Baja Mexico 5.6% Evangelical: Mexico 9.9%... why??

I'm Just Wondering... why Baja Mexico is only reporting at 5.6% Evangelical Christians, while the overall Mexican naitonal average, as reported by the Mexican gov't in 2000 was 9.9%

A good Mexican pastor friend of mine brought this to my attention a few years ago... then posed the really obvious thing: why is Baja less than the national Mexican average, when Baja Mexico is one of the most-visited and possibly largest recipient of short-term mission outreachers, donations and projects... in the world ???

Baja Norte... the Mexican state with a population 2.8 million Mexicans... being the most visited (estimated 700,000 short-term outreach visitors per year), receiving tons of donations (sooo many San Diego based ministries bringing truckloads of donated food, clothing , blankets, household supplies... estimated to be around $20 million worth in 2005... mainly because of proximity to the US border...) and projects (estimated that there were over 2,000 houses built by various groups from the US and Canada in Baja in 2005).... and most (not all) the groups are faith-based that do all this outreaching, donating and projects (every church I know of in San Diego claims to have some ministry arm in Tijuana, the largest city in Baja)...

His point was that intuition would say that Baja, with all the above being true... Baja should have a HIGHER percentage of Christians from all that outreach effort than the Mexican national average... at least the same.... certainly not less...

But there it is... 5.6%!

(By the way, actual practicing Catholics run about 40% in Baja, a stat that has remained constant for about 20 years... practicing means they attend church every week).

I'll leave this installment at this point... do visit my previous blogs about my hopes for the church of Latin America and Mexico...

I'm Just Wondering... what in the world is going on that screams out "only 5.6%"...??? cbaj

(Editors note: This blog was updated on 20 Apr because I had better numbers from the Mexicna govt... the short-term outreach numbers came from a working group I was a part of, consisting of Protestant missionaries who live and work in Baja,... based on a number of data points gathered from the internet, local news... also, important to note that not all short-term work in Baja comes from faith-based groups; Habitat for Humanity builds a 100+ houses in TJ every year, the Rotary has a pretty active housebuilding and dispensary program... and of course the Catholic outreach programs are quite huge in Tijuana... CBaj)