Our congregation supports missionary David Brondos in Mexico City through the Division for Global Mission. David serves as coordinator of the Lutheran Seminary and is a professor of the Theological Community.
David’s letter:
April 25, 2005
Dear friends in Christ:
We pray that you are well and that you had a very blessed Easter celebration. I am sorry we haven’t written in a few months, but there has been a lot going on for us. One of the things that kept me particularly busy was that a proposal I made in December to Augsburg Fortress to do a Lutheran Voices book was accepted in late January, but I had to have the manuscript ready in mid-March. That’s done, and the necessary revisions have also now been made, so hopefully the book will appear in August of this year. It’s titled, “The Letter and the Spirit: Discerning God’s Will in a Complex World.”
Teaching at the Theological Community and the Lutheran Seminary has kept me busy, along with the work at our congregation, the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, where I am also supervising an intern from Luther Seminary. In general, things are going well. In the next couple of months, two of our women Seminary students, Sofía and María Elena, should be receiving their title (they are in the final stages of the thesis project they have to complete), and María Elena will then be ordained as the first woman pastor in the Mexican Lutheran Church. We also hope to be making arrangements for Sofía’s ordination. Several other students from the Seminary are helping out quite a bit at Good Shepherd, and they have been a real blessing for us. We have enjoyed having our intern Lars Olson and his wife Katherine at church as well, and in September a new intern will come; once again we will have a husband and wife who are both studying for the ministry at Luther, but this time it will be the wife (Leslie Williamson) rather than the husband who will be the intern. Lars is also helping us develop a website for our congregation (finally!); we hope to have that up and running soon, and will let you know when it is ready.
Alicia is keeping busy spending several days a week taking care of her mother, who will turn 90 years old in June. She has also begun volunteering in a program for women who are the victims of violence. Monica Julie is finishing eighth grade—here the school year doesn’t finish until the end of June! One of her dogs, who lives with Katherine Olson at the church parsonage, just had four puppies, so she is enjoying helping to take care of them (they are here at our place for a few days). Our older daughter Elizabeth is finishing her junior year at Valparaiso University, and will spend several weeks here before going to Indiana to spend the summer working at a camp run by the Lutheran Outdoor Ministries of the ELCA’s Indiana-Kentucky Synod.
We want to thank so many of you for your support for our work in many ways; there have been donations for our scholarship program as well as some other gifts to share with the students and people here. All of that is very much appreciated.
With regard to other news, you may have heard something regarding the situation of the mayor of Mexico City, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. He is a member of the Mexican political party that is more socially oriented (PRD), and is the clear front-runner for Mexico’s presidential elections in 2006. However, the other two main parties were able to find something illegal he had allegedly done as mayor (allowing a small portion of land to be taken by a large private hospital that was being constructed), so as then to have the Mexican Congress disqualify him for government service, so that he cannot run for president. It’s a complicated thing to explain, but that has a lot of people here quite upset, particularly those more concerned with social justice issues; yesterday there was a huge march in his support in Mexico City, with over a million people participating. We will see what happens in this regard, but I just wanted to share that with you and ask for your prayers for the political process here. Elsewhere in Latin America, of course, there have been recent problems in Ecuador and Colombia, and we hope that you remember those situations as well.
People here are increasingly concerned about what is going on with regard to immigration to the U.S. as well, particularly the fact that the number of “vigilante” groups patrolling the border is apparently on the rise. The immigration issue is a very complex one. People here do not want to leave their home, their country, their land, their families and friends; nor does the country in general want its population to be decimated as people leave. But the economic situation is so difficult for so many people that they have very little choice if they want to lead a life of dignity. It’s important to see the immigration question against that background; the economic and political decisions being made on an international and global scale have contributed greatly to the difficult situation here, and it’s important that the immigration issue be seen against that background. If our people or governments are simply going to attempt to stop the flow of immigrants without addressing questions related to the political and economic policies that are creating a situation in which people have little choice except to emigrate, the problem will not go away. Instead, innocent people (not “criminals,” as anyone who takes the time to get to know such people knows) will continue to be caught in the middle, suffering violence unjustly and being unable to lead a dignified life either in their home land or in the U.S. So please take the time to understand this issue and help advocate for solutions that will be fair and just; and above all, please remember that all people need to be treated with respect, dignity and compassion. “When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself... For I am the Lord your God” (Lev. 19:33-34).
One of the many things you can do to learn more about this problem and the reality in Mexico in general is to come to Mexico! We invite and encourage you once more to bring groups to the Lutheran Center here for a program. These are wonderful, life-changing experiences in which many ELCA congregations have alrady participated. If you are interested, please contact me and I will point you in the right direction.
Finally, I am attaching a couple of photos for you. One of our sponsoring congregations, St. Andrews Lutheran in Racine, Wisconsin, made and donated some quilts, and we gave these to a day care center supported by our congregation through AMEXTRA, a Christian organization that we have worked closely with over the years. In many of the more marginalized areas, when both parents (or single mothers) have to go to work in order to support their family and don’t have a place to leave their small children, or can’t afford day care, they leave their kids locked up at home, on their own. Day care centers like this one are cooperative efforts to help alleviate that problem.
When we have the website running, I’ll let you know so that you can see more pictures of our work. May God continue to bless you all!
Yours in Christ, The Brondos family - David, Alicia, Elizabeth and MonicaThe Brandos family - David, Alicia, Elizabeth and Monica