Ministry glimpses

11 February 2012

30 Photos in 30 Days – Overview

Jim Family, Just for fun, Mexico, Ministry glimpses 0

So I did it – I took and posted 30 photos in 30 days. Looking them over, I thought they presented an interesting glimpse into life here.

Of course they didn’t always represent what we were doing on a certain day, though I often talked about that. But it’s a good mix of ministry, culture, and daily life, over the course of a month in Mexico. A typically untypical month, I suppose!

So here they are, all together. Just click the image to go to the post. If you want to go in order, go down the left column then the right column.

Just for your interest, I put in bold the 5 which have been the most popular so far.

Ismael and Marta		Guilty Pleasure?
The Lime		The Moon at 23%
Prayer Meeting		Arroz con Leche
Sergio and Elizabeth		Joint Service in Santa Barbara
A Sunday Morning in January		Gas!
Half Ollie?		José Teaches (exam night!)
The Growing Community Centre		Yogourt Drinks Galore!
Our Mini Street		Tigers going to Church?
Out to Lunch		Ixtapaluca Monument (and a taco stand)
Terminal 2		Coffee Shop – Grand Opening!
Violin Class		Temporary Meeting Place
Three Guitarists		Our Team (I finally took a picture)
The Captive Child		Freshly Squeezed
Priorities		Volcano Popocatépetl Appears
Pigeons in Puebla		Ixtapaluca at Night

5 February 2012

Temporary Meeting Place

Jim Ministry glimpses, Prayer and Praise

As many of you know, the church plant in Jesús María (Iglesia BÃblica Sendero de Vida Jesús María) grew out of the small house we were renting long ago. Move to another house? Well, they’re all small – no help there.

So we temporarily moved to a studio above some stores just for Sunday mornings. We rent it just for Sunday mornings, and every Sunday we move instruments, stools, sound equipment, etc, into the building, up the narrow winding stairs, around the corner, through the hall and into the room.

Good exercise, but not great for the equipment, or for the church budget. Also rather time-consuming.

Please pray with us that we can find a building – or a lot to build on – that can be used for ministry.

Here in Mexico, people love to get together and invite their friends and family. Events like getting together to worship on Sunday are a blessing.

But in these housing developments, everything is small. We’re praying for space.

The church family has been raising funds little by little. You can help too, if you like – in Canada go to http://bit.ly/cgcadonate and give to Project #63604, or for US funds go to http://bit.ly/donateusa and again give to Project #63604.

So here’s the building we’re in in the mean time. It’s the second floor, behind the arched windows. Normally it’s used for Zumba classes.

During the morning service on Sunday, all three store fronts are open below doing a booming business (this was taken before the service, when we were starting to unload instruments). I wonder what they think of our worship above their heads?

I’m attempting to take and post 30 pictures in 30 days. I believe the 30 days will be ending this week sometime…

4 February 2012

Coffee Shop – Grand Opening!

Jim Ministry glimpses 3

Today we went to the grand opening of the new coffee shop, an outreach of the community centre. There wasn’t a spectacular turnout, but enough people to make it fun.

You can see in the picture below how it was today, more or less. There were a two or three more tables outside that you can’t see.

So far it’s been a good place to come and sip tea (sorry, no coffee for me…) and talk to people.

It’s actually been interesting to hear people’s reactions anew as activities have started up again at the community centre – and of course the cafÃ© is new. I think some people kind of expect us to be here to make a bunch of money and take it out of the country. When they find out that most of the classes are free – and that the coffee shop… well, it may or may not break even – they have a little trouble figuring it out.

One man I talked to the other night said it was great to have this buena onda in the community – meaning like a good atmosphere – good feelings – in a place where there is so much bad feeling spread around.

So here’s hoping we can continue to spread buena onda in Jesus’ Name – helping the community and sharing His love. Even with coffee. Or maybe tea.

31 January 2012

JosÃ© Teaches (exam night!)

Jim Ministry glimpses 0

Well, for me it was mostly a day of helping kids with homework and projects and making sure they were fed. However, they let me out to go to Bible study tonight (Hannah and I, actually – the kids have their own study at the same time), which was, appropriately, part of our "School for Parents" series.

Actually, it was exam night – and so José was being the mean taskmaster throwing out questions and expecting us to know the answers!

Which we did, of course.

So, for our picture of the day, here is José getting ready to give us the next challenging question. (I also see in the background that we have a broken window in the rented house we study in – no wonder it was so cold in there!)

29 January 2012

Joint Service in Santa Barbara

Jim Ministry glimpses, Prayer and Praise 1

It’s always a highlight to get both the new churches in Ixtapaluca together for a service. One church not yet 7 years old, the other not 2.

It’s great to see people growing in the Lord, to see new faces, to reconnect with friends we don’t see as often as we would like.

This time the service was hosted by the first church – Iglesia Bíblica Sendero de Vida Santa Barbara.

I tried for a panoramic shot, but it’s pretty hard in this room. For one thing, there’s a lower level up front and you can’t see the people there. There are also still people off to the right and left. And as you can see if you look carefully, people were still arriving (see the lady coming up the stairs).

So here it is, for our photo of the day, the panoramic of this morning’s joint worship service. Praise the Lord!

Joint service January 2012 at Iglesia BÃblica Sendero de Vida Santa Barbara

(As always, click the image to see larger versions)

22 January 2012

Three Guitarists

Jim Ministry glimpses 0

Today I wasn’t playing keyboard, so I had the opportunity to take a picture while others were playing. In this case, we had three guitarists (and out of the picture one singer and one drummer).

From left to right, there was Rod, Jorge, and Isaac. The song is saying,"You are great and awesome! You are light, love – You are Christ the Lord!"

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