Ever wonder where the term “Holy Smoke” comes from?

Some say it’s from the movie “Holy Smoke”. Some cigar fans like the term. Others say, It’s a religious term describing burnt sacrifices in the Old Testament. Still others say that it is sacrilegious and is mocking God. It’s closely related to “Holy Cow”, an expression of surprise or a slang term.
Being here in Chiapas and working with the Indians (mostly Christian) the term “Holy Smoke” forms a new meaning… at least for us.

Anyone that has been anywhere near one of the Indians knows something… They smell like smoke.
The Indians live in the mountains and cook with wood. However there are no chimneys.
The Indians usually have a fire right in the middle of their home to cook with. This also heats up their house when it’s cold. Even the Indians who are fortunate enough to have a kitchen don’t have gas stoves. They simply have another hut with a fire in the middle of it and call it a kitchen. Even if you were to give them an eclectic stove they wouldn’t use it. They prefer cooking with wood and they’re use to all the smoke.

The information contained in this article is available in pdf format from our July, 2009 Newsletter. You may download it here:

July 2009 Newsletter (106)

Speaking of Smoking…

Jude 1: 22-23 says, “And of some have compassion, making a difference: And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.” That’s exactly what we’re doing.

During the month  of July, 2009 we were privileged to start 3 new churches:

• El Triunfo, Juarez Chiapas -Our new Pastor in Juarez caught the vision and just opened another mission in this town. Smoking!
• Buena Vista, La Rainza- Located in Zapatista Territory- A beautiful view and a great new Church- That Smokes!
• Motozintla, Chiapas- After very little persuading, Our Pastor located near the Guatemala border in Huitzla just started a new mission and already has 50 people attending- Holy Smokes!

Again they said, “Alleluia! Her smoke rises up forever and ever!” Rev 19:3

IMPORTANT: Sign up for Weekly Email Updates

View More Photos on our Website

Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it. Ps 18:7-9
But the wicked will perish: The LORD’s enemies will be like the beauty of the fields, they will vanish – vanish like smoke. Ps 37:20

Thank you for helping our ministry to “Smoke”!

We recently passed out almost 500 Children’s Bibles in Tzotzil.

The Bibles were donated by the American Bible Society of Mexico.

These children’s Bible include the Gospel of Mark. Coloring pages, stickers and a dvd with  with both Spanish and Tzotzil languages. The dvd is great since illiteracy is a major problem with the Indians.
Tzeneembolon is located about 2 and a half hours from us.:

View a map of Tzenembolon
View Larger Map

View a Video of ,e and a Tzotzil Pastor Explaining how to use the Materials (Spanish and Tzotzil spoken)

View a Video of us passing out the Materials To children

View a Video of the Children with the Bibles

View pictures:

View more photos (click on the photo our ministry team):

Today , March 2oth, marks the fist day of spring.

Spring is a great season… It’s always been one of my favorite times of the year.

Some of the words that I think of when I think of Springtime is:

• Fresh
• Vibrant
• New Beginnings
• Sunshine
• Joyful
• planting (crops, flowers, churches, etc)
• I especially like the word “New”

For the next 4 days we  will be celebrating Spring with an intensive ministry schedule.

Many of you have asked for me to give you a heads up when we are in heavy ministry times so that you can pray for us.

Here’s our schedule for the first 4 days of Spring:

Friday, March 20-

Today I’m ministering in an all day Bible College with the Tzeltal Indians. This is our second sessions for 2009. The Tzeltal Indians are located in Cancuc, Chiapas.
View Larger Map

Saturday, March 21

Tomorrow I’ll be giving out close to 500 Children’s Bibles in Tzotzil. I’ve  asked the American Bible Society to help us with Bibles in the Indians native languages.  These children’s Bible include the Gospel of Mark. Coloring pages, stickers and a dvd with  with both Spanish and Tzotzil languages. The dvd is great since illeteracy is amajor probelm with the Indians.
We’ll be ministering in Tzeneembolon.
View Larger Map

Sunday March 22

Sunday afternoon I am doing a campaign in las Magaritas with the Tojolabal Indians
View Larger Map

Monday, March 23

, Bible School with the same group of Tojalabal Indians from Las Margaritas

Thanks for your prayers. I hope your spring plans are s as joyful as ours.

