How I Met Rachel, Steve Christen & the missionay group

Well, well, I want to start this blog by writing about what has brought me here to the place I am right now in my life.

Up until a couple years ago I would call my life as miserable. I was living a hard situation dealing with personal and family issues that unfortunately for me I had to be in charge of. no matter how many different situations happened in my life, at the end, it all came down to me losing my faith. thinking that good things are supposed to happen to good people and since I was being a good son, brother and friend bad things were still happening to me.
I was born and grew up in a christian family but for many reason we were all distracted and we fell into a faith roller coaster. We didn't have discipline praising god the way we should have done it.

One night my sister Ali came back home from the soccer park near my house and She told me She had met with a christian group of people coming from the united states for mission trips every 6 months or so, They were back in town that night and They were playing at the soccer park because They all liked that park.
My sister invited me to meet Rachel, Her friend, of who she had been talking about over the last 5 months, so I decided to go to the park, a place where I hardly used to go because of how much it reminded me of a friend who was killed there few years before.
When I got to the park, I stranded inside the little kiosko because some members of the American missionary group were gathered in that place, and I didn't really know how to start a conversation with any of them, but I remember they were giving water bottles.
Steve christen was the first person from that group who spoke to me, who would have thought we would become such good friends during the next couple years and up until now.
anyways; Steve asked if i wanted a water bottle since it appeared everybody would get close just to get one no matter what they were trying to do, whenever an American person comes to Mexico, becomes the center of attention, and i don't really know if its due to our "Mexican willingness to welcome people" or the shiny blond-white color hard to hide. (laughs...). when i said no with a some kind of English accent, he seemed to be a little surprised. After that, we got along pretty good chatting about where i learnt English and what the group was doing in Jtown asking each other as many questions as we wanted answers to.

It was a little while after that when they left that night so we didn't have a long conversation at all, at least it didn't seemed to me like it was. 6 months after that they were back and Steve and i had the chance to finally get to know each other better. we also had the chance to talk about church and he explained to me some stuff that i was confused about including the topic i mentioned before. how come bad things happen to good people. He cleared out my thoughts and doubts of course. i don't remember much of our first conversation even though it was really soul fulfilling and relieving, i remember that.
Sadly for me we didn't see each other for one entire year, but we had a couple of brief phone calls just to know how we were and stuff. when Steve came back in august one entire year after our last meeting, we did have a long conversation in which i shared for him a part of my life and some of the situations that led me to lose my faith. After he once again cleared out my doubts he spoke to me about making the decision of living in god and so i took the decision . I remember i wasn't that sure but after Steve said there was no reason to keep waiting, i realized i had spent one year thinking about the things that man said to me. i didn't know if i was ready but i was so desperate to change my life that all i could think about was to give it a try. after all i had been trying to change my circumstances and all that "stuff" seemed to make sense in my head. since one year had passed by already, the message got into my head finally, right there and then was when i knew that i had to make my description and be constant and disciplinary. Lets say i was ready to be a Cristian because i wanted to be, not because that was the religion that Ive always known.

Even though Ive made some bad mistakes since im not perfect, i do my best everyday. in January of the 2008, i had the chance to spend one afternoon with the group at Aztecan, the church the group stays at when they visit. They had this carnival for kinds to come and play and win cady, but the purpose was to share gospel with people. Rachel christen with who i had been chatting and became a good friend of, ever since i met her at the kisoko the night i met Steve, we had a nice chatting in which we got to know each other a little better :)
In march that year i found out by an email sent by Steve that Rachel had died in an accident, in the mail there was a cross of wood and the headline was "Rachel christen memorial site", my first reaction was that Rach might have done something and they put some kind of monument in her honor, or maybe it was her idea to place that cross to somehow share gods message with the drivers that may pass by that street, because Rachel was that kind of girl. but at the same time i feared for the worst.
so i decided to reply Steve's message and the only thing i typed was: "i don't understand whats this about?..."
about 2 hrs later i received severs answer: "my daughter Rachel died in an accident 2 weeks ago and she died, this is her memorial site". i froze immediately.

Rachel, who i had spoken on the phone with 3 weeks before at that time, and the most unexpected person from all the people in the world had died.
of course i sent Steve another message telling him i was sorry for his loss and that i didn't know what to say, and i meant it. I mean what can you tell someone who besides just lost a true god servant, had also lost one of the most loved person i had ever known and a daughter?. So i didn't know what to say and just said i was sorry.
Still in shock trying to understand in my heart what had happened, came to my mind my sister Ali. what can i tell her and how could i tell her?, i had to be very careful with the words i used. After thinking the best way to tell her, i decided to get courage and go tell my sister that her best friend had died. obviously that wasn't easy.
When i stranded at the door of her room and saw her face, standing at me, i ran out of words, and the many different ways to tell her the horrible new that i had prepared just were instantly deleted by her look piercing me in the eyes.
She immediately knew something was wrong and i don't know if, that was due to the face i had and the silence in the room or im that transparent, maybe she knows well my reactions. I told her, there was no time for suspense anyways. I felt really guilty because she fainted suddenly, but as the days went by the shock we both had disappeared and understood what happened.

Many other things happened during the Rachel memorial trip summer 2008 like we all called it, but that will have to be a different blog.
this is a very general story of how i met one of my best friends, and the person that i look up to Steve Cristen, the missionary group that changed my life. Many many great people to admire and that i already call all my friends. I will write about these people that god used to call me back to him again very soon.