(About the photos: Two dear friends, Dr. Russell Romero and Dr. Dan Moore [pictured with our Dr. Lulu], who lived their lives in service to others and in service to Jesus. We can see Jesus in their lives. May others see Jesus in us. )
Dear friends of Mexico Ministries:
I just returned from a funeral in Lafayette, Louisiana where we said goodbye to a great friend and supporter, Dr. Russell Romero. A surgeon of renown, over the span of 20 years the good doctor served the poor in Mexico, making regular medical mission trips with a team of doctors and nurses who together performed complicated, life changing, and life saving surgeries
Losing this friend reminded me of another dear friend and supporter of our ministry, Dr. Dan Moore of Texarkana, who passed away as the result of a stroke in August, 2013. I had just been with him in Mexico a month earlier, and we had talked of a stroke I suffered down there in 2011, and like that, he was gone and I was still here.
“Why Me, Lord? What have I ever done, to deserve even one, of the pleasures I’ve known?” Kris Kristofferson wrote the song, but sometimes I ask that question too. Why are these two men gone, both younger than me, and I am still here? In September, my family will be having a big reunion celebrating the 300th anniversary of our family in America. My 6th great grandfather Pierre Mayeux and his young bride left France and everyone they knew to try and carve out a new life in the Louisiana wilderness. They survived brutal conditions and even a massacre, and their family has endured until now. The astonishing thing, for me, is that I am the longest lived male in my family line. Pierre died at 50, his son Francois died at 42, my father died at 79. By the grace of God I have lived nearly 83 years. Why me, Lord? Whatever the reason, it is humbling to ponder. Why me? One answer for certain is it is not for my pride or boasting, and whatever time I have left God has called me to be a servant to his people, especially, “the least of these.”
In Greek mythology there is the story of the most handsome of men, Narcissus. Women saw him and were instantly enchanted. One day he saw his reflection in a pool of water and became mesmerized by his own beauty. He couldn’t tear himself away, he fell in love with himself, and died tragically, unable to fulfill his self love. St. Paul describes another kind of gazing in a mirror: “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.” (1 Co. 13.12) But it is not ourselves that we will see “face to face.” Like Moses, it will be our Lord that we behold “face to face.” (Ex. 33.11) “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” (2 Co. 3.18). For whatever years any of us have left, let us not gaze upon our own beauty or achievements or fame or glory, but let us strive to be like Jesus and serve others in His name, until we are “conformed to the image of His Son” (Ro. 8.29)
God bless you,
Larry