This weekend marked the end of the CAM International internship program here in Mexico.  On Sunday they flew to Dallas, to spend a last brief time together before going their separate ways.  (All except for Tiffany, who is actually a part of our team here and will be here for a year – hurray!)

The interns had a very eclectic few weeks here, there’s no doubt about it.  They did ministry all over the place – here in Ixtapaluca, of course, but also in the State of Veracruz and up north of Mexico City at Camp Koinonia near San Juan del Río.

They taught English, Basketball, and of course the Word of God.  They also spent a lot of time just sharing their lives.

I made the video below for their time in Dallas.  Of course it leaves out a lot of things they did – I had to work with the video and photos and time that I had.  (By the way, this isn’t all from me – it’s a pool of video and pictures from Rod and the interns and myself)

But one thing struck me as I watched the footage you’ll see here.  There are so many people that I see that I didn’t know at all or knew very little about when the video was being taken.  Now they are people that I do know… people that are involved in Bible studies, and in other events.

In other words, God used these men and women who came for the internship to bring the Word of God to more people, and to connect more people with the believers here.  And I’m only going by what I see – who knows what else God did in and through them.

If you want to see some of what they did while they were here (maybe you want to come next summer!), check out the video below.  It’s about 10 minutes long.

This past Saturday we hosted a Canada Day party for the community of people we know in Jesús María.  The party itself was in our neighbourhood.  We had a fun time – a little street hockey, a quiz, a game, lots of great food, Canadian music, friends . . . all around good.

This year was a bit unusual because the kids’ birthday parties had "Canadianish" themes too.  So it’s been kind of a Canadian season.

It’s actually been three years since we last did this.  The first year we were moving, and the next we were in Canada.  So here’s the last Canada Day Fiesta we had.

So anyway, here’s a brief view of the party – just under 2 minutes.

Yesterday was a fantastic day!  Two churches got together for a baptismal service, and ten people were baptized!  Four of them are a part of our brand new church in Jesús María.

The other church was, of course, Sendero de Vida Santa Barbara.

We enjoyed a great outdoor service, and all ten people gave testimonies.  There was Bible reading, music, a devotional on Mat 16:21-26 – but I’ll just let you check out the video.

The service was the same place as last year, a waterpark in Texcoco.  And I think the water was colder than last year – but that’s just a guess. 

For more, see the pictures over at In the Shadow of Volcanoes.

That would be this weekend!

Tonight there’s a youth conference, organized by our friend David Gomez.  David is the speaker, and we also have Columbian recording artist Laura Guaza coming.

Apparently David is going to be singing too, and I’ll even be doing a song or two.  Not sure which ones yet … I’d better get that figured out. 

The theme tonight is Youth with Purpose.

And on Sunday morning – we’re heading to a water park!  And yes, we’re going for the same reason we went around this time last year.  Except this year two churches will be involved!

Both the church in Santa Barbara and the church in Jesús María will be bringing people to be baptized!  So we’re looking forward to a GREAT day on Sunday the 20th.  We’ve been looking forward to it for a long time!

As we head into next week we’ll be thinking about school things again.  Hannah is starting exams, I imagine Nathanael is soon too.  We’ve reserved the rented tux for Nathanael’s graduation from 3 years of kindergarten.  And we’re working on his graduation cap.  Lots to do before school ends in July.

And, of course, there are Bible studies coming up on Tuesday that we’re getting ready for.  (And let us not forget, that’s the day we want to see Mexico get its second win in the World Cup!)

But now it’s time to focus on the weekend.  I’d better go pick up Nathanael from school – see you later!

I went up to the community centre today and took some video of the interns teaching English and basketball.  Here’s a quick 1 minute and 45 seconds from the afternoon, to show you what’s going on…

Decided to show you a little bit of context today.  In this video you’ll be able to see what the community centre looks like now from the outside, and part of it from the inside.  Also, you can see the building (on the outside) where we meet on Sunday mornings (and other times – like for the women’s Bible study Tuesday mornings and the Chronological Bible Study Tuesday nights) and the street where it lives.  Just a quick look!

Thanks for those who prayed for us recently, being sick and all.  Nathanael is doing quite a bit better.  He was back in school on Wednesday, though he still has to have eye drops until Saturday.  I’m sure he would say the eye drops are worse than the disease.

I’m not 100% yet, but a whole lot better than I was a few days ago.

Somehow we still managed to have a full week so far.  I just barely made it to the Bible study on Tuesday night (which went very well, and was packed with people).  Shari also had a study that morning and … lets see … she was involved in an activity this morning.  It’s also been a solid week for homework, and we’ve had a lot of other things to do on various fronts.

So thankfully things are moving along.  We’re looking forward to having a visitor from another part of Mexico City this weekend (and believe me, that can be a journey!).  So that should be fun.  AND, of course, the first World Cup game tomorrow!  Mexico vs South Africa!  And we all know who’s going to WIN, don’t we?

By the way, I meant to mention a while ago that you can now get directly to our blog by going to Finding-direction.com.  Or you can use the old URL – same thing.  A little help for those of you having trouble remembering how to spell Cottrill off the top of your head. Just don’t forget the dash.

