About the OTHER place

With a new start for the congregation in “Los Héroes” “Flores” section, a few of us turned our attention to the new service begun in “Los Héroes” “Bosques” section.  Our music students and their parents stayed for the short worship service that followed.  One of the guitar students was invited to play with the worship team.  It was wonderful to see our service take hold.  We were a 50-50 split: 6 workers from the Flores service and 6 guests in our service.

Comments from the Staff

Along with Monday morning staff meeting’s breakfast came comments about the test, the celebration afterwards with “tamales,” and questions about who will pastor the congregation.  For the moment, I will be overseeing the work as “Missionary-pastor.”  But we are eagerly praying and looking for someone to pastor the “flock.”  Some suggestions were made that had us all thinking about the future of the church, “1 More 4 Christ.”

The Day After

The following Sunday, our activities returned to their normal routine – only without the added burden that we’d carried for weeks before.  Our music instructors taught their classes and our worship service followed.  A refreshingly new air filled our building.  Is it my imagination or have we truly begun a new stage in the life of our congregation?

Praying for Leaders

After our doctrinal exam, the pastors and leaders of other congregations took the time to pray for our new leadership team.  It was inspiring to see them raise their voices to bless and charge those who are leading in our church.  The same was done for our missionary team and my family.

The TEST

Pastor Samuel applied the exam questions as the congregation answered.  It was a tense time as well as time of cheering on each one that answered the questions.  This has been months in the preparation and at last the time has come!

The Doctrinal Exam

We had representatives from different churches show up to support us in our exam.  It was wonderful to see the place filled and to have lots of friends present.  

And the FOOD!

One of the ladies in the church took on the chore of making handmade “tamales” for our event.  She started early in the morning with everything ready on time for our guests to enjoy not only one or two, but many tamales.

Signing Up

The youth worked together to create some decorative posters to cover the windows in our hall for the doctrinal exam.  They did a great job in being creative.  And all this in just an afternoon.

Prayer – Works

Baptismal certificates were handed out on Sunday celebrating our newest members in the congregation.  We were missing one of the youth, but the congregation prayed for the lives of these men trusting that God would use them and grow them.  We’re stoked!  And they are serving!

Mom’s Day

During our service, the kids gave the moms gift bags with a little something for them.  The men got involved scooping out ice cream with a cookie on top after the service and handing them out to the moms and then the rest.  It was a great time to socialize and snack.  Congrats moms for being so great!

Serenading the Moms

After the youth meeting and etc., we took the young people out to visit the homes of the moms in our congregation.  They went with the intention of singing to the moms, giving them a flower as a gift and then praying for each one.  I had a list of about 25 to visit, but we only managed to sing to our regulars, which were about 15.  Next year we will have to form two teams so that we can finish earlier and sing to all of them.

A Long Youth Meeting

We spent long hours with youth this weekend.  They arrived for their normal Bible study and afterwards we spent time putting together a gift for the moms.  After that we ate hot dogs and played some video games.  We started at 4 p.m. and didn’t end until about 12:30 a.m.

Green Card

Yep, it’s official, we now have our Mexican “green” cards.  That sounds odd to say it.  But we no longer have to process visas.  This means one less visit to be frustrated by Mexican bureaucracy.

Test Jitters

We asked all of those involved in our May 16 doctrinal exam to show up during prayer meeting so that we could check to see how people were doing with respect to memorizing the different doctrines.  We had so many people in our tiny house that we had to change things around and have our worship team sing from the patio, outside, into where the congregation was seated.  How fun to outgrow our place!

Saying “good-bye”

We took a wonderful group picture at the camp’s entrance reminding us all of how fortunate we were to have spent time together and to have gone to Tuxpan, Veracruz.  I hope that we have many more occasions to spend time together.  Thanks all at the camp for putting up with us!

Lots of Time for God

Mornings were filled with personal devotional time along with a corporate devotional and afternoons and evenings gave us time to look at spiritual gifts.  Worship was in essential part of every meeting.

Kids and Play

After noon is one of the hottest times of the day at the camp.  So Keila organized games for the kids, youth and adults to play together.  It was hilarious watching and playing together.  I think I forget how important it is to play as hard as we work.

Is there any reason...?

Baptisms were on the agenda during our time near the water.  After singing songs, hearing testimonies and prayers; we were all a part of the 4 baptisms.  How many people does it take to baptize a new believer?

Fun in the Son

Keila taught the kids during their stay at Kikomar and on one occasion we headed to the beach to comb the shore for beautiful shells made especially for us and to sing songs to our creator.  It was hot.  It was creative.  It was fun!

First Stop

Upon arriving to Camp Kikomar outside of Veracruz, our people dropped their gear in the campgrounds and…  Well you can imagine.  They jumped into the ocean!  The water was warm and the day overcast.  A great way to start out time together!

Out of Town

This Labor Day included a very long weekend ending for most on the following Wednesday.  This happened because Cinco de Mayo was added to the mix.  Well we followed the crowd out of town and went to Veracruz to baptize, fellowship and have a church retreat.  Imagine that, our church renting a big bus to take us all over to the Gulf coast.  Amazing!