Fear God, and give glory to Him

Our Journey to the Sierra Negra

On Saturday, May 24, we left for the Sierra Negra (Black Mountain Range), our family of seven, Marcus’ helper Tony Barajas, and Samuel and Alejandra and their two little girls.  Alejandra is from a village far up in the mountains of the Sierra Negra, and she had invited us to go and visit her family.  She had not been back to visit for three years, so she was anxious to see her family again, and we were looking forward to the opportunity of sharing about following the Lord with the people there.

We traveled three hours on the highway south into Oaxaca, to the town of Cuicatlàn.  Since night had fallen, we found a “Casa de los Huèspedes” (House of Wayfarers) to spend the night.  The next morning, Sunday, we continued on our way, three hours more on a dirt road winding up, down, and around, through the mountains.  Finally we arrived at Zautla, where Alejandra’s parents and two brothers were waiting for us. 

After eating there, her father Demetrio borrowed a few more horses.  It took a couple hours to get all seven horses saddled, our luggage and three crates of mangos, etc. tied on the horses’ backs, as well as our children, two to a horse.  Then we began the climb up into the mountains to La Soledad.  Those of us who are not accustomed to such rigorous mountain climbing got to ride a horse or mule part of the way.  I was glad for my sling to carry little Clayton securely along on the mule.  And yes, riding was much easier than walking up over the rocks, even if we got saddle-sore after a while.  (I had always loved riding horse, but had never ridden a horse up, up into the mountains – you have to hang on good and tight, I discovered.  And never before had I ridden for a number of hours!)  Alejandra’s mother Leticia walked the whole way, carrying her two-year-old granddaughter on her back a good part of the way.  Marcus thought he was doing pretty good, being able to huff one of the steepest parts of the mountain without having to ride, until he noticed her!  Up and up we climbed, following a narrow horse path, through pastures where cattle grazed, through patches of forest where branches and thorns sometimes reached out to grab us, through a cold mountain stream where we all enjoyed a refreshing drink...  Once we were interrupted in our climb when a horse that was loaded with luggage fell and refused to get up.  So the men unloaded it, mended the strap that had broken, tied everything on securely again, and we were on our way.  The horse had a small cut from the rocks on which it had fallen, and would need to be doctored with “agua ardiente” (burning water – cane liquor).  We waved to a family working in their field, planting between the stumps that remained after they cut down the trees and burned off the brush.  Finally just before sunset we plodded into the village of “Loneliness” – five hours after we had started out.  We passed a couple houses scattered here and there, and then climbed up into Demetrio and Leticia’s yard.

We met their other children – one more boy and 5 girls.  Their youngest (3) had a fever, and we were glad to give some children’s ibuprofen, so she could feel better.  (A number of years ago they lost a little 2-year-old boy, when he had a fever for a number of days that just wouldn’t come down.  Leticia had gone the whole way down the mountain with him, and got on the bus to get to a doctor, but on the way she realized that he wasn’t breathing anymore.  So she just turned around and brought him back home to bury him.  Their next-to-youngest girl was born on a strenuous trip down the mountain.  They had only half an hour to go yet when the baby suddenly came, even though it was two months early.  So they had to get help to transport mother and child to a clinic, on a stretcher of some kind.) 

Leticia served us a delicious meal of black beans (which they raised) and tortillas in their kitchen with board walls, dirt floor and tin roof.  Since there are lots of trees all around, all their food is prepared over a fire.  They say, “It’s so much better to live out here in the mountains than in the city, because when you run out of money here, all you need to do is walk out and find many different herbs to make a good meal with tortillas, or shoot a wild animal, and then you have meat.” 

A little later Marcus brought out our Bible story books with lots of pictures, and translated the story of Noah for the children (and adults).  And then they showed us the room they had for us, partitioned off from the main section of their sleeping quarters with a curtain.  We were all very tired and ready for sleep, but when we settled down on the boards covered with a woven mat and blanket, using our folded jackets for pillows, we realized how spoiled we are!  No problem for our children – they can sleep anywhere. J  Demetrio kindly brought us a little softer mat the equivalent of a folded blanket, “for the baby”.  But Marcus and I were the ones who claimed it.  As we went to sleep, we remembered the Anabaptists, sleeping in a damp prison cell, or hiding out in the woods, and we were thankful.

Marcus was awakened in the middle of the night by Alejandra`s brother urgently calling, “Shut the door!  Quick!  Samuel, shut the door!  Shut that door!”  Someone did shut the door and then it sounded to Marcus like he was digging bullets out.  Outside he heard noises on several sides of the house, and imagined a few drunks coming around, trying to get in...  He didn’t quite feel like getting shot, but he knew he would honor the Lord either way.  Neither did he want our friends to defend us with bullets.  (Alejandra had told us that her father had arms in the house.)  Well, needless to say, Marcus was wide awake now, but he tried to cast his care on the Lord, and told himself that it was probably just a “paper giant”.   He committed us all into the Lord’s hands, and went to the Bible for comfort.  The house was deathly quiet, except for the noises outside, which he soon discovered was horses munching and pawing every now and then.  AND the next morning when he asked the others about it, only one other person vaguely remembered the frantic door closing command.  They said it’s nothing unusual for Adolfo (Chango) to talk in his sleep, and apparently that’s what it was.  So it really was a paper giant!

