A Bold New Future

Tracey and I along with many Latin America Mission missionaries met with our new mission, “United World Mission.”  I was anxious about the merger of the two missions and the resulting feelings to this new organization as the LAM closes its doors.  It was a wonderful introduction by its president and staff to a new partnership that will benefit us all and give us a new and long future reaching the world for Christ.  The LAM will close up at the end of 2013, but UWM will not lose a beat in the transition.  Those giving can continue to give to the LAM and UWM will get the funds to the right place.  Thanks for your prayers and we appreciate your faithfulness.

On her own…

 

Due to some important meetings that Tracey and I had this week, María was left on her own to lead the women’s Bible study as well as visit some of the families we usually meet with on Wednesday.  While I’m sure it was a busy day, I’ve heard back that many were pleased with the outcome, the conversations and the encouragement.  Thanks to both Maria and Jasmin, our partners in the work, people have felt cared for and listened to.

Preachers of the Month

Finishing off this month of invited speakers, Tracey shared about God’s handiwork through his description of “bread.”  She began with “manna” in the Old Testament and then went to the “bread of life” in the new.  It was a whirlwind adventure through the scriptures to see how God has provided for his people through the ages.  Thanks Tracey for your hard work and your continued dedication to the growth of the congregation.

A Special Guest…

 

Liz came and visited us this weekend.  Stopping over in Mexico City, Tracey took her to the church she helped start.  Bet-lehem Baptist Church is the one we’re working with to start new churches.  After that she joined us in our service in 1 More 4 Christ.  Finally we went out for some locally made burgers and then took her back to her hotel in Mexico City.  It was wonderful to see her and the pics she brought of her family.  Trust she has a safe journey home.

What’s left?

Our youth went out on a local scavenger hunt with their cameras looking for the old and used in groups of 3.  Here’s our partial list: a man with gray hair, a woman with wrinkles, shoes hanging from wires, broken toy, flat tire, graffiti on a wall, brown grass, puddled water, old coke can, old glass bottle, oxidized metal, dead plant, discarded food, broken plastic, faded sign, weathered wood.  And here are some of their pics.

Preachers of the Month

With very little experience, Jasmín is willing to learn how to share God’s word with a larger group of people.  She once said, “I don’t mind teaching one-on-one, but when it comes to larger groups, I get flustered and lose concentration.”  She’s been working hard on a message from Exodus 14 dealing with the God who protects us.  And I trust that she’ll learn how to let God use her to share his word to his people.  She did!

Youth Actors

 

So we’re getting a bit of a late start on this, but the youth are participating in a Christmas skit that just began its practices.  “We need to schedule more practice dates,” Keila pulled me aside to comment.  She’s directing the play.  Amidst overgrown grass and its mosquitoes, a cool breeze and the background noise of a freeway; we pulled off a quick practice at the tail end of youth group.  While the lighting was interesting, I can’t help but think that it would be an interesting effect to have “on stage.”

Taking Note

We had two guests this weekend.  The daughters of the pastor of the Bread of Life church in La Presa hung out with our daughters.  They visited our youth group and enjoyed the activities.  But after the games, the play practice and our Bible study; one told me, “I’m going to take this Bible study sheet to our youth leader to see if we can study this too.”  It was good to hear a positive note from them as well as from our own daughters.  “It was fun tonight,” they said.

 Bible study in the park

Men Back on Track

Last month, due to work schedules, we were only able to have one meeting.  But, we decided to set the time on Thursday evenings in order to bring some regularity to our group.  So this time we had 6 in our home eating some sweet breads and drinking coffee as we discussed the next in our series of proverbs.  It was great to see how God led us to a practical and understandable conclusion to the verse we studied.  There were lots of stories told to make us think.  And this time we finished under 2 hours!

Worship Team

Last week was our first shot at beefing up our worship time.  With three people on microphones and two instruments, I enjoyed hearing the lyrics clearly and watching some in the congregation close their eyes to worship.  I think we’re making inroads as to being an instrument in the overall service to open people’s hearts to listen to God.  We’ve still got some barriers to overcome: the lack of song books – we had 14 for over 40 people, and giving people a chance to participate in worship.

`“I was deceived!”

