DUSTY ROADS AND LOST CHURCHES

Winding, dusty road going across the mountains in Mexico.

Someone once said we were always driving down some dusty road looking for a lost church. And that really describes our activities in Mexico for many years. Having Spanish Bibles to give away  to churches, we found ourselves in a dilemma.  There was no directory of churches in Mexico! We couldn’t punch an address into our GPS and be guided right to our destination. Sometimes it was even hard for us to find the town we were looking for with a map.  So we would load up our Jeep, pray for guidance and start off in one direction or another, always driving down a long, winding dusty road looking for a church.

Once we actually forded the Rio Grande River at a shallow spot because we had heard there was a small town on the other side. There was no bridge across the river and the only way to access the town was through the water.  After crossing the river, we drove almost 20 miles on rocky roads before reaching the town. The only way we knew there really was a town ahead was the fact that there were telephone poles and electricity wires leading the way across the hills.

Small town across the river. The only signs of life along the 20 mile long road were the poles and lines taking electricity to the isolated place.

When we reached a town, we’d drive up one street and down another scanning the side of the road for anything that resembled a church. Sometimes all we saw was a small sign, or painted words over the door saying “IGLESIA” which is Spanish for “church,” or TEMPLO. There weren’t steeples or tall spires or stained glass windows that beckoned to us, but mostly humble little buildings that had been designated a house of worship.  So it really was a challenge for us to drive down those roads and it was very satisfying when we would actually stumble across a church.

The next challenge would be to find the pastor or someone in charge where we could leave Spanish Bibles, Sunday School literature and gospel tracts. Many times these churches would be locked up with signs posted giving service times. Rarely did the pastor live on the premises, but once in a while a neighbor would give us directions to the pastor’s home. A few times in our years of travel we came across a church that was actually in the midst of a service. It was a special privilege to distribute Bibles directly to these small and friendly congregations.

Very humble church made from cardboard and wooden pallets outside of Ciudad Acuna in Coahuila.

It was always a surprise to these churches when we stopped to visit and share with them. There was no way to contact them, no appointments were made.  The common question was, “How did you find us? How did you know we were here?”  It was clear to all of us that we were guided divinely.

Church along the Gulf side of Mexico.

The matter of denomination wasn’t important to us. If we found a church and they would accept our gift of Bibles, we were glad. We carried mostly New Testaments, but also some full Bibles. Only once that we remember did a church decline our offer because their denomination used a different version of the Bible.

Over the years we drove through almost every state in Mexico with Spanish Bibles. And we distributed approximately 10,000 Bibles and many cartons of Sunday School materials directly to the churches.  We didn’t have a directory of churches or a list that we could use to help us. But we had something much better. We had God’s  Global Positioning System (GPS) to guide us.

You said to me,
“I will point out the road
    that you should follow.
I will be your teacher
    and watch over you.  Psalm 32:8 CEV