March 1, 2006
“For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.” ~ Matthew 18:20
Dear Loved Ones,
We continue to give thanks to God for you and the many ways in which you encourage us and make it possible for us to follow God's calling upon our lives. Our hearts are truly overwhelmed at times when we think of the sacrifices you make to be a part of how God is moving here in Buenos Aires. As many of you know we will be participant in a forum that WMF is hosting in Galle, Sri Lanka the last week of March. It will be an intense 5 day working forum designed to finalize and formalize some internal systems and structures of the misison as well as present final drafts of the roles and responsibilities of all leadership positions within Word Made Flesh which many of us have been working on the past 12-18 months. Then on our return trip we will take 2 weeks of vacation to be in Southern California! It will be wonderful for us to visit with our families and hopefully see many of you! Our itinerary is at the bottom of this letter. Please take a look at it and if we're going to be near you, we'd love to see you if even for an hour or so to talk, visit, catch up, and share some stories about our lives this past year in Buenos Aires.
One thing that I also want to share with you is that God has brought into our lives 4 friends that truly have a heart for the poor and desire to build relationships with the children and youth we are working among. Over the past several months we have had opportunities to spend time with each of these friends visiting each others houses, sharing meals and having fun toghether. Their friendships have been a blessing for us as we have prayed that God would bring people into our lives to share life with. We all go to the same church and over the past 2 months they have each come consistently to meet the kids. Adriana and I are constantly amazed in the manner God has chosen to fulfill the vision he gave us and how He longs to bring our worshipping community and our friends on the street together. Thank you for being faithful to pray for us and for asking God to continually guide our family.
Last month Adriana wrote in her prayer letter that she has felt challenged to see where God has been present in the events of the last year. My prayer is that we can take this word of challenge and apply it to the events that this year will bring and permit God's Spirit to make us sensitive to the Father's presence, even when life seemingly demonstrates His absence. Honestly, at times I cannot come close to understanding God's presence in His apperent absence. This is especially true when I look at the events that shape the lives of the kids and adolescents who we are slowly building trusting relationships with. The sight of children and youth having to fend for themselves and find protection from the threats that surround them. Having to deal with issues that most if not all of us did not have to face and confront until we were adults. Issues like, “What am I going to eat today? Where am I going to sleep? Will I be safe tonight and how am I going to deal with the uncertainty and instability of the next moment?” The constant threat and violence of the authorities and the indifference of passersby are issues that make the apparent absence of God very real and close. It's hard to forget the recent experience of seeing a mother violently mistreat her son because he's repeatedly escaped home and gone to the street. I write this not to judge the mother because I don't know her, what she has suffered or what may have just occured in her life. But I write these things because this particular event and the other life circumstance of my friends on the street have broken my heart and left me wondering at times. I may be gathered with friends in Jesus' name but the context where we may be is screaming injustice, oppression and the abscence of God. Or at least that He is gone out to lunch.
Yet recently I have been difficultly challenged to let the mystery of God and His being break the molds and preconceptions that I have of Him and what He is able and not able to do. In his book Between Cross and Resurrection: A Theology of Holy Saturday the author Alan E. Lewis attempts to show the middle day of the 3 day passion event as the pivotal point that casts disquiteing and unnerving shadows back onto Friday and a light of hope onto the coming morning of Sunday. Attempting to perceive the cross, grave and resurrection as an unfamiliar story and thus evade the subtle dangers of overfamiliarity, Lewis write, “For what we have learned, hearing the old story while recalling it as new, is that these antithesis of death and resurrection belong together, not apart. It is not that deity is absent in the one and present in the other. If present in the latter, God is no less present in the former. For the Risen One is still the one who died, and it is the crucified and buried person – he and no other – who has been raised to life. What can this mean but that the grave of Jesus is simultaneously the place where God is undeniably absent and also resolutely present: defeated yet on the way to victory, at once condemning us and securing for us liberty and joy? This must amaze us two timesr over.” A conundrum is what Alan Lewis calls it. The fact that when “evil is triumphant and God is far away, there, precisely there, in the depths of human wretchedness, mortality, and sin, even there God is present, a victim of that godforsakenness and thus able to bring the godless and forsaken out of their haplessness and isolation into a new territory of light and joy.”
I believe what Jesus said to his disciples is true about his promised, sometimes hidden presence among us. And I must let the the implications of the cross, grave and resurrection of Jesus test, challenge and ultimately change my misconceptions or misunderstanding of God and His ability to be present in what may be godlessness and forsakenness. To me this is good news which fills me with hope as I pray that my unbelief will transform into resolute trust as well as that of my friends who suffer on the streets of Buenos Aires.
Peace,
Walter
Forcattos March & April Travel Itinerary
March 22-24, Temple City, CA
March 25-April 1, Galle, Sri Lanka
April 2-4, Temple City, CA
April 5-17 Corona, CA