This past week or so we have been very busy and I just wanted to post a quick update.:

Greg Speaking

Here’s what we’ve been doing:

• Last Friday, Feb 20th- First day of Bible School with The Tzeltal Indians in Cancuc Pozo
• Saturday- Ministry in Pantehlo Chiaps with the Tzotzil Indians
• Sunday- Took  a Tzeltal Pastor To Tuxta Gutierrez to preach for his first time in Spanish
• Monday & Tuesday, Feb, 23 & 24 – Bible School with the Tojalabal Indians, I ministered in churches in the evenings.
• Wednesday- Time with the family, We built a chicken pen to house all the chickens I receive as offerings
• Thursday- Caught up on office work
• Friday- Bible School with the Tzotzil Indians
• Saturday Feb 28, A public event with the Mayor of Comitan Chiapas on Values.
• Today, March 1st I will be ministering in a Church here in San Crsitobal and then we are hosting a fellowship dinner at our house for 4 churches

The Tzeltal Indians gave me a wardrobe that is worht over $200 dollars. It was a major sacrifice on their part and was very touching to me:

Greg with Tzeltal Wardrobe (click to enlarge)

Here are some of the ministry photos from the event with the Tzeltal Indians:

One of the biggest challenges to starting new churches is to have leaders to Pastor them.

For that reason we are concentrating on Training Leaders.

This is the the 2nd purpose of our PEACE plan:

• Planting Churches (to attack spiritual lostness)
• Equipping Servant leaders (to attack ego-centric leadership)
• Assisting the Poor (to attack poverty)
• Care for the sick (to attack disease)
• Educating the next Generation (to attack illiteracy and minister to children)

Last Year Unanimous Ministries started one leadership training school with the Tojolabal Indians. More information on them can be found at http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/598176/Tojolabal

This year we started our first monthly training with the Tzeltal Indians in Chenalho on January 30. We also will launch our first training  event with the Tzeltal Indians on February 27 in Cancuc Pozo.

Hope you enjoy the photos:

This is a compilation of all the information that I am gathering concerning the Tzotzil Indians. We have been working with the Chenalho tribes for a year or so now as missionaries and I am hoping to continue to add to this page with the help of my readers.

If you come across some good information on The Tzotzil Indians that is not listed here, please let me know in the comment fields provided below.

The first place that I looked for information was on Wikipedia. Here is the results for my search on the word, Tzotzil:

Tzotzil – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Tzotzil Maya of the central highlands of the Mexican state of Chiapas are an indigenous group, the direct descendants of the Classic Maya civilization. …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzotzil – 32k – Cached – Similar pages –

The Tzotzil Maya of the central highlands of the Mexican state of Chiapas are an indigenous group, the direct descendants of the Classic Maya civilization. The Tzotzil language, like Tzeltal and Ch’ol, is descended from the proto-Ch’ol spoken in the late classic period at sites such as Palenque and Yaxchilan. Today, the largest Tzotzil municipalities are Chamula and Zinacantan, both studied at length by a project of Harvard University directed by cultural anthropologist Evon Z. Vogt.^[1]

The word tzotzil means “people of bat” (tzotz = “bat” in the Tzotzil language).^[2]

The Tzotzil were for centuries exploited by Europeans as laborers on coffee and sugar plantations, particularly in the central valleys of the state.

With the collapse of coffee prices in the 1980s, sustainable employment has been hard for many people in the highlands to find. As both population and foreign tourism have risen, the sale of artisan goods has replaced other economic activities. Tzotziles usually sell their products in the nearby cities of San Cristobal de las Casas, Comitán, and Simojovel. Recently, and increasingly, many Maya from the highlands of Chiapas have found migration to other parts of Mexico, and illegal immigration to the United States a way to break away from subsistence farming and abysmal wages.

Issues surrounding social integration persist, especially with white people, mestizos, and westernized indigenous people (all called “ladinos“). Also, most of the enlistees in the guerrilla Zapatista Army of National Liberation are Tzotzil.^{[citation needed]}. Other Tzotzil, such as those part of the pacifist group Las Abejas, support the goals of the Zapatistas but not their violent means.