I shared with the congregation at the end of the service just before the offering that I had been deceived.  Last week, I was told that there weren’t enough chairs for everyone, so we decided to use the accumulated offerings to buy new chairs.  We bought 12 more.  And confident that we’d have extra chairs for visitors, we welcomed each family to our worship service after our music classes on Sunday. 

Well, when all was said and done, we filled up the chairs once again and were left with not a single chair available.  “I was deceived!”  God brought in several new families and our congregation is growing. 

You’ve been praying and God’s been answering.  I challenged those giving offerings to consider the need and give accordingly.  Hopefully we can buy some more chairs as we accumulate more funds.

Preachers of the Month

This week, Pastor Ignacio from our sister church “Bread of Life” joined us and spoke on the topic: God of Promises.  He challenged the congregation to a holy life.  We were glad when he accepted the opportunity to share with us and can see how God is touching our lives to be like his.  Here’s a short video of the pastor’s sermon in Spanish.

He invited us all to join him at Bread of Life’s 10^th anniversary on December 1.  Many are excited about going.

 

Sharing some eats

After some games and activities in the park, the youth came over to our home to study the Bible and prepare for some Christmas activities.  In the midst of all the fun and work, we managed to blow out some candles and “wolf-down” some cake.  Keila is a year older now.

Pyramid adventure

What do you say to an invitation to climb the highest climbable pyramid in the world?  Tracey and the girls journeyed out to our local pyramids and went up and down in the ruins.  They managed to make a space to visit the artisan shops and do some serious shopping too.  Listen to what they said of their adventure…

An Unexpected Guest

This last week as we prepared to celebrate her birthday, Keila was joined by her teammate from Malawi.  Tracey managed to secretively invite Kayla down to surprise her.  They spent several days together touring through the city and meeting with some friends.  It was a joy to have Kayla in our home and to share our activities and our culture and especially our local foods with her.  She left today for her home, but the two hope to meet up again next summer for another Africa mission adventure.

Preachers of the Month

After months of preaching, I will be able to take a break in November.  We invited different ones from our congregation and from our sister congregation, Bread of Life, to help carry the load this month.   

We’ve wanted to formalize the worship team, as well as look at developing the service and other details related to the church. So I’ll have a bit of time to spend with those looking to serve in new and different areas of our congregation.  Thank you for your prayers.

This Sunday, Maria shared about a God of miracles.

Help from the One in Christ Congregation

On Thursday, Jasmin was unable to come to help make visits. So I called on one of the ladies who in the past helped us do door-to-door evangelism in our neighborhood.  She’s from our sister congregation and agreed to help.  She managed to help make connect with a family whose wife had been studying the Bible with us but suddenly stopped.  When we visited, both she and her husband allowed for a visit.  We hope to begin Bible studies with them once again.

Stretching Out the Sermon

On Sunday, I headed out early to Bet-lehem the mother church to preach.  My commitment that day was to preach in their 3 services – morning, late morning and evening.  It was a marathon day of sharing God’s word in the three settings.  I came home exhausted.   

 

I just can't keep still for a photo...

My family along with the faithful believers in Los Héroes took over my responsibilities during the music and English classes.  And they did a wonderful job leading the afternoon service.  We had a good number of people attend. 

Just barely…

We wrestled with seating space again this week.  We had more people than chairs available, so some ended up standing for the service.  It was a good feeling. One of our key families was out, but a new family invited by an attending family showed up.   

Our families and friends
 Tracey and Jasmin went out before the service to bring people in.  And guess what?  It worked.  Again!

Can't wait any longer for more chairs...

Can you help us pray?

More Moving Youth?

 

We had a good number of adolescents attend on Saturday.  Besides playing soccer and some other games, we enjoyed learning how to take a picture of someone in motion.  They all had to wrestle with blurry photos, but this one came out best.  

They all agreed to participate in a Christmas play production, so we’re all looking forward to putting something together soon for the church.

 

Pizza Party Again?

Here’s a quick shot of what we did during our class on how to make a pizza.  The kids in the back ground were working to help Keila with the Community outreach project that she and Tracey had volunteered for in Bet-lehem.  We had fun and look forward to another “kitchen” lesson.