Prayer and Praise

20 December 2015

Prayer Request: Visa Adventures (but not ours)

Hi everyone! I’m just stopping by to ask for prayer for our friend and coworker Tina, who is trying to get paperwork to temporarily leave the country.

Tina started a visa process back in October. She had travel plans for December (this week) – she’s going to represent Camino Global at Urbana, so that she can find us some more missionaries.

Anyway, plenty of time, right? The visa process should only take a few days, maybe a few weeks at most, right?

Well, you know what I’m going to say. She kept checking and going back and it was supposed to be done and it wasn’t so she went back again and … finally the last day came, and they didn’t give it to her.

No problem, she just needs to get a special document to allow her to leave the country temporarily.

Well – it shouldn’t be a problem. But it turns out that the process of getting a last minute travel document is not so simple either.

So would you please pray for Tina as she tried to get this sorted out – today (she’s working on it right now), tomorrow… Please pray that the officials would realize that this is not her fault, and that they would be gracious and grant her the document, so that she will be able to travel over the holidays.

That’s it! Thanks.

15 December 2015

December Events: Thanks for your prayers!

Jim Ministry glimpses, Prayer and Praise, ST Highlight 0

Thanks for your prayers (so far) for the events of December! Here’s a quick report:

For our last adoration service of the year, we meditated on the second coming of Christ, and all the things we’re looking forward to (most of all – HIM!). I also revived a monologue I did many years ago (which I lost, and had to rewrite) (anybody remember that, by the way?). It’s a shepherd speaking just before the angels appear – and he’s pretty bitter. Little does he know that the answers to his questions are only moments away!

Some of the English students receive their certificates.

We joined the choir from Iglesia BÃblica la Cosecha for the appreciation dinner, and I think it went all right. I did video the event, so I may try to post the concert or part of it. It was kind of a practice for us, so I’m afraid mistakes were made, but hopefully the message came through!

The closing program at the community centre was great – lots of people, lots of fun, and some great discussions. Please pray for these people – so many very different people with different needs and situations!

My Sunday School lessons continue through the end of the month. I’m working on the last two – the final commandment (about coveting), and then a wrap-up where we’ll discuss the law and the gospel in general. There have been some great thought-provoking discussions. I’ve learned a lot!

This past Sunday we sang with the choir again in a large park in Mexico City. There was a clever live nativity scene, puppets, hot ponche, and of course the music – two concerts! I’m guessing seven or eight hundred people were listening and getting involved and hearing the Gospel. The choir has received two or three more invitations to perform, but we probably won’t be able to join them due to schedule conflicts.

This coming Sunday is our church’s own Christmas service. Nathanael will (Lord willing) be making his ukulele debut, playing “Today is Christmas” while the kids sing.

Thanks again for your prayers during this busy season. We pray that there will be much fruit!

8 December 2015

English Class: Christmas Vocabulary

Jim Just for fun, Ministry glimpses, Prayer and Praise 1

Tonight is the last English immersion class of the year, and we’re going to be learning some Christmas vocabulary. I zipped over to Tagxedo and made some word clouds to share with them (and you).

First is a word cloud that comes from the commonly read Scriptures about Jesus’ birth, as well as five of the most popular Christmas carols. The second word cloud comes from other common Christmas songs (maybe you can guess which ones they were!) and “‘Twas The Night Before Christmas”.

Personally, I think the first cloud offers a lot more hope than the second!

I chose 15 words from each word cloud, and we’ll be doing some games with them tonight. 🙂

We would appreciate your prayers this week as we wrap up our classes and have our closing program on Thursday. We haven’t been getting a lot of sleep at our house for various reasons this week, so we’re just trying to keep going!

Christmas Word Cloud 1

Christmas Word Cloud 2

5 December 2015

Upcoming Activities in December (and things to pray for!)

Jim Ministry glimpses, Prayer and Praise 0

The season of – extra activities – has certainly arrived! We would certainly appreciate your prayers for a very busy day tomorrow, and a busy week to follow.

Tomorrow morning I’ll be teaching adult Sunday school again – we’re at the 8th Commandment, “You shall not steal.” As usual we’ll have far more to talk about that we’ll have time for, but that’s what makes it interesting. 🙂

Then we have our last “Adoration Service” of the year. We’ll be talking about the first and second coming of Christ. I’m going to try to do something a little extra. It’s – well, I won’t say. But let’s just say I’ve been learning quite a bit about sheep this week.

reindeer with guitar Now Shari and I agreed to sing in a choir for an evangelistic concert (two performances, actually) in a park in Mexico City next Sunday afternoon. This morning I discovered – suprise! – we’re going to have another concert tomorrow too!

