Huautla (waow-tla)

Andrew was expecting to leave early on Saturday morning with one of our national UNIFAM pastors for Huautla which is about a five hour drive away. We mentioned it in an earlier post. On Friday morning at 5am he received a phonecall from the pastor wondering where he was! It seems there was a confusion and he ended up leaving straight away and spending the night there.

They found a little church with four walls and no roof. The service which takes place on a Saturday was conducted in two languages, Spanish and the Aztec language Nahuatl (naa-waat-il). Some of the congregation don't speak Spanish, only the indigenous language. The church is the only one in the area that has a service in both languages.

The pastor Guillermo and his family are sustained by growing crops and flowers on their land. God has richly blessed them by making their land much more fertile and abundant than other plots in the area. Nowhere else can people grow spearmint all year round and so this family can easily sell their crop and make enough money to live in a shorter time than normal. That allows them to dedicate more time to God's work.

Here is some of the produce which they gave Andrew. Homemade and homegrown coffee, tortillas and bread with some bananas from their garden.

Huautla is an area where the mobile medical clinic could really be used. The nearest hospital is 45 minutes away in a taxi bus. It only serves the public at weekends so if the people get sick during the week they have to go to a town 4 hours away and most would have to sleep on the streets as they couldn't afford to pay to stay somewhere. The government sent a couple of medical workers to the area and though the rain was heavy there was a line of 100 people. How our hearts are moved upon hearing such a story as we think about how as Christians we could show God's love in action and see His kingdom extended.

We thought you might like to see a short video of the work. It shows some singing in the Aztec language, the little herb garden and the spearmint crop. The elder and his family are leading the singing and you will see them at the end. They were able to get some basic essentials and each person in the church took away a bag of sugar, rice, oil, maize flour, milk etc.

The journey home was longer than the journey there. The rocks were coming off the mountains onto the road and it was obvious God was protecting Andrew and the pastor in their journey. One rock did hit the car and damage the wheel and after changing it they took a different route. With heavy fog the journey was slow and Andrew finally got home early on Sunday morning.