“Will you move to Mexico?”

I have no idea how many times the question has been asked our family—sometimes hinted, sometimes blurted outright, sometimes with tears.

Mexico is not a place I thought or even really wanted to go sometime ago, to be honest. “It looks like Mexico” is unfortunately a derogatory term people in Texas are familiar with—usually referring to a trashy dump part of town. That and other reasons are why “moving to Mexico,” even for only a short while, had not even crossed the radar screen of my mind.

And yet, Isaac and I have wound up going to Mexico nothing short of 11 times, in the span of about 2 years.

We haven’t come here because we dreamed of doing so, but because we dream of doing God’s will. And somehow, He keeps drawing us to serve in this part of the world where there are thousands of hungry people seeking after more of Him. When we are back at home, the faces of the people we love here continually stay in my mind and prayers, and somehow we keep coming back.

It’s a desert here in Chihuahua in more than one way. For one, the climate is the driest, most barren desert I’ve ever seen. Until you get to the cultivated Mennonite fields, there is nothing to see for hundreds of miles but desert rocks and mountains, and some spiny cactus sometimes. Then there is the desert inside of the people. While there are many truly wonderful people here, there are also more people suffering in depression and fear here than I think I’ve seen anywhere. That is the most formidable part of the desert.

We also will have our third baby here, surrounded by family and friends already also here. That is certainly not something I ever thought I would do either, but Isaac and I both felt God calling us to spend extended time here this year, and knowing God has spoken and is already guiding and protecting us is the best assurance I could ask for.

So we packed up our precious little blonde boys, and filled our car with the things we need for three months of living and drove through Texas and into the hot Mexican desert, again.

When we arrived to the simple gray house which our dear friends, David and Lisa Wolf have furnished for us, we found a candle burning with flowers on the table. We were welcomed with open arms and smiling faces, and the first tender green plants are springing out of the desert as it drinks in with thirst the first summer rains. Our little ones have been racing with delighted squeals over the tiles in our cottage, and we’ve been busy bringing in all the little details that will make it our home for the new little baby also. I am getting used to cooking and baking at close to 7,000 feet altitude (VERY different than at home!) and little Taramada (native mountain) children showing up at my door at all hours, asking for food. They’re too cute to turn down, even if I wanted to.

Most exciting of all, there has been an unprecedented move of God’s Spirit here—every day last week, people were filled with the Holy Spirit and set free from all sorts of bondage. They don’t even look like the same people we met when we got here. 14 of them were baptized this past Sunday, and the church building we were in nearly exploded with Mennonites (yes, Mennonites) shouting, clapping, singing at the top of their lungs in Low German,

“Hallelujah, praise the One who set me free!

Hallelujah, death has lost its grip on me!

You have broken every chain—there’s salvation in Your Name!

Jesus Christ, my living Hope!“

It was so full of life, and so different than the other services I’ve been in here, that I couldn’t help but cry my eyes out. I was thankful we had some help with the worship leading to compensate. :)

“Do not remember the former things,

Nor consider the things of old.

Behold, I will do a new thing,

Now it shall spring forth;

Shall you not know it?

I will even make a road in the wilderness

And rivers in the desert…

This people I have formed for Myself;

They shall declare My praise.”

Isaiah 40: 18-19, 21

Already, we see a new thing. It might be a desert, but already streams are bursting forth. What a tremendous honor to see it happening and to be a part.

The oat field was less than a 5-minute walk down a dusty road from our front step and as we hurried to it, we waved to neighbours and friends coming in trucks, vans and on foot from all directions. The air had grown thick enough to stir with a spoon and huge grey clouds piled high in the sky. The coming storm did nothing to lower the temperatures from the 90s, but you couldn’t have paid us to notice. We were going to one of the greatest social events of our lives. I was 11, and my brothers ranged in age from about 6-10 years old. As soon as we arrived in the field, they went scampering in all directions—not to gather the scratchy, sweet smelling oat shocks, but to chase field rats and catch bunnies, of course. An entire band of other little boys joined them, whooping like Comanches on the warpath. The stiff, tan stubble from cut oats crunched under our feet, as the thunder heads above growled ominously. The oat heads on the bundled shocks we gathered scratched at our faces, arms and hands, but nothing dimmed the excited chatter of boys and girls of all ages. We shoved the shocks together as moms, dads, and even some grandparents guided us in different directions. With amused smiles, they attempted, somewhat futilely, to turn the rat chasers’ energy into productivity. Ahead of us in the field was the soft whir and click-clack of the horse-drawn farm equipment, as a team of horses and their driver quickly cut and bound the last of the oats in the field. Horse tails swished at flies and the yellow cutter spun round and round while looming clouds increasingly covered the sun.