Pre-Christian Tzotzil religion

• “The Tzotzil discern two souls in the human body. One, the ch’ulel, transcends a human’s life; the other, wayjel, ties them to an animal outside their body … . The ch’ulel … when an individual dies … goes back to its source, the Katibak, or the world of the dead in the center of the earth. It will remain there for the same length of time it had been in the human world, and it will return to reanimate another human being of the opposite sex in another calpul. … Then the ch’ulel becomes younger and younger, regressing through its age, marching inversely through the years it had lived, until it is converted into the newborn’s soul”.^[3]
• “The Winajel is in the Sun … . … Baptized infants and women who die in childbirth go directly to the Winajel. People who have been struck by lightning or who have drowned do not go to Katibak … . Neither do murder victims”.^[4]
• “According to the Tzotzil, the souls of animals and of trees … go to the Katibak, … and then they return .. to the face of the earth. Animals, like humans, are reborn as the same species, but as the opposite sex”.^[5] “Animals and trees have a ch’ulel soul. The wayhel soul belongs only to human beings”.
• “Each town has as a replication a sacred mountain. … Manojel-Tojel, the creator god, … caused humans to be born by leading them out of the caves of the original hills.”^[6] According to myth, each one of the patron-gods “installed himself in a hill, by order of the gods of the four corners of the earth”.^[7] “The Tzotzil speak of an animistic union between the patron god and the hummingbird … the waylel“.^[8]
• “Yahwal Balamil … who lives inside the earth … frees the water-filled clouds from inside the earth through caves. … Yahwal Balamil rides a deer with serpent bridles …, but he announces himself with … the croaking of frogs”.^[9] [a note for comparative religion : with the name of this god /YAHWAL/ compare, e.g., that of the "Seminole ... god Yahola"^[10]]; and that of the “Creek god named Yaholi.”^[11]]

(This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article “Metasyntactic variable”.)

I am also learning the Tzotzil Language and am dedicating a separate article on “Learn The Tzotzil Language”

Most of my material is from a Christian standpoint since I am a missionary to the Tzotzil, Tzetal, and other Indian tribes in Chiapas, Mexico. You can find more articles on this website about our activities and ministry.

I’m about to post photos of our Christmas project in which we gave out 2100 toys and goodies to the Tzotzil and Tzeltal Indians.

The great thing about our experience was that while we were giving out we also received.

Chicken soup
Everywhere we went the Indian tribes gave us their chickens.

We had chickens for breakfast, we had chickens for lunch, and we had chickens for dinner.
You get the picture.

You need to understand that this is a major sacrifice on the part of the Indians. A chicken is worth at least 20 dollars and these farm raised chickens are reserved for special occasions.

We were given chicken soup to eat. Although we ate chicken for 5 days in a row, we didn’t dare complain. We were given the very best. What a privilege.

Giving more than just chicken soup

When we wnt to Cancuc Pozo with the Tzetal Indians they treated us as their gusest of honor. In addition to chicken soup we were also given coffee, hand made bags,  a special gourd to drink pozol  which is a Mexican drink made out of corn meal,  fruits, and other gifts.

But that’s not all…

As you can see in the pictures above, The Tzeltal Pastor gave us a Rooster. A live one.Our daughter Cristi was SO Happy! Her very own pet chicken.. That crows at Four in the morning!

The Tzetals are not the only ones who have given us chickens.  As you can see in the picture below The Tzotzil Pastors are also giving us chickens.

Now Cristi is really happy with her collection of missionary chickens!

galo de Pastor Diego

It is more blessed to give than to receive.

I just preached a message on this subject and I have included the message in Spanish here.

We’re in the middle of handing out 2100 toys to the Children in the Tzotzil Indian tribes where we minister.

So far we’ve handed out over 1500 toys and goodies to these very appreciative children, The smiles aon their faces tell the whole story.

Clowns, music, puppets, toys, candy and pinatas are just part of the fiestas.  These children have never experienced such a party like this before. It is a Christmas that they will remember.

We wish you could be here to see them enjoy a small gift that would be meaningless to the more fortunate.

Here’s a small unedited video from one of the villages where we minister in the regions of Chenalho, Chiapas, Mexico. Hope you enjoy it:

As we near Christmas we would like to inform you of some Great News:

• Some accomplishments this year because of you
• Our Move to San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico
• Our Special Christmas project
• A special invitation to help the ministry

"Ana, Cristi and I are blessed by your desire to help share a message of hope and love with the people of Chiapas, Mexico."

Thanks to You!
This past year you have made it possible for us to minister:
*Salvation and Church Planting
*Leadership
*Medical help
*Assistance to the poor
*And ministry to the children
*P.E.A.C.E. Plan
BECAUSE OF YOU, our ministry in Mexico is providing a spiritual covering to 83 churches in Chiapas, Mexico. More than half of these churches are Indian Churches and 12 of these are brand new church plants. What a great way to end off the Year 2008.

You did this!

This not only applies to those who have given financially. If you prayed for us you were a part of our success.