The next day (Monday), Marcus, Tony, Megan and Maury went with Samuel to explore a cave down in a hollow.  The men also butchered a sheep, and we had delicious meat for dinner and supper that day.  Alejandra’s mother, Leticia, told me about a lion that supposedly escaped from a circus and is living around there in the mountains.  She said not long ago it killed 8 of their goats, and another time came and killed 12 sheep.  So that really brought the size of their herd down, and their son isn’t very excited about raising animals after that.  (Somehow that story about the lion would come back to me in the middle of the night, when I needed to venture out to the outhouse...  Even though I knew that it surely would be afraid to come very near the village, it made the trip in the darkness a little more exciting. J )

That evening we all went to visit Alejandra`s grandparents, who live just up the hill.  In their old age, they are caring for 5 of their grandchildren whose mother passed away at the birth of the youngest, who is 6.  The father is far away in Mexico City, and they don’t hear from him.  We gave the grandma Ibuprofen for her awful toothache.  Toward the end of the visit, the grandpa asked Marcus to share the message he had brought, so Marcus shared about Joseph to the group gathered there that evening.  Even though they are Catholic, the grandpa urged his children to listen closely to the story of Joseph, and of how we’re to follow Jesus, no matter what happens.  They are very concerned for their grandchildren, and want them to grow up to be godly men and women.  Later the grandma told us that she wishes we could come every week to teach the children.  I was impressed at the patience these old people have with their grandchildren – the noise of five children playing can get to be pretty much sometimes, but they didn’t seem to mind.  And when one little boy drove his car over his grandpa’s head,  the grandpa just kept right on with his conversation.  J  Since the grandma doesn’t have very much strength to scrub all their clothes, she has the boys scrub their own pants.  It was a blessing to visit with them.

We had planned to head for home Tuesday morning, since Samuel needed to be back at work Wednesday morning.  But Demetrio was really tired (Monday he had to make the long trip back over the mountains to Zautla, to return the horses he had rented, and only got home an hour or so after dark).  He urged us to stay another day, so Samuel went home by himself, by bus. We visited in another home, and Marcus fixed Demetrio’s big chainsaw, and went with him to saw up a log and to look at his crops planted pioneer style among tree stumps and fallen logs.

That night it rained, and Wednesday morning it was still raining.  They say that when it starts raining there it hardly stops, and now is the time for rainy season to begin.  So we wondered when we would be able to leave.  Wednesday morning we were able to visit in the home of Alejandra’s cousin Bulmaro, a young man who has a wife and two small children.  Later Marcus worked on some other appliances for the families.  We also had a good talk with a woman who stopped by.  She was dressed modestly, with her head covered, and no earrings or other adornment.  When we shared about what it means to really follow Jesus, she said, “What you’re saying is true.  Come back again, and don’t just stay here – get in all the homes to tell what you’re bringing.”  (By God’s grace we want to.)  She wanted literature, and we gave the messages on paper that we hand out.  In the afternoon the sun came out and dried things off a bit, but Demetrio urged us to wait until morning, since it was still threatening to rain.  Alejandra was anxious to go, since her husband had already gone back to Tehuacàn, and we were minded to, too, thinking that it would probably rain more in the night, and make things muddier yet...

So we decided to head out, and by 5:00 we were heading down the mountain.  We took only four horses this time, since it was mostly downhill, and we had less things to take back.  Our children were tied on the horses again, and we adults walked most of the way.  Well, it was quite an adventure...  It rained some, and they tied big sheets of plastic around the children, to keep them dry.  The rest of us got wet, but then the rain stopped and we dried out, at least our top half.  The way was muddy and slippery and rocky, and then the sun went down and we still had a long way to go.  Those of us who were walking had gotten ahead of the ones on horseback, trying to get as far as we could before dark.  But then we waited for them to catch up, and sure enough, when we finally heard them coming down the neighboring mountain, we heard Roger crying in fright.  He needed his daddy’s firm voice to calm him down.   He just didn’t like the jolt of the mule’s steep stepping downward.

Well, we finally sloshed into Zautla around 9:00 (it seemed a lot later than it really was J ).  We were muddy and wet up to above the knees, and our feet didn’t want to cooperate very well anymore.  We bedded the children down on the mattresses in the back of our dear old suburban, and got changed into our dirty, but dry, other clothes.  A man there wanted to talk to Marcus yet – turned out that he wanted Marcus to check his bus, so we decided to sleep there that night.  Our family slept in the suburban, Tony in the cab of a nearby truck, and the others in the house.

The next morning Marcus fixed the bus, they served us a good breakfast there, and then we came on our way home.