From the Chihuahua Mountains
Helen, the boys, and I are down here in rural Mexico with some other family and friends from church, serving on the mission field. This is our seventh trip here in about a year and a half.
It’s been nonstop, and I haven’t had much time to write the newsletter—but I wanted to share a brief note.
I just stepped outside the small home a dear friend has graciously let us stay in. The sun is sinking behind the Chihuahua mountains, and a flock of birds is headed south, high above. The air is dry and chilly, and smells faintly of smoke. Each year, the farmers burn their wheat stubble before tilling it back into the earth, seeding a new crop of wheat, and starting the cycle over.
You know how much I obsess over the power of place—and how deeply I believe that places shape people. That conviction is a huge part of what I’m dedicating my career to. It feels like a life’s work. I’ve had a spark of inspiration to write more fully and carefully about this mission, but it’s not quite there yet. I want to get this one right, and when I do, I’ll share it with you here.
Speaking of place, I am grateful that Helen and I can bring our little kids with us here. Lucas is nearing three, and Ezra just turned one. While my siblings and I didn’t have all the same opportunities at their age, my parents were faithful to travel with us fairly regularly. Over the years, those experiences—and the places we visited—have only compounded in value, both in my memory and my views on life, work, and the world.
But I am especially grateful that we are here experiencing an environment so different from our normal one (and to be clear our normal one—a close-knit, faith-based agrarian community—is vastly different than the average person’s). There are certainly places in the world with far greater need, but even here, I’m struck by how many small comforts I take for granted when they’re suddenly absent. Some of the people we’ve met live with so much less than even the poorest people we know back home. And yet many of these kids wear some of the biggest smiles I’ve ever seen. It’s so humbling and convicting.
One tiny example—almost trivial, but telling—is lighting. Warm, incandescent lighting is almost nonexistent here. Most homes and buildings are lit by harsh, blue-ish overhead lights that flatten everything beneath them.I know it’s a small thing, but lighting shapes how we feel far more than we realize. Just come here and you’ll see :)
It’s deeply rewarding and formative to serve and love people who have less than you do, even in the smallest of ways. I want our kids to grow up knowing that reality—yes at home, but also on the frontiers, in the deserts, and in the overlooked corners of the world.
As I’ve said before, I’m on a mission to make the world more beautiful, one corner at a time. I’m grateful for the chance to put that into practice in the corner we find ourselves in now.
These experiences also sharpen my gratitude for family and friends—those here with us, and those far away. In the end, relationships are the only real asset we ever have. And by that measure, I am a rich man indeed.
Friends, we are rich folks. Don’t ever forget that.
I hope you have a wonderful week. And for those who have yet to experience it, I hope you get to explore unfamiliar and overlooked places. Better yet, I hope you have the chance to serve and experience the rich rewards that come with it.
Let’s make the world beautiful—wherever we are.
