MARCH 2017 - Jorge outside the church at San Francisco. In the Mexican Yucatan peninsula, December days are almost always in the 90s, July days soar into the 100s, and fire is everywhere. The air is somewhat clear in the early mornings, but a smoky odor settles in well before noon and hovers until long after nightfall. Women keep fires burning to make tortillas three times a day in their palapa kitchens. Men keep fires burning to make charcoal to sell. Families use fire to burn their garbage, leaves and debris to clear land to grow corn or peppers.
What I have learned since returning from Mexico is that virtually everything in these pueblos revolves around fire. It is even how God speaks, especially in the story of Mission House, the ministry our team served with in December.
The Meteor
In September 2013, not long after Mission House established a center in Ichmul, a meteorite fell from the sky, landing in the rainforest near Ichmul. A traveling circus had brought most of the residents to the town plaza when everyone’s attention turned to a brilliant light hurtling through the atmosphere. The fireball caused a blue glow in the sky and cut electricity to the town as it struck the earth.
The native Mayans who live here are mystically religious. They have been influenced by Mayan culture, early Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Protestant missionaries who have made their way here. So, along with the priests and pastors, many villages still have a shaman, a type of Mayan prophet the villagers go to for advice and instruction. When a meteorite crashes near your town, you go to these star watchers to interpret the event. These prophets are called the Aj Q’ij (pronounced ahh-KEY), or Daykeepers. They are healers, mystics and spiritual guides who calculate birth charts, tell their community how and when to pray and perform elaborate, sacred fire ceremonies through which the Mayans believe the gods talk to them.
It is not lost on me that the Mayan fire god is a jaguar idol named B’alam (Numbers 31:16, Joshua 13:22, 2 Peter 2:15). He speaks through fire, and the Aj Q’ij interpret these fire prophecies.
When the meteorite fell, the Aj Q’ij told the people that the fireball was a warning. The gods, he told them, were not happy that the Mayan people were listening to the gringos who had established a church in the town, so they threw a fireball at them. Many of the people who witnessed the meteorite still stay away from Mission House, and they are reminded daily of the lesson. The pieces of space rock are on display in the municipal building on the plaza, across the circle from the Church of Christ of the Blisters—a relic from another fire incident.
Alfonso
Just four years ago, the patch of land where the Mission House operations center is housed was jungle growing over rocky ground. It is located across the road from Alfonso and his family, who had volunteered their home as the meeting place for the first house church in Ichmul. When that property came open, HBC Rome put up the money to purchase it for Mission House. No one knew at the time that Alfonso had dreamed about that property—a dream he kept to himself until after a sports court had been built there.
In his dream, Alfonso was sitting at his house, and fireballs were being thrown from across the street, where Mission House now stands, toward his property. He didn’t understand the meaning of the dream, but he knew that God had spoken to others through fireballs. Alfonso’s son listened to his father tell his dream to Gary Myers, an American missionary who spends several months each year in the Yucatan, and revealed that he had dreamed the same dream: Fireballs flying through the air of Ichmul from the Mission House property.
Nicolasa
The church at San Francisco started with one couple: Jorge and Nicolasa, and not surprisingly, a ball of fire.
Nicolasa was riding in a taxi when a fireball streaked across the sky. The ball of light appeared to be headed straight toward her taxi. Nicolasa was not the only person to see the bright light. The taxi driver saw it too, and wrecked his car because of it.
Nicolasa was injured in the wreck and had to be taken to a small hospital in Peto, about 30 kilometers away, where she received care from a kind nurse. The nurse asked Nicolasa how she had been injured, and Nicolasa detailed for her the story of the fireball and the wreck. This was a divine connection.
The nurse told Nicolasa that she had dreamed the night before that she would take care of a woman who had been injured in a wreck, and that she was to tell that lady about Jesus. The nurse did as she had dreamed, and Nicolasa became a Christian that day. When she returned home, Nicolasa told her husband about the fireball, the wreck, the nurse and Jesus, and the couple asked the pastors of Mission House to have a Bible study in their village of San Francisco. That is how the church started there.
When I traveled to Mexico in December, it was the church in San Francisco where we focused our efforts. We visited homes there, painted a school and painted lines on a new sports court. It was that sports court that was dedicated to the memory of Alex Crumbley, a young man and HBC Rome member, who died tragically in a car wreck at the age of 16.
That sports court and the nearby palapa church building have become a center of worship and fellowship, and it started with a ball of fire.
Pastor Marcial in San Marcos
Pastor Marcial, about 5-feet tall and full of faith, is the lead mission pastor in the Mayan communities where Mission House is located. He has watched God open doors in Ichmul, San Francisco and Chan Calotmul, and he felt called deeper into the rainforest, to a little settlement called San Marcos.
Marcial told the people in San Marcos he was coming, then drove to the town, where he was greeted by an Aj Q’ij, surrounded by the residents of San Marcos. They were armed with cans of gasoline. The Aj Q’ij had told the townspeople he had dreamed that Marcial was throwing fireballs at them from his van, and that the gods would be angry if they allowed him to enter. They were going to fight his spiritual fire with literal fire. Marcial left, but the call to San Marcos was too strong for him to stay away.
When he returned two weeks later, Pastor Marcial again was greeted by the Aj Q’ij and an agitated crowd, but something was different. The Daykeeper calmed the crowd, telling them about a second dream he had. In this dream, Pastor Marcial again was throwing fireballs from his van, but this time, the Aj Q’ij was instructed to ask Marcial for the truth about the fireballs and why he was throwing them.
Marcial told the Daykeeper and his supporters that the fireballs were God’s truth and that they were not intended for harm, but for their good. The pastor then shared the gospel of Jesus, and the Daykeeper became a follower of Christ. His decision cost him nearly everything. He was forced to leave his position and his town, because the San Marcos people felt betrayed. Today, Pastor Marcial makes regular visits to San Marcos and the people have begun to listen. The fireballs of truth opened a door.
Three dreams. Four fireballs. Four church plants. Four instances of God opening the door for truth to be shared from Ichmul to San Marcos and beyond, all with a connection to these balls of fire.
Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. – Hebrews 12:28-29
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