I am brown. Brown is not a weakness… God loves me and wants me to embrace who He’s made me to be! It took me nineteen years to boldly proclaim that I am Mexican-American and to stop pretending I was a white guy with an epic ability to tan quickly. Intellectually I understood my ethnicity …
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed ad self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.” Matthew 23:25-26 In my first and second …
In my last post I asked the question, “How do we live in light of the fact that Jesus wants to pull up the roots of sin in our lives, not just ‘trim the weeds’ and make us look externally good?” Our Destino community finished up last semester and started this new one talking about …
Pulling Up Roots, Pt. 2–Shedding light on things. Read More »
Imagine a sin. A sin you can’t give up. Maybe a habit you’ve tried to kick, or a pattern you’ve tried to break. You get new resolve every once-in-awhile to try to change, and you break free for a little while. Or maybe you make a New Year’s resolution, and you see decent success until …
The smell of cempasuchitl (Mexican marigolds) would often take over the busyness and pollution of the city. It signified the beginning of a colorful celebration that I did not fully understand, but certainly enjoyed. As a child, Día de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead), was a moment to remember those who had gone before …
Hispanic Heritage month is well under way on many campuses around the nation, but not here on this commuter campus. No mariachi band playing, no people handing out free paletas, and no grito. Here, where Latin@s aren’t the majority of the student body for the first time, students are having discussions about what Hispanic Heritage Month …
At the beginning of a summer mission project we always have a briefing where we talk about cultural differences and crossing cultural boundaries. I love leading this segment, because crossing cultural boundaries has taught me personally a lot about myself and my own culture. I was all prepared to lead this segment with our team–Bible …
For We are God’s Workmanship—Part 3: Living in Two Worlds Read More »
In Genesis 16:13, Hagar calls the Lord “the God who sees me.” Basically, the story goes like this: Hagar is a slave woman for Sarai, Abraham’s wife. She becomes pregnant with Abraham’s child and is afraid of her mistress (even though having a baby by Hagar was Sarai’s idea in the first place), so she …
On our Destino Summer Mission to the Dominican Republic this year, our theme verse was Ephesians 2:10, which says “For we are Gods workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to.” We spent a lot of time unpacking just what it means to be “God’s workmanship” (or …
