Dear friends in our supporting congregations:

I recently spent an afternoon and evening on the railroad tracks in Tapachula, Mexico, waiting for a train. I waited along with some 200 migrants, people on their way north to the United States, the biggest single group of them from Honduras. When the train finally came about midnight, the migrants ran to catch it, some of them making it, some of them failing to catch hold. Fortunately none were killed in the attempt. Both the week before and the week after I was there, migrants lost their lives when they slipped from the speeding train and fell to their deaths under the heavy steel wheels.

I went to Tapachula to do a story about immigration in southern Mexico. It will appear later this year in New World Outlook, the mission magazine of the United Methodist Church. Several other articles of mine about Mexico will appear at the same time in New World Outlook and in Response–the magazine of United Methodist Women. Mexico is the geographical theme of the Cooperative Schools of Christian Mission this summer, and the two magazines sent me to Mexico for a hurried two-week reporting trip. I wrote about themes ranging from genetically modified corn in Oaxaca to a serial killing among women maquiladora workers in Juarez.

The evening on the tracks in Tapachula was very enjoyable, one of the best parts of the whole trip. The migrants told me their stories, where they’d come from, why they’d left, the dangers along the way, and the dreams they had of making it to the U.S. One of them sang several migrant songs about what it’s like to leave a family behind, the mistreatment they receive from Mexican authorities, and the kind of work they can get in the U.S. Some Mexican families along the tracks shared tortillas and coffee with the migrants, encouraging them, reminding them to not fall asleep and lose their grip on the moving train. The Mexican families often shoo away the police who come to beat and rob the migrants.

Listening to the songs while sitting on the tracks under a full moon, I felt a kinship with those who shared Woodie Guthrie’s songs during another era in which people left home when life became untenable and headed out for unknown destinations. I thought of some of the mass movements of people over the centuries–including my own European ancestors–who fled hunger and repression and set off for new lands.

That night in Tapachula, I felt God’s presence on the tracks. It was the God who moves as people move, a God not locked in one place but a God who migrates, who flees and seeks out, just as God’s people do. As I too shared the tortillas and coffee of the Mexican families along the tracks, I shared in a moving eucharist, a simple feast yet a wonderful celebration of God’s presence among us, especially among those who struggle to survive, to stay awake and not slip from the train, who love their families so much they feel forced to leave them, who wrestle with loneliness and weariness in lands far away from their own.

Yes, Christ was present on the tracks that night. I write to thank you, as congregations that support our work here, for making it possible for me to be there and share a few hours with him.

We did a bit of migrating ourselves over the New Year’s, traveling to neighboring Nicaragua for a few days of rest on the island of Ometepe, a rugged volcanic island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. We also spent a few days with friends in Managua. After all the years we spent there, and given that our children are Nicaraguans, going to Nicaragua always feels a bit like going home.

Lyda continues trying to find the time to finish her doctoral thesis, which focuses on helping peasant women recover their theological voice. Yet life is filled with distractions. She’s not teaching any courses this quarter at the seminary, in order to free time up to write, but there are always meetings to plan curriculum, to evaluate programs, to look for new staff, or to counsel with women students who feel more comfortable with Lyda. She’s also recently been recruited to preach at a local Methodist church, translate for the visit of an Anglican bishop from Ireland, represent UMCOR during a two-day planning meeting of a Honduran church group, design a guide for weekly devotionals for the Christian Commission for Development, and spend a week in Costa Rica at a workshop for seminary professors. Despite all that, she’s somehow making slow but sure progress on the thesis.

I’ve finished the articles that grew out of the Mexico trip, and now am already behind on getting one written on the environmental problems of mining in Central America, as well as a long article that will critically examine the role of churches in local reconstruction efforts after Hurricane Mitch. As I’m now part of the new rapid response teams created by Action by Churches Together (ACT), I remain on standby to fly off in response to major emergencies anywhere. Yet I’m hoping not to be called to go anywhere for three or four months, so that Lyda can make more progress on her thesis. I will keep my commitment to attend the United Methodist Women’s Assembly in Philadelphia in April (as a photographer, not as a woman).

We have just welcomed Dan & Kathy Wilson-Fey, new GBGM missionaries here. They are assigned half-time to the United Methodist Church of Honduras and half-time to the seminary. They come from Idaho, where Dan was a pastor. They’re a welcome addition to “the team” here.

Several of you have written asking about the changes that have taken place in the Christian Commission for Development over recent weeks. As you know, we’ve worked with CCD since our arrival here. In the wake of Hurricane Mitch, its shift from long-term development to relief work occasioned a lot of internal stresses in the organization. As the “Mitch money” ran out, CCD used the opportunity to rethink its mission, a process not everyone inside CCD felt good about. As a result, late in the year a majority of the staff was either fired or quit. A handful of people remained, including the president of CCD, Noemi Espinoza. We have supported Noemi through this process, and feel hopeful that CCD is responding creatively to the changing character of poverty and the challenges of empowerment in Honduras today. It’s been a painful process, but we hope the weeks and months ahead will find CCD assuming God’s mission with renewed strength and faithfulness.

Many of your congregations sent us Christmas greetings, and several sent along checks as well, which are always welcome. We’ve used this recent money to help the seminary offer scholarships to students who couldn’t otherwise afford the low tuition. Most students study while also holding down a job and feeding their families, so money is always short. Your financial contributions are a critical contribution to helping form a Honduran church which takes seriously the challenge of incarnating Christ’s love and justice in a troubled land.

We continue to be in love with this region, despite–or perhaps because of–all its struggles. We thank God for the opportunities to serve that we’ve been given, and pray for the creativity and strength to offer seeds of hope in a panorama that is often seemingly hopeless. And we thank you all for your critical support for our presence here. We cherish your prayer for us, and want you to know that we keep you and your ministries in our prayer.