FAMex

29 May 2018

Exciting News!

We are excited to announce that Matheus da Silva, who served with us regularly in 2016/2017, will be joining our team here in Ixtapaluca!

Matheus is a Brazilian who lives in Portugal. He came to school at Word of Life Mexico, and part of his education included his weekend trips with several other interns to serve in Las Palmas.

Rebecca, Hannah, Matheus, Karen Matheus will be crossing the ocean again to join us on a full time basis – basically as an intern for a year.

We very much appreciated Matheus when he was here last. He and the other interns who came played a key role in the beginning of the new church in Las Palmas. He has been serving in Portugal since then, in his local church and also in Word of Life Portugal.

Lord willing, Matheus will be coming through Camino Global and FAMEX (a Mexican mission agency associated with Camino), and we hope to see him in Ixtapaluca before the end of the summer. Rod has been working hard at navigating that paperwork and general bureaucracy involved in getting Matheus from here to there.

Matheus teaching Please pray for Matheus, that God would prepare his heart for the ministry ahead. Also pray that the funds he needs would come in quickly, and that God would raise up more people to commit to pray for him during his time here.

If you’re interested in supporting Matheus through prayer or financially, please contact us.

There’s an interesting family connection between the Frys and Matheus – you can read about that, plus see some more pictures and videos, right here. (By the way, yes, this post has the same title as Rod’s. I wanted to go with something else – but frankly, this is just plain exciting news!)

27 May 2013

Why so Silent?

Jim Mexico, Missions 0

Hmmm… yes, it has been a little quiet around here lately! And why would that be?

Well, one reason – it’s May. MANIC MAY. Traditionally May is a crazy crazy crazy month, and this year has been no exception.

‘Nuff said about that.

Last week we took some time away, spending time as a family and visiting friends in other states of Mexico.

On the weekend we enjoyed a missions conference in north Mexico City, put on by a church there and FAMEX, a Mexican mission agency that our mission works with.

It was a really good time to learn more about needs in Mexico and around the world.

We enjoyed seeing David Gomez, who worked with us here and is now serving in Uruguay. He shared some of his fish-out-of-water adventures as a Mexican in a foreign land.

We also saw many others who are either serving in or heading to countries around the world – Asia, the Middle East – many other cultures and countries.

Quite a few came from our church to the conference. Our friend Samuel gave a workshop on art in the church. Rod helped organize the conference.

It was exciting to see Mexicans and other Latinos making an impact around the world. It was startling to hear about some of the needs. And inspiring to hear some of the things we can do about it.

Now we’re back at work with a busy week closing out Manic May. Hopefully we’ll survive!

I will try to get some pictures up of all our recent adventures – but knowing our schedule, it may be a while. Thanks for your patience! 🙂

11 April 2013

English? Spanish? Native? Urban? Come to Mexico!

Jim Mexico, Missions, ST Highlight 0

Most summers here our team has had the pleasure of hosting interns for 4, 6, or 8 weeks. And more time and less time, but those are the official time frames for those coming for the internship program.

It has generally been a very good experience for everyone. Interns and teams allow us to do things in the community that we couldn’t otherwise. Short termers with different experiences with the Lord, and of different ages (from kids to white-haired adventurers), can reach different people that we might never reach.

Actually, at our recent anniversary service I was reminded of the impact of short term missionaries. Though many (almost all?) have been impacted by short term teams, one lady shared that she had become connected to the church almost exactly a year ago. She started coming to the events we had when the team was here from Mirror Alliance and Innisfail Baptist (Alberta, Canada).

Anyway, last year we had teams and interns from all three North American countries – Canada, the United States, and Mexico. As a matter of fact, this year FAMex (a Mexican mission agency) has teamed up with Camino Global to invite Spanish speaking interns to join us again. There’s urban ministry in Guadalajara, music, art and sports around here, and outreach to indigenous (generally non-Spanish speaking, or groups that don’t speak Spanish as a first language) peoples in other parts of Mexico.

It’s exciting the opportunities that are available!

Incidentally, I would love to see a team of native believers from Canada come down and do a two-part trip – an outreach to the community in Ixtapaluca and an outreach to a native village. Any takers? (Actually, I’ve already talked over the idea with a couple of people from FAMex, so it’s not idle talk…)

Anyway, if you’d like to know more, here’s the brochure for English speakers, and here’s some information for Spanish speakers. (Remember, this is just information for the internship programs. If you’d like to come as an individual, family, or team at another time or for a different period of time – let’s talk!)

17 January 2013

Hurtling into 2013!

Jim Mexico, Ministry glimpses, Missions 1

With the unexpected trips of the past couple of months, it’s taking us a little while to catch up with 2013! Although frankly so much has happened already in 2013 it’s hard to believe it’s only the 17th!

As you may know we took a trip to the border to be involved in the Rio Grande Bible Institute mission conference, and to deal with some paperwork. I’d rather not describe all of our adventures, but let’s just say we weren’t very involved in the conference, between health issues and paperwork issues.

In spite of all that, two bits of good news…

Samuel in the workshop at RGBI

We did get the paperwork done that we needed to get done – without a hitch.
The conference actually went very well, and CAM/Camino/FAMex were well represented by Rod, Samuel, Fernando and Erik. They talked to a lot of students, gave an interview, and presented a workshop about using creative means in evangelism and reaching out to urban and rural areas of Mexico.
We were able to bring some things back from the US for some friends here.

Home again, we’re still catching up after our trip, although the kids have started school again with a vengeance. Today Nathanael was learning about the Imperial Woodpecker (currently his favourite bird – sadly, it’s probably extinct). And Hannah was learning about liquid cohesion.

Community centre activities started up this week, and Shari helped with a baking class this morning. So far everyone seems encouraged about the number of people coming to the community centre and to the Bible studies.

Lord willing I’ll be helping out in various areas during the first part of this year – giving Bible studies, preaching, and being involved in outreach in various areas (not just JesÃºs MarÃa). We also continue to help with fundraising efforts here and abroad for the new church property. And – let’s face it – we have visas on the brain and are still working to get those! 😛

We’re looking forward to various people coming short term in the months ahead. We’re hoping to see some families come down, as well as individuals and teams. Anyone want to do some construction work? 🙂

So – I guess we’re well into 2013, whether we like it or not! Today I was reminded of these familiar words from the Gospel of Matthew, about our Lord’s compassion. Truly so many people are “harassed and helpless”. Please pray for labourers!

And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction.

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.”

(Matthew 9:35-38)