Mission Mexico

October - November 2009

Purple Hull Peas

I am sure most of you who live in Tennessee have eaten “Purple Hull Peas”. If you haven’t visit Joanne and Howard Sawyer at East Brainerd and Joanne will give you a bowl of them with a big piece of corn bread!

The other day Eduardo and I were in the Mercado Juarez to buy food. I spotted a barrel of purple hull peas! I was so excited and showed them to Eduardo. They were a little bigger than our peas in the US, but they were purple and looked like the real thing! I bought 2 kg! When we arrived home I immediately washed the peas and put them on the stove. I put a good sized piece of pork in them and turned the knob on the stove to high. I could taste them already. Eduardo and I were working in the yard and I decided to sneak into the kitchen and check my peas. They were boiling but didn’t have the aroma of genuine peas. Oh well they had not boiled long enough to start smelling. I turned the stove down and continued to work outside. Suppertime came and it was time to eat my purple hull peas! When I took the lid off the pot, the water was hot and boiling. I noticed the peas had changed color and had a different aroma than peas. I tasted the peas and they were not the purple hull peas I was accustomed to. They had changed into some kind of pinto beans! Sometimes things are really not what they appear to be. They were tasty and filled the void in my stomach, but my heart knew they were not Purple Hull Peas and my hunger was not satisfied.

I showed my peas to Eduardo when he came in and his remark was, “Remember the Church of Christ we visited in the Smokey Mountains”? “It was not the real church.” I remember how excited we were to find a church in the foothills where we were camping. The building had the sign on it, “Church of Christ“; there were bibles on the benches; there was no piano in the room; the Lord’s Supper was prepared and the preacher was warm and friendly. We felt comfortable in the building. But, after a long conversation with the preacher we quickly realized the church was not scriptural. They had mixed the scriptural truth of God with the Cherokee Indian tradition. On the outside it appeared to be the genuine Lord’s church, but was not. We were able to leave before the people came for the service.

Our work here in Mexico is difficult because of the mixing of tradition with truth of the bible and the Catholic religion. When we plant seeds in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, they must be pure in order to yield the pure genuine fruit of the gospel. We must not lean to the left nor the right with our teaching and change the aroma of God! We must not add a little of this and a little of that to make the church of Christ more attractive to the people of this world! Nor must we change the color of our Christian appearance amongst our adversaries.

We now have 15 members of the church here in our town; babies in Christ. These people are putting their confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ and putting their confidence in Eduardo and me as teachers of the bible. We continue to study and make sure everything we teach is scriptural and our worship services are pleasing to God. The increase is slow, but genuine. This increase is not a knee-jerk reaction to the tickling of the ears. God gave us this increase in His own time and we are so happy to be a part of His work!

-2-

Brothers and Sisters in Christ, let’s work together to keep the churches of the Lord Jesus Christ pure and truthful. Let’s not change our color nor our aroma when the water gets hot. Satan is out there trying to tempt us to give in to traditions of the world or slightly mix them with God‘s word. He is trying to get us to be discouraged when the increase does not come quickly. He entices us to change the doctrine to attract the people. We must not yield to this action. We have a great responsibility to keep the church pure and to teach the truth bringing souls to Jesus with our service!

Mexico is still fighting the drug cartels. There are 8 to 10 people a day killed in Juarez alone. Our city, Delicias, is not as volatile, although we do have some killings due to drug situations at times. We know of some gangs and drug dealers in our town El Ejido 10, but do not openly see violence from them.

Please pray for the Lord’s church as we continue to develop leaders. Pray for our children’s classes as they are the future of the church.   Please pray for patience as we strive to teach the people Jesus. I especially need special prayers for me to slow down and understand that the ground we are cultivating is hard and has been trampled on with false doctrine   it takes time to prepare soil for successful seed planting and harvest.

We thank you for all your support and prayers as our journey continues.

Because He Lives

Eduardo and Judy Hernandez