Mexico Old and New

March 29, 2010 | by Jeep Collins

The Mexico's both old and new have always captured my imagination. I cannot remember a summer as a boy growing up that we did not travel to New Mexico. As my parents handbag business grew and they hired sales representatives to cover the entire country, my dad always reserved New Mexico and Arizona for his personal attention.

Though these were always business trips there was plenty of time for excursions to the numerous national parks and horseback riding and fishing in the mountains of northern New Mexico. At the end of the trip, when they were finished with the handbag samples, we would go to a trading post and trade them for goods made by the Indians. Each year my sister and I got to pick out something for ourselves. One year I remember getting a genuine Indian drum made of deer hide and the hollow trunk of a tree. Other years I got Katchina dolls, and one year a sand-cast belt buckle.

Lately I have become addicted to Old Mexico and have made several trips there in recent years. This addiction, not really for a country, but for sharing my faith started when I went to Cuba in 2001 and spent four days going door to door telling people about the saving grace of Jesus Christ. At the end of that trip I realized that it was the most worthy thing I had ever done. I returned again to Cuba for several more trips all the while thinking I would like to do similar work closer to home.

I recently returned from Mexico, and like almost every trip there, I think of it as the best yet. It was a trip that I felt to be full of "Divine appointments". In future blog posts, I will tell the story of this trip, not only what we did but about the doubts and assurances that I experienced personally.

Jeep