So we’ve been frantically trying to get the songs figured out. Tomorrow afternoon is a special dinner for leaders of various churches in Mexico City. We were planning to go anyway, but not we’ll be running out right after our morning service for a practice.

So tomorrow in particular is going to be pretty busy!

This coming week we also have our final community centre classes. On Thursday after the baking class we’ll have a special closing program for all our students, with some fun and some ponche.

Nathanael also has some practices for a Christmas program, but his program isn’t until the 20th. Needless to say, there’s lots more coming up this month!

Thanks for your prayers!

24 November 2015

This weekend: A Few Tricky Topics

Jim Ministry glimpses, Prayer and Praise 0

Just stopping by for a quick report on the weekend.

On Saturday night the church in JesÃºs MarÃa hosted a dinner for couples. Our temporary sanctuary was all decked out with hearts – balloons and those little corrugated decorations. We all brought food to share – chicken cordon bleu and spaghetti, for the most part.

But before eating we had some prize give-aways and chances for certain couples to publicly express their undying love (to each other, of course – but in public).

Erik Morga shares at the Couple's Dinner — Erik Morga shares at the Couple’s Dinner

Then Pastor Erik, who comes from another church in Mexico City, shared for just over an hour on the topic of biblical marriage. He was clear, frank, and practical. He boldly hit upon some issues that were difficult and hit very close to home, and he didn’t shy away from the tough stuff.

I had the video camera on for the presentation, so I’m trying to get it copied right now for some people who missed it or want to hear it again.

Finally, I think it was around 10pm, we dug into the food.

On Sunday morning I taught my Sunday school class on the sixth commandment – You shall not murder.

I knew this would be one of the most challenging of the Ten Commandments to teach – challenging because, as I said at the beginning of the class, most people still feel that murder is wrong. And so when you really start to delve into what it means, it shows the darkness of our own hearts in a way that we’d probably rather not see.

Just think about all the things that are wrapped up in this commandment. What about these issues:

Death through negligence
Abortion
Suicide
Euthanasia
The death penalty
Hate and resentfulness
Good Samaritans
Revenge
Looking out for the poor
Vigilantes

That’s only a start – and we had less than an hour to talk!

I knew I had to end with a discussion of forgiveness and how we receive it, especially after the Bible declared pretty much everyone (if not 100% of everyone) in the room guilty. And I knew it would be an issue – but it was even more of an issue than I thought it would be – the question Can suicide be forgiven?

This question is actually a lot more important than it may first appear. It touches on questions like – Can you be forgiven after death? What is the nature and purpose of confession? What is salvation? How and when are we forgiven?

The heated discussion continued after the class, and it will continue some more – at the very least, I’ll clarify a few things in the next class (lot of time – next week is the easy topic of “adultery” – hah!).

In the service, Rod brought John 19 alive for us in his sermon. And – it was Fabian’s last Sunday with us! Fabian has been leading the music lately, but he’s going to go and get himself married on Saturday, and move away, and leave us. 🙁

Anyway – a full weekend. With another full weekend to come!

20 November 2015

That’s a Switch

Jim Ministry glimpses, Prayer and Praise 0

One thing we’ve learned during this semester of classes – people don’t seem to like classes at 6pm. And what time is my English class and Bible study – yep, 6pm.

Well, that’s how we learn – by trying!

Sweets-making at English Class — Making sweets at English class

But I have had people at the English class and the Bible study, though not every week. And we’re looking at making some changes for the next semester (which starts in January). We have three weeks of classes left before the Christmas season begins.
So what’s the “switch” I was talking about in the title? Well, we’ve had quite a few people who aren’t from Las Palmas in our classes. Out of the 8 people I’ve had in my English class, I don’t think any were from Las Palmas.

The other classes have had a mix.

Because Las Palmas is actually connected (you can walk from one to the other) to Santa Barbara, we do get a few from there.

And lately we’ve actually had some neighbours from our street come to classes, which has been fun! Four of the people in my English class are friends from our street. And two women from our street came to Shari’s baking class this week.

That is a switch – but it’s a fun switch! It’s been great to get to know some neighbours in a different context. And we’ve had some interesting conversations!

We’re planning some fun things for the semester ahead – we’ll see how it goes! Meanwhile, three more weeks and then our closing program on the 10th of December.

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