A Going Concern --- (No. 3)
Finally, to be successful, we need courage, both individually and collectively. We've got to be courageous if we're going to be like Christ. He was courageous to leave His home in glory and come into this sin-sick world. One time there was a man who could have been the sales manager for his company, but he knew that if he took the job that he would have to take away too much time from the work of the Lord that he was doing. Also, he knew that if he took the job, he would be thrown in contact with other people in high places, wherein he would have to engage in drinking and everything else that a man in his position had to do to hold his job after he got it. But thanks unto God, this man had courage enough not to take the job offered him. Instead, he chose to remain on his lowly job since Christian principles were at stake. This man was never allowed to advance from thereon. Would you say that he had courage?
When you visit the churches along the border in Mexico, be sure and bring along your trailer, or else stay on the American side. Why is this? Someone asks, why not use a Mexican hotel? Have any of you ever slept in a Mexican hotel, in a small frontier town, on dirty linen and with vermin crawling all over? Have you ever used their sanitary facilities?
Stop and think for a moment. It takes all of the courage that Christians can muster to even spread the Gospel in our own country. But I believe that our readers will agree that additional fortitude and denial is necessary in order to go into a strange country, with a strange 1 angua g e, customs and food. But, to be pleasing to our Lord Jesus Christ, we must preach the Gospel to every creature. Our salvation depends on it, regardless of the sacrifices necessary.
Here are some living conditions that American workers find it necessary to live under when they first go into a community, and in order to have the greatest amount of influence among the people in Mexico. First of all, as guests in the average Mexican home, It is necessary to conform to their customs. For families who can afford three meals a day, the normal Mexican breakfast in the homes of the unemployed (and the majority of them are), which is served between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m., consists of pinto beans, tortillas, black coffee, and if they can afford it, one fried egg each fried in real greasy lard. The next meal is served between 2:00 and 3:00 p.m. (or in the event only two meals are served, this one is omitted entirely), and consists of pinto beans, tortillas and black coffee The evening meal is served between 8:00 and 10:00 p m. and consists of pinto beans, tortillas and black coffee. The food that we here in the United States term "Mexican food," is the food that the rich people eat and probably around such days of celebration as Christmas, Easter, etc., which they celebrate. They can not afford this type of food and the reason the average Mexican eats pinto beans, tortillas and black coffee three times a day in Mexico is because this is the cheapest thing that can be had. We here in the United States with our tables running over with fine, nourishing food cannot begin to visualize the extreme poverty there, until we have actually seen conditions for ourselves.
A word of warning however; never visit a Mexican at meal time unless you intend to eat with him, because unless you eat you will insult him if you don't have a mighty good reason. Actually, the beans, tortillas and black coffee are not so bad after you get used to them, but the festive dishes of the poor, such as menudo, the thin watery soup, made from hominy and tripe, or the roasted cow's head, might not set too well with some people. Also, many times, it is necessary to spend the the night, in which event, your host and his entire family will have given up their one and only bed to you, while the Senor and the Senora and the children included sleep on the floor, which is either concrete or hard packed dirt.
The Mexican people themselves, as a whole, are so humble, so gracious and so thankful to God for what they do have, that it is a way of life with them to share their very last tortilla with their guests. This writer was in a home one time when the only thing the host could afford to serve his guests was a few pickled red hot peppers, because that was all the food of any kind he had in his house, yet, he wanted to share with his guests. The spirit of hospitality among the Mexican people is positively wonderful. They believe with all their heart the expression they use: "Mi casa es su casa" (My house is your house) and not only tell you so in words, but actually live it out in their daily lives. At the close of every meal in Christian homes, before they get up from the table, they never fall to say: "Gracias a Dios" (Thanks unto God).
With regard to sanitary facilities such as we know them, the average Mexican home has none, and facilities we used in this country fifty years ago are used there. Flies and dirt are everywhere, and North American people must drink boiled water to keep from getting sick. Yet, with all precautionary methods taken, some of us are distressed with dysentery from time to time. Yes, it takes all the courage that Christians can muster to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, but to be pleasing to Christ, we must do it. Our salvation depends on it.
The 8th chapter of the book of Acts tells us that the early disciples were scattered by persecution, but this didn't stop them. The record says that they were courageous because they went everywhere preaching the Word. They did a good job too, because in 30 years, the entire known world had heard the Gospel. It rather puts us to shame, doesn't it? I wonder if we are going to have to be persecuted and scattered to regain our courage? Beloved, we are the church, and the church has the fearful responsibility of evangelizing the world. Where is a better and more logical place to begin than in our own back yard, Mexico?
Everyone of us that calls himself a Christian needs to take up his cross that has slipped from his shoulders and use it as a battering ram to knock down the gates of hell. We all need to purpose in our hearts Individually and collectively that the truth is going to win out eventually, else we are the most miserable people of all. The job has been, and is being done scripturally along the U. S.-Mexico border without the aid of man made institutions. Yes, we members of the body of Christ standing for the truth, need to make up our minds that from this moment on, we will have the minds that from this moment on, we will be known to our Lord and to the people round about us as a "going concern," because we will have the courage to do the job our King has assigned us, and it will be done by the church, and the church will get the glory for it.
In conclusion: Christians, individually as well as faithful congregations, need to think and mediate more on the great commission and the Christ who gave it. They need to achieve their aims, plan their work and work their plan, and be courageous. Mexico is our responsibility. Mexico is close by. Think about it, pray about it, and then do something about it. Why not send. these issues of the Gospel Guardian to ten or more brethren? Better than that, why not subscribe, send one or two year subscriptions to at least ten brethren? Write for monthly reports on the work along the U. S.- Mexico border.
— Box 641, San Luis, Arizona