Once again it's been a while since the last post! Sorry for keeping you all in suspense for so long! We've made it through our super busy season with only one team left to go towards the end of April. We saw the last team leave on Tuesday after having three teams back to back, one team leaving and then the next team coming later on the same day. That's actually the second time that that's happened this year, that we've had three teams back to back to back. As you can imagine, we started to understand what marathon running must feel like, after running 20 miles knowing that somehow you've still gotta find it in you to push through the last six...not that I've ever even run more than six miles at one time in my life!
Back to Mexico though, it has obviously been a very busy but a very good year in many ways. Much was accomplished in the way of projects such as Pastor Rafael's church in the community of Fatima in Guaymas was dedicated one week ago with only some minor details remaining to be done on the adjacent kitchen which will be used for the feeding program. Praise God for the many hands who helped to make it happen with the first foundation stone being laid sometime in December. It is an impressive building and a monument to the vision that God has for that community. It is a large building and the pastor's vision is that the growing congregation will quickly fill it's walls!
Bus aside from the work projects, as is always the case the more important part and the more exciting part is seeing God touch people's lives. We've worked a lot in Fatima and so we've taken a number of teams into the area handing out food hampers along with members of Pastor Rafael's congregation. It's neat to see the connection that they have, whether it's the pastor himself or his wife, Marisela, with the people of the community and to use the food hamper as a connection, a way to get into people's homes and spend some time sharing the Lord with them or praying with them. And every so often we get the privilege to lead someone to the Lord; other times we get the opportunity to pray with them as they are going through some personal struggles. I remember one such case as I was leading a group along with Marisela. We came into this lady's yard and she was burdened with her son who was living a fairly rebellious life and taking it out on his family, and particularly his mom. She herself was not a Christian though Marisela had shared Christ with her before. We could see as Marisela shared with her that she was so close to surrendering it all to God but just couldn't quite take that final step. Nonetheless we prayed for her and her son and trust that God will bring her to the point of final surrender.
I know that there's so many more stories I could share of God at work in people's lives. It's such a privilege to be a part of those stories, even if I'm just a spectator. And to all of you who have been praying for us as a ministry, you are a part of these stories as well! God bless you for your part! You probably won't fully see the fruit of your efforts until we are on the other side, but for now you can know that God is using you powerfully!
I hope that you all have a wonder Easter, remembering not just how much our freedom cost but incredible joy and the power of the resurrection.
"I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come." Ephesians 1:18-21
Friday, April 13, 2012
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Healing Bodies and Souls...
Every year we host a ministry from Montana which brings doctors and nurses to put on free medical clinics in different areas around San Carlos. Today we're on a day off having already visited four places, seen over 750 people, handed out a lot of vitamins, glasses, and other medications, as well as Bibles. With three days left to go, we're enjoying a rather odd for San Carlos day, cool and cloudy with a little bit of drizzle here and there.
Monday was the busiest day we've had so far, being a holiday, Aniversario de la Constitución, and there were people waiting for us the moment we got there. I don't think the line of people waiting to get in ever depleted until about 3:00 in the afternoon when we had to stop accepting people so we could ensure that the backlog of people waiting to see the doctor would get a chance. 300 made it through that day, either wanting to see a doctor or to get a pair of glasses, whether reading, prescription or sun glasses.
Recently, I was reading in Matthew, about how Jesus had compassion on the people. Four times the word "compassion" is mentioned in Matthew. Each time its used pretty much the same way. "Jesus had compassion on them..." He saw their needs and He had compassion on them. But it never stops there. He saw their needs, had compassion on them, and then did something about it. In every case, his compassion lead Him to action, to do something to meet there needs. Jesus' compassion led Him to provide food for them, heal them, give them sight. Though He did what He could to meet their physical needs, He also saw their spiritual needs, the condition of their hearts, and turned to His disciples and said, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."
