The trip to Mexico City was not just for a cultural experience. It was not just for the impact that Mexico City had on us... it was also for the impact that we could have on Mexico City. And thus, we spent our whole time there looking for opportunities to be lights to others. Because of the language barrier, for most of us this simply meant doing a good thing to help somebody out, telling them something we had memorized in Spanish like "Que Dios bendiga" (God bless you), or simply offering a smile as we pass by. But in order to go farther, the church there printed up about 10,000 small invitations, in Spanish of course, and each group spent a morning or afternoon on two consecutive days handing them out to people.

First, of course, this meant that the things had to be folded.  But with 80 people around to pitch in, the folding of 10,000 invitations went surprisingly quickly (Image 1).  The first day, each person took ten invitations and the goal was not to just get them into people's hands, but to get them to people who were truly receptive.  This meant that we needed to do our best to talk with them and let them know who we are and what we are doing and that we care about them, and if by then they had not closed the door on us, then we offered them the invitation.  Billy Moore took my group to a park not far from the Division Del Norte metro station, and there we dispersed into this lovely inner-city park that occupies an entire block. 

Moving toward the center of the park, my partner and I gave a few people invitations, and then we came to the game courts in the center.  Here, there were several basketball courts and a dirt soccer field with two goals.  There were already games going in both arenas, so Caleb and Billy Moore went and got involved in the game of basketball with the teenage boys who were playing, while Tyler and I went over to the soccer game.  Tyler is a very gifted soccer player, and I could tell he was yearning to play and make contacts in the process.  However, since he does not know any English, I went over to the goalie and asked if Tyler could join the game, and the goalie replied that he could join if I would join the opposite team.  I agreed, and we waited for quite a while until they called us in.  During this time, Steve Winter came over and I allowed him to take my spot in waiting to get in the game, since Steve is a great soccer player and also speaks some decent Spanish.  Eventually the two of them got in the game and apparently it went very well (Image 2).

Meanwhile, Caleb and Billy finished their basketball game, and their team had been victorious.  Billy (who is fluent in Spanish) told Caleb that he was getting cussed out up and down the court, but Caleb, fortunately, had been oblivious.  That, I suppose, is one advantage of a language barrier!  Nonetheless, between Caleb and myself, most of the guys on the basketball court got an invitation to worship God with the Metro congregation.  At the same time, several of the girls in our group had started a game with a few of the girls on a neighboring basketball court (Images 3 and 4).  It should not be surprising that their game was, well, a lot more friendly than the guys' game. 

The next day, we took the rest of the 10,000 brochures out into Mexico City with us, and this meant that each of us had a pretty huge stack of those things to get rid of.  This time, of course, the emphasis was not on conversation (though that is always good), but just on getting it into as many hands as possible.  We sure didn't have the time or ability to get the gospel preached to all 10,000 of those people, but we sure could get them the opportunity to go hear it themselves.  And thus, Billy took us back to the same park and then to one of the busiest commercial districts in the city to just man street corners.  At the park, Cheree and I were together and we found that our group had covered it so effectively that it was easier to find someone with an invitation already in their hand than someone without.  So, we just forged out into the city and walked around the blocks surrounding the park.  Meanwhile, in the commercial district, the ebb and tide of people coming out of the metro caused us to sometimes miss some passersby because they were coming so fast and in such numbers. 

Most of the people of the city were pretty receptive to at least taking an invitation and checking it out, but that was not without exceptions.  One guy let Cheree know in a very up-front way that he speaks our language by cussing us out and cursing our invitations in English as he walked by.  But on the whole, we got a lot of smiles and we certainly offered one to everybody we saw.  There are 27 million people in Mexico City.  Of those 27 million, we got invitations to Sunday worship to around 10,000.  Of those 10,000, seven people actually came and visited on the following Sunday.  To some, that might seem like a disappointment and waste of time.  But to Billy Moore and Jay Jarboe, both ex-missionaries in Mexico City, 7 was a very impressive number, since they know the receptivity of the people of Mexico City.  They had been expecting 3 to 5.  We rejoice over those seven souls, and our prayer for them is for their salvation (Rom. 10:1).