Getting Closer to the Tzotzil Indians

Much of our work this past year was with the Tzotzil Indians. I work closely with these churches and the new Indian leader, Jose Alfredo. We even moved to San Cristobal de las Casas which is located in the mountains of Chiapas to be closer to the Indians.

Here’s where we’re located on the map:
View Larger Map

Providing Christmas Smiles to over a 1000 needy Indian Children

This Christmas we are making a large effort to provide a special toy to some very needy little children in the Indian villages where we minister.

Watch this video from last years Christmas ministry:

Last year was great but this year we really plan on going all out. These little Indian children are by far the most needy and the poorest of the poor.

A small doll or toy car may be all that one of these little Tzotzil Indian children will receive this year.

Beginning on the 21st of December and ending on the day after Christmas we will be distributing gifts in the following villages:

• Chenalho
• Las Limas
• Cruston
• Chimix
• Acteal Centro
• Poconichim
• Takiucum
• Zinichil Vo
• Cancuc Pozo and 3 surrounding villages
  • If you give $100 dollars your donation will buy 25 toys
  • If you give $500 dollars your donation will buy 100 toys
  • If you give $1000 dollars your donation will buy 250 toys

From Tzanembolom- Nov 16, 2008

We already have one church who will be helping us finance this Christmas project. Would you please help us also?

I wrote a thanksgiving article on my business blog at Real Life Purpose about how our daughter Cristi gave a special gift to little Isabel and want you to know about it.

The other day, Mari who is a Tzental Indian girl who lives with us invited us to go to her house. Mari is from a small village located near Tenejapa, Chiapas.

After driving on some rough roads to get to her village we parked the tuck and walked another 15 minutes to get to her house.

When we entered her home we immediately noticed the dirt floors, a place to cook in the middle of the room and chickens running around inside.

Mari is one of 9 children. One of Mari’s sisters, Isabel, began playing with our daughter Cristi.
Cristi’s had her favorite stuffed animal with her. Little Isabel was especially interested in the little doll since she her parents obviously couldn’t afford to get her one like this.

We are trying to teach our daughter the importance of giving.



Cristi gives little Isabel her favorite stuffed animal

Cristi gave little Isabel her build-a bear. Although the stuffed animal meant a lot to our daughter it was a very special gift for little Isabel. That gift really made a difference in little Isabel’s life.

Your gift will make a big difference in over 1000 little Indian Children s lives this Christmas.

“Would you please consider making your best investment in the kingdom of God with us?”

Since each gift will cost us around 5 dollars we need to raise $5000. Look at how many choldren you can bless with just a little bit of money:

Here are 2 Reasons Why An investment in our mission’s projects is a wise way to spend your money during this Christmas Season:

1.    It’s the Giving Season. What better way to give than to invest in little children like Isabel.
2.    It’s the end of the year and you can write it off on your taxes. Besides benefiting missions you can also receive some nice tax deductions from your donations.

During this Christmas what can you give to help these poor Indian children…and to be a representative of Jesus to Mexico?

Please pray and ask God what He would have you give to share His love with those who are hurting.

To make a tax deductible donation now click here:



Thank You

If you have any questions or would like to donate offline please contact me at gregnemer@missionswithpurpose.com

We appreciate you,
Greg

The Poorest of the Poor.
Recently we ministered in an Indian village of 400 people called Tzanembolom.
This is one of the poorest villages I have ever visited. Despite the cool weather many of the Indians were without proper shoes or clothing to protect them from the weather.
It was especially heartbreaking to see the children without shoes.  This Christmas we will be giving a toy and personal necessities to these very poor Indian children. You can be a part by sending in your special donations. Don’t miss this opportunity to give a real Christmas experience to some really needy children.
Now, more than ever, These Children need Hope and Love!

From Tzanembolom- Nov 16, 2008

Martyred in Tzanembolom

This is the same village in which Diego Rodriguez Pastors a church of over 200 people which is half the population.
On Oct 15, 1997 the Zapatistas entered Tzanembolom and began to cut up Indian residents with their machetes.  Pastor Diego was strung up to a post and prepared to be killed. However, while his friends were being massacred he managed to escape with his life. As Pastor Diego told me the story he couldn’t help but to weep. Many of his family members and close friends were martyred this day
Sadly, this is only one of the many Christian Indian tribes that suffered the loss of lives and have been persecution because of their faith in Christ.

Click on the image below to view all the photos

Tzanembolom- Nov 16, 2008

Where Tzanembolom is Located:
View Larger Map