Jim

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24 October 2016

This Week: Team Leader Meetings

Jim Ministry glimpses, Missions, Prayer and Praise, ST Highlight 0

This week I (Jim) will be heading to Cholula for a week of meetings with Camino Global team leaders and other mission leadership from around the world. We would all appreciate your prayers as we look to better serve the Lord with Spanish speakers around the world.

This is actually the first time I’ve been to these meetings here in Mexico (you may remember last year in Guatemala, and the year before in Honduras). So it’s pretty exciting to be more of a “host” this time along with the other missionaries here.

Lord willing, four missionaries will join me over the weekend to be involved in ministry in Mexico City. Mexico City alone is more populous than the entire country of Guatemala or Honduras, so it will be a different cultural experience from other years. 🙂

23 October 2016

Retro: Feeling Very Canadian

Jim Family, Just for fun, Retro 0

Now here’s a classic picture, taken on this day 10 years ago.

I believe this was at the bottom of the Calgary Tower. We did a lot of “site-seeing” in October, mostly while hanging out with friends for the last time before moving to Mexico. This was just over one week before we left, actually. It was a day off before we got back to work with last minute packing/documents/etc. One last “Canadian” moment, before focusing on Mexico!

Nathanael, Hannah, and a Moose

22 October 2016

Tweets 8-19 October 2016

Jim Twitter 0

Shari in her second session at the women’s conference. [image] (8 October 2016
Happy Thanksgiving Day! As the old prayer says, “may the Lord make us truly thankful”. [image] (10 October 2016)
Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand. ~Proverbs 19:21~ ðŸ’¡ (10 October 2016)
Reading: “Jailed pastor’s church urges feds to get him out of North Korea” ow.ly/MGgx30549fU 11 October 2016
Gotta love Millennials. But … *ahem* a lot of this is true of Gen-Xers tooooo…. [video] (12 October 2016)
Welcome home, Shari! ðŸ›¬ Â¡Bienvenida a casa, Sheri! (13 October 2016)
The weekly Saturday morning kids’ club begins! ðŸ˜ [image] (15 October 2016)
Many a man proclaims his own steadfast love, but a faithful man who can find? ðŸ’¡ ~Proverbs 20:6~ (17 October 2016)
The newest collection of “Jim’s Journal”. I just have one thing to say. LOL. And I mean that quite literally. amzn.to/2eRT6wL [image] (19 October 2016)
My jaw is kind of locked – I can’t chew. Would be great weight loss plan, but I have discovered that pumpkin pie is very squishable. (19 October 2016)
You may or may not thank me for sharing this recipe with you. (We leave out the olives, add more green peppers) ow.ly/W2np3044SHk (19 October 2016)

19 October 2016

The Next Step: Meet Cheila Fernandes

Jim Prayer and Praise, ST Highlight 0

By now hopefully you’ve read our recent update Church Planting: The Next Step. Now we’re sharing the testimonies of the interns that will be serving with us over the next few months. So far we’ve heard from Rebecca and Matheus. Today, we’ll meet Cheila Fernandes:

Cheila Hello my name is Cheila, I’m 25 and I’m from Portugal. I was born in a Christian environment but in a dysfunctional family, my mother was a single mom with five kids.

I always saw my mother like the person who disciplines their kids but not the person that I should respect because she didn’t give me a father, so I started to live a life without rules. Once, I felt that life wasn’t for me so I started to think about suicide. At that point one of my uncles shared with gospel with me, and that day I decided to recognize Jesus as my Saviour, and to let him be the father I needed!

My life didn’t change a lot, in school was really hard to keep the testimony of Christ but thank God one day in 2008, I went to a Word of Life Summer Camp and there after hearing so many things about God’s plans to his sons I decided to consecrate my life to the service of God! God started to work in my whole family, and now all of us are serving Him. On that day I knew that God was calling me to serve him.

Cheila at a Children's Day — Cheila at the Children’s Day event in Ixtapaluca (April)

For the next 6 years I was working and praying to go to Word of Life Bible Institute in Argentina. God changed my plans a bit however, and sent me to Mexico in 2014. For two years I was involved in an evangelistic ministry called “Impact Zone“. We preached the gospel in various states of Mexico by music, theater, participation in schools and helping local churches also.

Now I’m in my 3rd year of studies, and God was constantly showing me the need to make disciples. So I started to pray that God would use me in a ministry that would be a challenge to me. This ministry of church planting is a challenge to my life as a servant of Christ. I just want to practice 2 Tim. 2:2-5. I know that God’s church is something important to him and I know that he’s calling me to be part of it-serving now from this year to forever! Acts 20:24

If you want to help Cheila and the rest of our team, you can give directly to our community centre. Just go here to give in US$, or here to give in CA$. Be sure to specify Project #063576.

