Hand and Foot

Our girls have recently been taking karate classes to get more exercise and have enjoyed the instruction.  They get a tremendous workout and often come home exhausted.  Well on Thursday, they had their exam, and after a long and hard workout got their purple belt.  Congrats girls, you deserve every inch of that colorful belt.  I’m proud of you both!

Willing families

With our lack of classroom space, we’ve had a family offer their home on Sundays for Sunday school.  But on Tuesdays, the children have been meeting on the front lawn of the house where we have our prayer meetings, until yesterday.  Another family offered for the time being to house the kids class during the prayer meeting.  We’re so glad that the families in our congregation have opened their homes and their hearts to the kids.  Keep praying for a place to meet!

A Long Night

Alongside our building (the hall we’re renting) is a small courtyard, the entrance to a governmental office.  We use the courtyard for the children’s Sunday school classes.  Over the past few weeks with changing weather, the kids have gone outside during the preaching time for their class with heavy jackets on.  It’s been getting colder! 

With the time change on Sunday in Mexico, we had to deal with yet another new phenomena – darkness.  Fortunately the rains have diminished.

With a small hall between the bathrooms, we’ve been able to put a table out and a light for the smallest ones to study there.  One of the families living near our building takes the time to clear out their living room so that the older kids can have their class there.

We need your prayers to find a small house to rent.  We don’t want our kids out in the darkness and in the cold.

24th Birthday

We attended church at Bet-lehem, the mother church to celebrate their anniversary.  They had an elaborate theater production to help liven things up and make the event special.  Happy Birthday Bet-lehem Baptist church.  May God give you many more years of service to Him and the community.

Going North "legally"

One of the families in our congregation has been wrestling with the task of getting passports and a visa to visit family in the States.  We’ve heard of many who have tried, but few who have gotten documentation to travel.  Well, they started the process a month ago and last week got their paperwork.  Looks like mother and son will be going to the central valley in California to visit their daughter and sister.  God is so good!

A Milestone Birthday

Tracey celebrated her birthday last weekend and had several days of “fiesta.”  It was fun seeing her open her emails on Saturday as many of you sent your birthday wishes to her.  Thanks so much for cooperating with that request.  She was taken out to eat by several at different times and enjoyed the extra attention.  On Sunday the church had a fellowship time with cake in appreciation for all that she’s done for the families.

“I want a group like theirs…”

This was the comment made by one of the youth after attending a concert and conference organized by the largest church in our network.  The youth group that put the concert together had about 32 that attended on Saturday.  The congregations from La Presa, Tizayuca and Los Héroes sent their youth groups.

The event was well organized and filled with excitement.

We plan on organizing one for the end of November.  Please pray for our youth group, so that they can be as attentive and motivated as the “mother” church youth were.

Men stepping up to the plate

Over the past two weeks, we’ve had two of the men in the congregation preach.  Each has had prior experience in a church and has preached.  While it’s been some years since they’ve shared, they’re getting back into the swing of things.  Gerardo preached on discernment and Marco on unity.  I applaud their efforts and their willingness to help.

 

I will be visiting the men to see what they need and how to better their skill.  Several will want to continue to grow in this area.  I’d like to see how to best encourage them in their endeavor.

Reporting back

Now that we’re receiving a small stipend to help the new church, which we hope to use for the new house we’ll be renting for weekly meetings, I am responsible to send in a monthly report detailing our activities and how we’ve spent the money.  Here’s my picture version attached to the written document.

Focusing on the kids.

Come the end of the month and the beginning of next month, the community will be celebrating Halloween and Day of the Dead.  We wanted to offer an alternative for our families, so we’ll be sponsoring a Kids Festival with games and prizes.  The youth are in charge of the event and are putting together games for the kids to play. 

 

We could really use your help in buying candies.  The youth only have their lives as resources.   

Would you be willing to donate 

so that we can purchase an abundance of candies 

for the kids that day?  Please let us know. Thanks

Having fun, just us.

The youth group has been doing well studying 1 John and grasping John’s concepts of what our life should look like as believers.  We studied hard, sang some good songs and just had fun playing.  I can count on different members of the youth group leading a certain part of the program each week.  That takes a load off of my shoulders.  And it is fun watching them just have fun.

