Here’s a summary of the posts from last week, which add some context and personal connections to this year’s special anniversaries of Camino Global, Camino Global Canada, and Camino’s ministry in Mexico.
Thanks for taking this walk through some history with me. Today is Camino Global’s 125th anniversary (Happy Anniversary to us!). And tomorrow is our arrival-in-Mexico anniversary! Let’s party!
Seriously, though, we do give thanks to the Lord for all He has done, both in our lives and in the lives of so many others. It’s amazing!
And thanks to so many of you, who have prayed for us and supported us and encouraged us for so many years. Do you realize, some of you have received all 72 editions of our newsletter that we’ve sent out since 1997?! Some of you even knew us before we were married.
Even though we don’t say it as often as we should, we appreciate you all, and we thank God with you for what He has done here in Mexico.
I hope someday we’ll see the eternal fruit of our labour (and I’m talking about all of us). I know we see glimpses today, but they’re just glimpses.
Someday we will see – but we’ll see something else as well. We’ll see the hidden hand of the Lord doing it all. We were here to enjoy His work and give Him glory!
So to end off, we don’t give glory to an organization, or any one person or group of people. We give glory to the only One who changes hearts, who heals lives, who saves the lost – our Great God!
How then am I so different from the first men through this way?
Like them, I left a settled life, I threw it all away.
To seek a Northwest Passage at the call of many men
To find there but the road back home again.
I’ve been meaning to give you an update on my memorization project. As you my remember, I completed Philippians and started memorizing John (with the plan to continue reviewing Philippians until May).
Well, I’m still working on it, but I’ve fallen behind. I thought it would be worthwhile to mention some of the reasons why this has been a little more difficult.
Actually, in some ways it’s been easier – the verses seem to be shorter in John so far, and easier to memorize than the verses in Philippians.
However, the plan was a little more open-ended for John, because it’s so long. I had a plan up until May, but it’s not the same as being able to complete a whole book in a few months. The “end” is too far away to see.
Second, there were at least a couple of people who said they would memorize Philippians along with me. Not having the extra accountability has been a downside to memorizing John.
Once I fell behind, and didn’t have a new goal, it also became harder to continue.
Another thing – the chapters of John are lllooong! The first chapter has 51 verses.
I was going to come up with a new plan in this post, but we are now in the busiest part of the year, so I’m not sure if it’s wise. Of course, if I don’t, I’m all the more likely not to do much of anything!
I think what I’ll have to say for now is that I’ll continue reviewing Philippians, and try to keep working on John as I have opportunity. (No, this isn’t the only time I’m spending in the Bible – so I’m not suggesting I’ll just skip any time in the Bible if I don’t have “opportunity”!) I’ll see where things are at and report back when the extra-super-extreme busy season is over – sometime in October. Maybe.
We recently received the sad news that Kitty Anna Griffiths, known around the world as “Mrs. G”, went to be with her Lord on the 7th of November 2014.
My parents and I were acquainted with Mrs. Griffiths and her husband, Dr. Gerald Griffiths, when we lived in Ontario. But more-so my family has known Mrs. G through her Bible stories, which have been translated into Farsi, Portuguese, Japanese, Mandarin, Rumanian, Norwegian, Khmer, Nepali, Amharic, Spanish, and Russian.
The Griffiths spent years ministering in the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Canada. In 1973, Mrs. G began recording Bible stories, the “nice” ones as well as the “nasty” ones. In all she recorded nearly 500 stories.
The stories came alive because of her deep study of the Scriptures, as well as her knowledge of history and geography. Many times she visited Israel to research her stories, and from her travels come the flowers and critters that likely surrounded the Bible characters we know and love.
You can read more about the ministry in the post I wrote a few years ago – A Visit with Mrs. G.
In October Mrs. G was still working in the ministry, at the age of 95. She had a fall, and was hospitalized until her death in November. It was soon before her 71st wedding anniversary.
As I write, the website has not yet been updated with the news. We received the update via newsletter from her husband.
In the midst of grieving, the ministry continues. Dr. Griffiths asked for prayer, and I thought I’d share those prayer requests with you:
When we drove last year to Canada, I made it a goal that we would listen to all of Mrs. G’s stories from the New Testament – and we succeeded! Once or twice I have called or emailed Dr. and Mrs. Griffiths and their team to discuss Spanish translation – of course we would especially appreciate your prayers that quality Spanish translation could be done.
Meanwhile, I suspect Mrs. G is checking out some of the details she’s wondered about with Moses and David and Paul – and, of course, worshiping the Lord she loved. When we see her next, will she still be telling stories? I wouldn’t be surprised!
I’m working on getting our photo gallery back up, for those who like to see our pictures. We recently had some technical difficulties here at our website, and since I was already thinking of rebuilding the gallery I finally decided to do it instead of importing all of the old stuff.
I will eventually put a lot of the old photos back in – but I’m starting from the present and working my way back. We’ll see how that goes! 🙂
Anyway, since I haven’t been blogging a lot about what’s been going on, I thought I’d briefly write about a few things and then give you a sneak peek at the gallery.
So – what has been happening in the last month or so?
Well, I told you about Shari’s cake decorating class – you’ll see pictures of that in the album. Of course there has been Bible studies and parties and school for the kids – same as always.
Oh! In November we took off to Mexico City and went to the Mexican Antique Toy Museum. It was pretty cool. I think I’d like to go again and have a tour – I’m sure there are a lot of interesting stories behind those toys.
Anyway, there are a few pictures from that.
As the month of November went on we endured – noise! Late night parties, and – well, the people in the other side of our duplex are doing some construction. BANG BANG BANG – sometimes all day. At times we thought they would come right through the wall!
And actually – they did! See these big holes in our wall?
They were sure the wall was thicker than that. Uh huh.
They were pounding a lot yesterday – so far we have a reprieve today…
In late November we got together with other Camino missionaries in Mexico for a conference. Our team led a time of worship in the first session, which was fun but a little tricky because we weren’t together to practise until that day.
It was cold this year. Nathanael and Hannah tried to go swimming a bit – but the fact is it’s hard to swim in an unheated pool when it’s so cold you can see your breath.
So now we’re back in Ixtapaluca. We’re trying to reach our goals for home schooling so that we can take some time off over Christmas.
And we’re looking forward to a wedding on Saturday – one of our pastor’s daughters is marrying a man from our church. Hannah gets to be involved in the wedding, so that means dresses and hairstyles and all stuff like that there.
There’s lots more coming up in December – but I’ll quit for now.
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Oh, the gallery! You can check out photos from November right now in our Recent Shots… album.
By the way, I added a new feature that seems to be working at the moment. You can click the little calendar image on the right and select photos by date. How cool is that?
Since you’re previewing the gallery, you can let me know if everything is working. 🙂