17 October 2016

The Next Step: Meet Matheus Da Silva

Jim Prayer and Praise, ST Highlight 0

After our recent update – Church Planting: The Next Step (make sure you read that) we’ve been posting the testimonies of the interns that we’ll be working with. Last week Rebecca shared her testimony. Today, we’ll get to know Matheus Da Silva:

Matheus My name is Matheus Da Silva. I’m a 21 year old Portuguese-brazilian, Bible institute student in Mexico who was saved at the age of 5 in a Sunday school lesson where I learned that I was a sinner and that I deserved hell. A missionary told me that Jesus had died for me so that I could get access to God’s forgiveness and it was then when I made a decision to trust Jesus as the way to a better and eternal life.

I grew up in a christian home but it was only till I was 13 years old that I realized that I could be useful to the church and I started serving in with the children’s ministry, youth group, teaching and worship (In Portugal).

My life wasn’t perfect (it’s not perfect by now by the way!) and I came to the conclusion that my worldly ambitions weren’t God’s will for me and I was diverging from it. My goal is to live a life of peace with God and as long as I fulfill His will for me, I’ll be glad!

Matheus at the kids' club — Matheus with the kids in Las Palmas

That’s why I’m studying in Word of Life Mexico and wiling to do ministry in the church planting area. God has moved lots strings for me to be able to meet the Fry family and the work of the Lord that they are involved with in Ixtapaluca, and he has put in my heart the strong desire to help them out as I can knowing that it doesn’t depend on me or another person to do it but knowing that I’m just a tool only useful if God’s is the one using me (Isaiah 10:15)!

If you want to help Matheus and the rest of our team, you can give directly to our community centre. Just go here to give in US$, or here to give in CA$. Be sure to specify Project #063576.

15 October 2016

The Next Step: Meet Rebecca Contreras

Jim Prayer and Praise, ST Highlight 1

If you missed the last post – Church Planting: The Next Step – you’ll want to check that out.

I’d like to take a few posts to introduce you to the interns from Word of Life Mexico that we’ll be working with. Rod asked if they would share their testimonies, so today I’ll let Rebecca share hers:

Hello!! My name is Rebecca Contreras; I was born in Mexico City in a Christian home, so I grew up surrounded by an atmosphere of church, but never was confronted by the Gospel. I remember attending Sunday Class; I memorized bible verses but only to stand out.

As the time went by, I made wrong decisions, which pushed me away more and more from God. The consequences of my actions began.

On January 14th 2008, I was going back home after having a discussion with my father when I realized I had never had a personal encounter with Christ. That day I realized that if I died I would go to hell, I remembered many things that I learned when I was a kid. I received Christ as my personal Saviour, asking forgiveness for my sins and understanding that He was the only one who could change my eternal destiny and also my earthly life.

After that day I began to experience many changes in my life. God helped me change my relationship with my parents and my sisters, removing the pain and bitterness that my sins had left.

Later I met the Ministry of Word of Life Mexico by missionaries who went to the church where I am a member. They invited me to a summer camp and in the same year (2008). I dedicated my life to the Lord without imagining what He would do with me.

I decided to stay and study in the Bible Institute. In May, 2010, I began to take steps of faith and decided to accept the challenge of missionary work. It wasn’t simple at first, but over time I have seen Godâ€™s faithfulness in my life. I wasted too much time without knowing Christ so now that I know Him and serve Him I don’t want to miss a minute more. God has given me the opportunity to serve in the ministry of Word of Life.

Rebecca at a kids' club — Rebecca at last week’s kids’ club

The desire to serve in church planting ministry comes from the conviction that God’s purpose for the Christian is through the local church. We have the responsibility to preach the gospel but also we have the responsibility of making disciples. Sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ is a challenge and a longing in my life, but seeing people grow and be discipled in the context of the local church is my passion. Today for me is a great privilege to learn methods and get to know people who have developed this ministry. In the future, if God so desires, what I’ve learned can be reproduced with other groups of believers, in places currently unreached with the gospel.

I am sure that God is and will continue to work in my life, both to transform me into the image of our Lord Jesus Christ and to continue to serve Him and reach more people in Mexico.

Rebecca Contreras
Passionate service, Hebrews 12:28

Would you like to help Rebecca and us in this adventure? You can give directly to our community centre – go here to give in US$, or here to give in CA$. Be sure to specify Project #063576.

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