Sick has been the word, lately – not just us, either.  Other members of our team have been hit with one thing or another lately.

On Sunday I started feeling sick – I was hoping it was just my imagination, but by Monday morning it was obvious it wasn’t.

In the mean time, Nathanael’s eyes started getting red.  You guessed it – the dreaded "pink eye"!

So the boys in the family went off to the doctor yesterday morning.  Nathanael got a couple of drugs (including his "favourite" – eye drops), and I got some too (not eye drops.  Vitamins, though, not just drugs.  Imagine that!).

Nathanael is fine other than his eyes – lots of energy.  But he’s home from school for one more day while we try to get him better.

I’ve been pretty out of it the last couple of days, but – no rest for the wicked … er … weary … whatever.  I was trying to help Shari with her study (she helping to lead a women’s study now) and trying to keep the kids moving.  Shari was up until 1 or 2 in the morning I believe, working on the study.  I should have been up until 1 or 2 working on the Chronological Bible Study, but I was just too out of it.

So today I’m still out of it, but trying to do something.  Like help Nathanael with his homework.  Hopefully Shari will get a bit of a break so that she doesn’t get sick – though she may be nursing people back to health!

Then this morning we got word that one of the interns was quite sick.  Sounds like a stomach bug, but when he got it HE GOT IT.  So the Frys were up half the night helping him, and they’re trying to nurse him back to health today.  They’re taking good care of him – so I have no doubt he’ll be back in the game very soon.  But I’m sure he would appreciate your prayers.

We appreciate your prayers in the midst of what sometimes feels like chaos – God is working, and of course He’s reminding us that He can work even when we’re tired and sick.  It’s not like He "needs" our brilliant efforts to accomplish His purpose.  But He still wants us involved – thanks for those who are praying for us and helping in so many ways!  There are exciting things happening as God’s Word is being spread.

Lord willing I’ll be able to make it to the study tonight… we’ll see.  Either way, pray for José who will be leading, Lord willing.  It’s a very key topic tonight (I guess it is every night, though, in a 15 week study of the whole Bible!) – the Call of Abram.

If you’ve been watching our Facebook or Twitter accounts (see the sidebar on the right), you may know we had some problems with our Photo Gallery.  You’ll be glad to hear that I was able to get the current photos back up almost right away.  I’ll also be working to get the older photos and special albums back online.

Anyway, the only catch is that the links have changed, so links to specific pictures are currently broken.

Anyway, feel free to visit the Photo Gallery anytime, and watch for continual additions (After all that – the link was broken.  It works now!).

I also thought you might be interested to know that our church and community centre have an online calendar.  So if you want to see for yourself some of the events that are happening in the neighbourhood of Jesús María, just visit Iglesia-en-JM.com.  The events in blue are community centre events.

Tonight we’re into the fourth week of our fifteen week Chronological Bible Study.  Our friend Allan will be leading tonight, and I’m sure he would appreciate your prayers.

I haven’t given you a lot of details about the study (which is in the neighbourhood of Jesús María), so let me tell you just a bit about it quickly.

I did give you a brief explanation of it’s purpose – see here.  As I mentioned before, the study is designed – or, I should say, is being designed, specifically for the urban Mexico context.  That’s part of the reason for it’s length (fairly short – only 15 weeks).  And yet, our hope is that it will give people a broad view of the Bible and its themes – most importantly it’s theme – the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

As a result, it’s not so much set up like a long line – one book after the other, one year of history after another.  It’s more like a pyramid – a strong foundation building up to the peak, which is the coming of the Lord Jesus and His work.

The Gospel story needs to be understood in the light of what has come before.

So we’re actually spending almost a full third of the study laying our foundations in Genesis.

We started with an overview of what the Bible is (focusing on 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5).  Then the Creation, the Fall, this week the Flood, and next week the Call of Abram.

As you might imagine, choosing the topics and the passages was perhaps the hardest part, involving many hours of work.

Each week we focus on a main passage, with a few supporting passages.  It’s not a verse or two – they’re longer passages.  That way people can see the context and dig for the meaning.

A series of questions starts the conversation.  This is designed to be less of a teaching situation and more of a conversation based study.  Why?  Because part of our purpose is to teach people to dig into the Bible themselves – find out what the passage says, and not just repeat what they’ve heard.

The questions and passages are also designed to help us think about things particularly relevant to our Mexican urban context, though I suspect they would work fine in most contexts.

Tonight we’re covering the whole story of the Flood.  Then we’ll be talking about things like:  What does the story of the Flood tell us about sin?  And What were God’s promises and commandments?  And, regarding Hebrews 11:7, what does it mean when it says that Noah "condemned the world"?

The story of the Flood is full of the themes of sin, grace, judgment, and faith.  Read it for yourself in Genesis 6:5-9:17.

Hopefully at the end, we will be able to better see the world in the light of the Scriptures (as our poster says).  But we also want to be better equipped to study the Bible in the future, seeing how it fits together and understanding how to read it in context.

I haven’t been counting, but we’ve had an excellent turnout each week, packing the little room where we meet (the same room we meet in on Sunday morning).

I hope that gives you a little more of a picture of what’s happening in this part of the ministry!