Posted on 08/21/2017 1:55:38 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Sirens blared as a Ciudad Juarez State Police Officer raced down the street en route to the day's latest murder. Someone had been shot and the suspect was still at large. The officer arrived at an empty field on the outskirts of "La Valle de Juarez," an area notoriously violent and under control of the cartels. It doesn't take long for them to discover the body.
It's a typical Saturday night in the city of 1.3 million people, located just steps from the border with El Paso, Texas. Cd. Juarez has been plagued by violence since 2009 when President Felipe Calderon declared war on the country's drug cartels.
While a crime scene like this would often attract many local journalists, that night there was only one photographer -- from the newspaper "El Diario." He stood behind the police tape photographing the body.
"Normally when we come here to cover to this area, we travel in groups," said Fernando, who asked us only to use his first name for safety reasons.
"Do you feel safe here alone?" we asked him.
"Truthfully, no" he said.
Mexico has become one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists. Reporting on cartel violence and government corruption has led to 100 journalist killings in the past 25 years, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. This year alone 8 journalists were killed, including Miroslava Breach, one of Mexico's leading investigative reporters. She was gunned down outside her home after reporting on collision between cartels and government.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
I have no reason once so ever to go to Mexico. IMHO you are a fool if you do.
I spent two weeks in Mexico this year working at a school that trains pastors and missionaries. I took one of my teenage daughters with me. While there we visited three different local churches and two orphanages. We were greeted warmly every place we went. I have dear Christian friends there. In fact, one of the Mexican professors was here with his family over the weekend. I’ve seen the Lord do awesome and amazing things in Mexico. This year I had the privilege of attending the very first Christian church service in a remote mountain village. Weeks before I was there the village held a festival for a pagan idol. Many of those same pagan people stood in the rain to hear the gospel preached. The people are starving for the truth. What Mexico needs is a Reformation.
I plan to go back in a few months and again next Spring. You can think me a fool, but I serve a sovereign God. I know He can protect me in Mexico as well as He does in Memphis.
Close friends of mine went there on a Christian outing. The mother and father were gunned down in front of their kids on a highway. Far too many stories like this.
Send the entire CNN crew there
Mussies and mexicans have a lot in common.....trust neither
Close friends of mine have made hundreds of trips without incident. I know Americans who have lived there safely for decades. If I’m gunned down doing the Lord’s work, I’m gunned down. I don’t want to die like that, but to live is Christ, to die is gain. The gospel is the way to change Mexico. Change Mexico and you help the USA. Once you understand and truly believe in God’s sovereignty in salvation, it gives you a boldness to evangelize and spread the gospel, even in dangerous foreign lands.
Go with God, my brother, go with God.
You and I may have to agree to disagree as to the dangers of Mexico travel. Sorry.
I never said it isn’t dangerous. I didn’t mean to seem so argumentative. I suppose what I was really saying was that some dangers are worth the risk and it isn’t foolish to accept them.
I personally know a missionary so eager to spread the gospel he hacked his way through the jungles of Papua New Guinea when there were still cannibals. He gave decades of his life to take the gospel to those pagan people. I know a missionary who has spent the past twenty years living and evangelizing in a Muslim country. I know someone who helped smuggle Bibles and cash behind the Iron Curtain. Working and traveling in Mexico is nothing compared to the dangers other Christians have faced, even in modern times. I sleep well at night knowing that I am resting in Christ Jesus and my days are in His sovereign hands. By cowering in fear I can’t add a single day to the number I was allotted in eternity past (see Psalm 139:16).
“For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”
—Matthew 16:25
Great credit to those who take this on.
Parts of Memphis are likely as dangerous as Mexico.
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