Starting afresh…

The men’s Bible study on Thursday evenings has just finished studying several chapters of a book on leadership by Maxwell entitled “21 Minutes…”  There have been some good discussions about leadership on the job and in the home.  I think that we often miss out on our responsibilities at home with so much going on at work.  I trust that God will help us change that.

A Stretching Day…

With a little more time on my hands, I invested in our worship team.  I’ve been stretching them to create an environment that helps the congregation to focus on God.  It’s been a hard process with little success so far.  I tell them, “Don’t worry.  If things don’t work out, blame it on me.  I just want us to be the best we can for God and his people.”

Now comes the hard part.  Encouraging them in the light of little success.

I sent them this photo with the caption “When the youth are scared of their leader…”

A Great Week!

This week with another member in the church preaching, it opened up the time to visit those in the church who needed some encouragement or a listening ear.  I thoroughly enjoyed the week and was able to renew some Bible studies that had been left undone.

At times, the work of motivating the church feels like this picture I took on Saturday.   

Each had his style of helping to push a car that was out of gas.

Home grown preachers

This month begins a series of messages on Sundays about the family.  I’ve got a different speaker set up each Sunday to share.  I’m pleased to see that each one that will be preaching comes from our congregation.  Aside from getting some great instruction and insights, I’ll get a short break from preaching.  Maria our Mexican partner in church planting started off the series speaking about dealing with problems in the family.

More “quince años” (15th birthday) fiestas

Our pastor friends in La Presa celebrated the birthday of their oldest daughter this last weekend.  We arrived to help and to be with the family during this very special fiesta.  Our girls and their girls are great friends and have kept in contact (visiting each other’s homes) over the years.  

 

Congratulations Andrea!

Another meeting?

On Saturday, I attended a ministers’ meeting early in the morning.  The time was split between singing hymns, listening to a workshop on the new laws for churches and a time of listening to reports.  While I’m sure I could have found more interesting things to do with my Saturday, we’re laying the groundwork for the relationship that our congregation with have with the local Baptists churches.

Table games

Due to a busy schedule on the weekend, we decided to have the youth come over to our home on Friday for the youth meeting instead of Saturday.  We had our normal activities like songs and a study, but afterwards we had them break up into groups to play table games like Pit and Jenga.  They had a great time, even though we were pressed for time.  The meeting was to go from 8-10, but we didn’t get out of our house until 11 p.m.  The parents were understanding.

Answers to prayer

After Sunday’s service, God worked to get us a place to rent for the church.  Some members asked the owners of a house that they were looking out for if they’d be willing to rent us their empty home.  Well, they said they would think about it.  But when I met them, the owner made it clear that he didn’t want to rent it to us, but he did want us to use it.  So now we have a place to hold our meetings “at no cost” to the congregation.  God is amazing! 

Please continue to pray that the owner’s agreement is made soon.

Like the olden days

Our youth, studying Exodus, had chariot races on the covered basketball court near our hall.  It was fun to hear the chuckles and the screams as they ran their chariots from one end of the court to the other.

“Another year older today…”

Yep, had a birthday last week and enjoyed the day with the family and received some great gifts – here are my favorites.   

 

Also got a group hug from the Sunday school kids.

Time to pray

We’ve been hoping to find a place to rent near our hall and taking God at his word we scheduled our Friday night prayer vigil to be held there.  Well, we couldn’t find a place to rent and ended up renting a tent to place on the front lawn of some church members.

 

Honestly, I didn’t expect very many to show up with the 3-day weekend.  Well, we had over 40 show up to pray and sing.  It was a wonderful evening and one that went by very quickly starting at 7 and ending at 12.

More miracles?

Our friends have a house in a adjacent neighborhood that has been without water for over a year.  Since they don’t live there, it doesn’t really affect them.  But recently the government offered to discount the price of water to 50% this month, so we accompanied them to see what kind of discount they would get on their more than $44,000 bill.  God again was gracious and after talking to some officials, they only charged them a bit over $5,000.  Talk about a miracle.

What you see are two adjacent homes.