I don't mention this to pat ourselves on the back to say how we've been doing just through something like the medical clinics that but rather, that it was a big reminder for me. Perhaps you are not the same task-oriented type of person that I am, but sometimes I get caught up in the task before me and forget about the needs of the people around me, their physical needs and their spiritual needs.
It's interesting the connection there is between the physical needs and spiritual needs. Many people who come down on missions teams comment about this as well, how people who are in physical need tend to be more open to hearing about the Lord. It's easily seen on a large scale when you compare Mexico with Canada or the US. With such prosperity in Canada and the US, you see hearts that, in general, are very closed to God or anything to do with Him. Here on the other hand, with conditions being a little harder, people are open to hearing and it is exciting to see them respond!
Of course, I need only look at my own life and I can see that it is in the times of crisis that I have been brought down to my knees and have been drawn closer to God. And times of "prosperity" are the times when I may tend to drift away.
Although many people come to these medical clinics with some very basic needs, whether it be reading glasses, or with cold symptoms, or even just wanting some vitamins, some do come with some more serious medical issues. But the doctors take time to pray with each person whom they see. And every once in a while we see a transformed person coming out of that tent, seeing it written all over their face that they have in fact given their life to the Lord.
If you think about us over the next three days, pray for the people that come, not only that they would see Jesus through the acts of compassion, but that we would have the opportunity to introduce them to the One who can meet the deepest needs of their souls.
Monday was the busiest day we've had so far, being a holiday, Aniversario de la Constitución, and there were people waiting for us the moment we got there. I don't think the line of people waiting to get in ever depleted until about 3:00 in the afternoon when we had to stop accepting people so we could ensure that the backlog of people waiting to see the doctor would get a chance. 300 made it through that day, either wanting to see a doctor or to get a pair of glasses, whether reading, prescription or sun glasses.
Recently, I was reading in Matthew, about how Jesus had compassion on the people. Four times the word "compassion" is mentioned in Matthew. Each time its used pretty much the same way. "Jesus had compassion on them..." He saw their needs and He had compassion on them. But it never stops there. He saw their needs, had compassion on them, and then did something about it. In every case, his compassion lead Him to action, to do something to meet there needs. Jesus' compassion led Him to provide food for them, heal them, give them sight. Though He did what He could to meet their physical needs, He also saw their spiritual needs, the condition of their hearts, and turned to His disciples and said, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."
I don't mention this to pat ourselves on the back to say how we've been doing just through something like the medical clinics that but rather, that it was a big reminder for me. Perhaps you are not the same task-oriented type of person that I am, but sometimes I get caught up in the task before me and forget about the needs of the people around me, their physical needs and their spiritual needs.
It's interesting the connection there is between the physical needs and spiritual needs. Many people who come down on missions teams comment about this as well, how people who are in physical need tend to be more open to hearing about the Lord. It's easily seen on a large scale when you compare Mexico with Canada or the US. With such prosperity in Canada and the US, you see hearts that, in general, are very closed to God or anything to do with Him. Here on the other hand, with conditions being a little harder, people are open to hearing and it is exciting to see them respond!
Of course, I need only look at my own life and I can see that it is in the times of crisis that I have been brought down to my knees and have been drawn closer to God. And times of "prosperity" are the times when I may tend to drift away.
Although many people come to these medical clinics with some very basic needs, whether it be reading glasses, or with cold symptoms, or even just wanting some vitamins, some do come with some more serious medical issues. But the doctors take time to pray with each person whom they see. And every once in a while we see a transformed person coming out of that tent, seeing it written all over their face that they have in fact given their life to the Lord.
If you think about us over the next three days, pray for the people that come, not only that they would see Jesus through the acts of compassion, but that we would have the opportunity to introduce them to the One who can meet the deepest needs of their souls.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Manitoba, mountains, and more...
Wow, where has the time gone?! So much has happened since the last blog post and there's been little time to blog about it along the way! Thankfully, though, we've got a bit of a breather this week to get life back in order and take care of some of those things that have fallen by the wayside...
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!
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!
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