La Paz En La Tormenta

Many of you have met Pastor Omar personally. We have had the privilege of working together with him and his wife over the past couple of years and they have become my adopted Mexican parents. They even gave me a key to their house if ever I need to get away for a bit and they are not home! They are the pastor couple that we built a house for this past spring. It has been awesome to see not only their pastoral heart, but also the heart of their church for their community.

Over the course of the last couple of months, they as a church, have adopted a Christian rehabilitation center that takes people in for a period of several months who battle with drug and alcohol addictions. Once a week, members of the church put on a service with worship and a teaching and yesterday I had the privilege of joining them. The service began with a time of worship as we sang along to some videos with words followed by a time of teaching. What a powerful reminder of God's grace and hope it was seeing these men and woman pouring out their hearts in worship! There was one song in particular, a favorite of theirs, called La Paz En La Tormenta, Peace in the Storm. There's no doubt that many of them had faced and perhaps were facing some pretty serious storms in their lives but they were passionately claiming that peace that only God can bring, no matter what our circumstances are! Following a time of teaching we spent some time also praying for those who had some specific needs. It's always inspiring seeing the heart that so many of the churches here have for their communities, for the people around them!

On a side note, for those of you who know Pastor Omar and his wife Cristina, Cristina fell and broke her foot a few weeks back and has been confined to bed rest ever since, never an easy task for anyone, much less her who is always up and about, visiting people. Her spirits were up yesterday but at times I think she's been somewhat discouraged as one could imagine! Pray for her when you think of her!

Let's get acquainted once again...

Welcome to this blog! Not sure if you are a new comer or perhaps you're an old friend who was once well acquainted only to be disappointed by the lack of attention I was giving you... It's true, as I look back to the previous posts I realize, one post for the year of 2009 just isn't going to cut it! I'm not going to be holding your attention for very long, am I, with one post a year!

So, with that I say, welcome, or perhaps, welcome back to this blog! I've made a few changes, adding some new features like an up to date photo gallery, a video gallery, and some other info to hopefully help give you a little better idea of what I actually do here and what goes on here at the mission center. I value your support so much, in words, thoughts, and prayers. The last part of Eph 4:12 says, "so that the body of christ may be built up...". Scripture mentions the body so many times, describing how we are connected with each other, working together. And that is definitely the case here too! As we work together with the local body, the local churches, we cannot, I cannot do it without YOUR help, YOUR prayers. You are an integral part of the work we do here!

So as my commitment to you, I will keep this blog updated regularly, so you can better be involved in the ministry here! It was a blessing seeing many of you over the past couple of weeks as I spent some time in southern Manitoba! There were many more I would love to have seen! I'm back in San Carlos, enjoying the slow pace of a HOT Mexican summer, though it hasn't been too slow here at the center! Just about every weekend is booked with local Mexican churches, not to mention the ongoing day to day activities here at the center.

Check out the blog! Look back regularly! I'll be sure to update once every week or two for sure. To those on my email support list, I will send an email out every time I write an update, and will do my updating here on the blog rather than in email form. If you want to be on this email list, just send me an email. So thanks for stopping by and look forward to getting better acquainted!

Hello, my old friend

I'm a little embarrassed to look at the date of the last post here! In my defence, I decided to move away from the blogging idea the past year and just do email updates, but I've realized that emails are so one dimensional! So I'm gonna take up blogging again! Just to give you an idea of whats going on these days, I'm counting down the days, well, almost hours now before I board the plane and head back down to Mexico! I've enjoyed the last two weeks here taking in a beautiful Manitoba summer "looking forward" to returning to plus 40 temperatures with high humidity! The last two weeks have been a huge blessing hanging out with family and friends but it will be good to get back to normal life in Mexico.

Here's a couple of highlights over the past couple of weeks here:



Jody and I, craving some fresh flour tortillas, attempted, key word being attempted to master the art of tortilla making...I think the variety of creative shapes says it all!



Enjoying being outside... wiener roasts, marshmallows, etc...I forgot how wonderful summers in Manitoba really are!



Playing endless hours of cards with the family!



Reattempting to make flour tortillas, this time bring in the expert, Shorty!



You could say that with the expert help we were more than just a little successful!

As I'm heading back to Mexico, things are staying fairly busy at the center with local Mexican groups coming in almost every weekend, using the center as a retreat center. I'm looking forward to being back and will keep you updated here on this blog! So check back regularly for updates and also photos which I'll post to give you more of an idea what this last year look like.

God bless! Dios te bendiga!