The first big splats of rain began to fall soon, and we ran out of the field, following the wagon, which tipped with the oats we’d gathered. We children were much more conscious of the huge smoothie jugs that had just arrived balanced on a truck bed, than that we had participated in anything unusual or even miraculous for the summer of 2009. We thought our life was normal. We were just living another day in it.

Now it is May of 2026. Nearly 20 years have passed and all those little kids in the field are grown up now. A lot of them have a few kids of their own. Some of them may live in other places. All of us have cars, phones, and conditioned houses. There is no escaping the knowledge in the modern age that how we grew up was anything but normal. Now, like a small island in a huge raging sea, we are faced with the reality that modernity would like to erode away from us, one pounding wave at a time, everything our parents and grandparents gave their whole lives for. Living a life rooted on the land, a life where modern technology is our tool, but not our master, is not the “in” thing to do. No longer are the days that old phones jangle on our walls, but the buzzing of every kind of alert under the sun distracts people all day long from their pocket, while their small children wine at their feet, or at worst, are distracted each by their own screen. Now the little kids that once bounced around in a golden oat field are faced with the decisions and challenges of parents. Do we prioritize convenience, success, personal comfort, or do we make the choices that allow our children to still experience the life we grew up with?

Sometimes those choices feel very big. Other times, they feel very small. Sometimes the smallest and easiest to ignore choices are the ones that matter the most.

There was a time a few years back where our farm nearly went extinct because all the people in the second and third generation of the community I grew up in were busy doing other things. Not bad things, just other things, and not realizing that the community passion we had had for the farm and a land-rooted life was very slowly being replaced by a lot of other things. In a meeting we had about this, my husband Isaac made a small choice to raise his hand and commit to a big responsibility—investing in and building an orchard for the farm (the previous one having gone extinct). Other “kids” from the oat field, also raised their hands—this one to mending fences, that one to digging wells, another to digging a water reservoir, and so on—all to save the farm we grew up on.

At that time, Isaac and I didn’t have kids. Now we do, and I realize that we were saving something much more important than the farm.

We still live a 5-minute walk from the oat field. The orchard has cost Isaac more money, time and effort than we’d like to admit. But all the money in the world could never buy the feeling of watching our little boys bounce around under the trees, stuffing fruit into their mouths, till they have purple juice staining their clothes, faces, and hands. No effort could ever match the reward of watching the wonder on our little Lucas’ face as every few days, he checks the goose nest next to the orchard, waiting for the miracle of fluffy yellow goslings to pop out from under her and scatter into the field.

Today, there was another small choice.

This May morning, storm clouds again piled in the sky. A growl of thunder rolled in the distance. We got another phone call about the oats. Actually, it was a text message, but it said that the farm crew needed help gathering the oats. Isaac had a lot of work to do today. Probably things that are very important, and time-sensitive. But we have a 3-year-old.

And even more important than the oats being rescued from the rain, our little boy must be rescued into a life worth passing on to his future children someday.

When we got the message, Isaac put down his phone and his important work, put on his straw hat and led little Lucas, bouncing along under his own little straw hat out to the field.

Again, little kids of all ages raced around the field. Again, arms and legs got scratched while the air thickened and horses tramped with the cutter nearby.

This time, it wasn’t me out in the field. I was at home with the baby, making peach smoothies for the workers. I admit, I also wiped grateful tears from my eyes, as I realized this is not normal. Lucas doesn’t think twice about the days’ activities and drank up his icy smoothie when he got home, licking his lips with relish. Blonde wavy hair stuck to his damp forehead.

When he’s old enough to think about it, may he have the grace to remember his own oat field. May he raise his hand, put down his work, pick up his hat and see his own little golden miracles bounce out into a field somewhere.