Lets go back to October, to the very good but brief time that I spend with many of you in Manitoba. It was really good to have connected with so many of you during that week and and half that I was out there. I was overwhelmed with all the people who came out to the evening in Winkler where my good friend Juan Carlos and I shared about the ministry here in San Carlos!
Fast forward to November where our winter season began here in San Carlos. We hosted two groups during November, one from a church in Montana, and another from Phoenix. One was a group that had never been here before and the other, a team that has been coming here longer than I've been here!
In November we started construction here at the mission center, putting up a second dormitory building. We have long been pressed for space, to say the least, needing to rent a neighbouring house and at times putting people up in the living room on the foldout couch because we just didn't have enough room in our existing dorm rooms to host the teams. I remember even sleeping up on the roof of the house with a few other guys a couple of years back because there simply was no room left IN the inn... Needless to say, we were excited that God provided for us to be able to begin this project to help alleviate the need for space for the teams that come in and also for our own staff at the center! You can see in the photo that the walls are up and we're now going to be working on the roof.
Moving onto December, as some of you may recall from the previous years, we set out on a bike trip into the mountains. With 3 motorcycles, 4 quads and a Tahoe, 14 of us loaded up with Bibles and equipment to share the Jesus film in towns and villages off the beaten path. We began in the town of Batacosa, which some of you may remember from some of the stories I've shared. (If not, you can read more about it and the pastor, Goyita here. We spent the first four nights there working with the pastor and going out to different surrounding towns each evening, showing the Jesus film, giving out Bibles, and praying with people. During that time, Juan Carlos and I took a trip up into the mountains to scout out a new town that we had heard about before in our previous travels, a new place that we wanted to visit and share the films. Rain turned what would have been a quick in and out day trip into an overnight ordeal, but we made it there and back safe and sound. As we were in this town (called Milpillas, a town of just over 1,000 people at an altitude of about 4,500 feet) we saw not only the great need there but also God opening doors for us to spend a couple of nights there.
We made the trip primarily to scout out the town to see if there was opportunity for us to show the film and also to see if there was a place to spend a couple of nights. We found the only "hotel" in the town, (hotel might be a generous description...) though it did have five rooms, with hot water. There were no heaters in the rooms but we were assured that the rooms stayed fairly warm anyways. We also found a local "restaurant" (a lady who serves carne asada tacos and hotdogs out of her from porch every evening and occasionally pollo asado, roasted chicken) that could take care of us during our stay there. In talking with this lady we got a little bit of a sense of the town, what people did for a living, things like that and she shared with us, as is the case for many such mountain towns, that though many raised some livestock and perhaps some crops, by large most people really made their living growing a different kind of crop, or "weed" if you will... But we sensed that there was a real openness to us coming and sharing this film in this town. She had a friend visiting, who is from this town but is now living elsewhere, and as we were sharing with them about what we were doing and sharing the gospel, we could tell that her friend was deeply moved by this in almost in tears she told us how she had been praying that God would send so kind of help to this town, something just like this.
We were excited to see the doors open and several days later we rolled in with the whole gang. Needless to say, we survived the whole ordeal, though on one of the mornings someone measured the temperature INSIDE the rooms at about 7am to be about 7 degrees! And we did entice the people to come to the film with a warm cup of hot chocolate, but many did come and we were able to pray with a number of people following the film.
We praise God for the opportunities to share His word with many people. We just pray that God would continue to work in the hearts of these people and reveal Himself to them! Those of you who have visited Mexico before no doubt have seen how catholically influenced Mexico is. I had several conversations with people on that trip, people who believe in God as many catholics do, and to believe in living a good life, loving others, treating others well, and holding onto "religion" but unfortunately, many stop there at religion and have not entered into that relationship that truly brings life. Though know about God but do not know Him personally. We pray that as we go out and do things like this, as we share His word, that the Spirit would draw those that know about Him into a relationship with Himself!
I better wrap this up here soon or I'm going to lose you! Moving onto the rest of December, we've been at work, putting on hold the dormitory project here in San Carlos and focussing on building a church in Fatima, right beside Pastor Rafael's house which was completed last season. What a privilege to be a part of their ministry and to be able to help them reach out to their community. They are now feeding about 100 children every Thursday evening and Saturday morning. Every time I see them, I can see how tired they are from being available from 5am often through till midnight, 7 days a week. I'm humbled by Pastor Rafael's response when he says, he loves to go to bed exhausted each night knowing that he's become exhausted serving the Lord.
There's so many stories I could share in between, and I promise to be more faithful in sharing those stories! (Consider it a New Year's resolution...!) But I think I'll have to let you go for now! Just a quick note to add before I leave you, I appreciate so much your prayer support! When you think of us, please pray for us as a team. Whenever God is at work, satan is doing what he can to distract and destroy. So please just pray for God's protection and that God would bind us together in a unity that only comes by the Holy Spirit! Dios les bendiga!
