{"id":30,"date":"2006-11-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-11-28T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-08-16T01:15:03","modified_gmt":"2009-08-16T05:15:03","slug":"a-birthday-to-remember","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/2006\/11\/28\/a-birthday-to-remember\/","title":{"rendered":"A birthday to remember"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Rebecca<\/a>You’ve probably had birthdays you’d rather forget. I understand; I’ve never had a bad birthday, but all my birthdays have been atypical, what with my birthday falling on Christmas. But I doubt you’ve ever run and hid in the woods to avoid your party.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, that’s pretty typical for a child from Mexico’s Tarahumara tribe. A birthday is a reason to brew lots and lots of corn beer, then get drunk on it – for days. It’s not abnormal for one of a child’s parents to run off with someone else, or for someone to get attacked, maybe even killed.<\/p>\n

Gosh, no wonder the kids run and hide.<\/p>\n

But Rebecca didn’t have to. Her parents, Rito and Marcelina, are believers, and Rebecca’s recent seventh birthday party involved food (no corn beer), Bible teaching and prayer.<\/p>\n

Oh, and the missionaries brought a cake, because they have an oven. That’s all they had to do. The Tarahumara believers decided they should celebrate birthdays differently, decided how they should do it, and put the whole thing together.<\/p>\n

A birthday party might seem like a small thing. But this is a sign of so much. It shows the Tarahumara believers are willing to compare their ways with what God wants from them, and make changes. It shows they’re willing to take leadership of their own church. And it shows that little Tarahumara girls like Rebecca now have a hope and a future.<\/p>\n

As we approach the celebration of Jesus’ birth, let’s remember why He came, and rejoice in the privilege you and we have of being co-workers together with Him, and with tribal believers. Thank you for the roles you play in planting churches among tribal people through our ministry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Tarahumara girl\u2019s recent celebration wasn\u2019t just a party — it was a sign of the work God is doing through people like you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-30","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}