Mexico. We all feel the love of Jesus Christ through your service.  Like us, you continue to testify of Him because this is His work.  Enjoy your cookies, you've been good children."  With D...

Things have been pretty quiet here since Christmas Day, mostly food exploration, as the church offices are closed. I have been asking our Uber and taxi drivers about food that Mexico City is known for - tacos and something called the "guajalota" are common answers. Tacos are nothing new but on Friday night we went looking for something better than the 40-something pesos (almost CAN$4 each) for the substandard version we had at El Farolito not long ago. We checked out two separate places in Pueblito Tecamachalco just up the hill from the church office building. The first stop was tacos "al pastor"at 18 pesos a piece (CAN$1.50)  They were absolutely delicious though the street pageantry  wasn't quite as exciting as the taco place downtown that I filmed in Mexico City in February 2022 when I was there for business. The crowning moment then was the flick of the taquero's knife and his catch to put a piece pineapple on the taco. In the background of the photo fro...