As you may have guessed, I’ve had neither the time nor internet access to write a lot here!
But I thought I’d better report.
We’re all doing reasonably well, though pretty tired, and seem to be slowly getting over whatever bugs we had in April, although Nathanael still has a cough. We’e been visiting various people all week, and just got back from seeing Shari’s uncle and aunt (with a bonus cousin thrown in) in Mount Forest (see the picture to the right – Hannah and Nathanael walking out to the pond with Uncle Francis this afternoon).
Tomorrow we’ll be visiting Garside Bible Church again, and then heading into another week of visiting all kinds of people in Southern Ontario.
It’s been good, although it’s also been unbelievably busy! So we appreciate your prayers for our health and energy – may God use us to encourage someone this week.
Yes, we’re going to start driving north. We would appreciate your prayers – for strength and health, for a vehicle that works, for smooth sailing through check-points and borders, and for good visits with friends and family.
I estimate that, Lord willing, 7 days from now we will have driven almost 4000km (2500mi). Let the games begin.
As usual there’s a lot going on! We would certainly appreciate your prayers for the next couple of weeks…
Over the next couple of days, the semester at the community centre is wrapping up. Today and tomorrow there are regular classes – and then tomorrow evening will be the big closing event (more on these special events here)! Shari will be making presentations to those who have been involved in the baking classes since January. And I’ll be giving a short Gospel presentation.
On Saturday, another big event – an Easter Egg hunt! An extreme novelty for Mexico, this is something we’ve done – what – is this the 3rd time? Anyway, great fun for the kids of Jesús MarÃa.
On the home front, school continues for the kids, and lots of preparations for ministry which will take place over the summer.
Regular activities continue next week. I’ll be closing out another Chronological Bible Study on Monday. And – oh yeah, sometime next week we start driving north.
And we’re just going to keep driving north, visiting friends and driving driving driving. Lord willing, two weeks from now, we will have driven over 3500km (2200mi) north. But it will be about another 10 days after that before we actually arrive in Canada.
The last three weeks or so have been pretty … “interesting”.
So Nathanael had a pretty bad cold, which means he missed some school (not too much) and some other activities. But slowly, he started to get better.
Then, of course, Shari was diagnosed with tennis elbow, and got her sling.
For some reason my back and neck suddenly went crazy, and I could hardly sleep and for a day or two and I could hardly move around the house. That also meant more migraine attacks. I think it’s starting to get better – I hope so – some sleep would be great, and the pain is actually pretty bad.
But there’s nothing like someone else’s pain to make you forget yours, right? Hannah had a major wipe-out on her bike. Thankfully, her face and head were untouched, but she got 7 pretty significant scrapes all down one side of her body. So Shari has been faithfully changing bandages every day to try to make sure everything heals properly. But there’s a long way to go.
So – why not start the cycle again? Nathanael got hit in the head with a soccer ball today, and after that his skateboard was stolen.
Ok, I think it’s time for the cycle of disaster to end. A little recovery time would be great…
But there have been some great times of ministry lately too. Please pray for those who are hearing the Gospel in these days – may great things happen!
Ok, here it is! This is your chance to see what our first service was like at the new property in Jesús María. 🙂
A few disclaimers are probably in order first. The video is only 12 minutes long, so I obviously left out a lot. For example, many people shared their thoughts about having a service at the property for the first time, but I only included a few. Some parts didn’t record as well as others, or were hard to hear, etc.
Also, I’ve included some “subtitles” – sort of – in the English version of this video. They are only paraphrases and summaries of what was said (or sung). I didn’t have the time to translate every word, and sometimes parts were cut off or difficult to hear. So if you understand Spanish, you’re a step ahead. If not, you’ll get the general idea. 🙂
I was thinking today that this was actually the first time we’ve had a place that we’ve fit into. The first Sunday we met, it was in a rented house, and it was packed out. When we rented the salon, we frequently ran out of room.
Admittedly, we were a little short on chairs on Sunday, but we had lots of room and we have space to build a bigger room.
This morning we had our first service on the new property! More pictures and video are coming, but I want to give a quick report with a few pictures.
Four years ago, there was no church in Jesús MarÃa. So more than anything, we thank “our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us … to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works” (Titus 2:13-14)!
I don’t know what you think of when you think of a church plant, but you may find two things interesting.
First, there was no missionary leading the service. A missionary didn’t preach, or teach Sunday school, or lead the music. No missionary planned the songs or arranged for the food that appeared after the service. I happened to be playing keyboard, but I don’t do that every week.
Now sometimes we do those things, but our goal is to equip others. And, in fact, we can’t even say that we did that alone – apart from God who truly gives people the power, believers (many still young in the faith) have helped others to get involved.
Jesus builds His Church. We’re honoured to serve Him.
That being said, here’s the other amazing thing. There are many, many, many people who have been involved in this work. Even looking just at the land and the building, there have been people from many parts of the world who have helped.
Thank you to the many who have prayed for these people, and who have given and even come and helped with the construction!
But speaking just of people here in Mexico City, there have been so many people who have given sacrificially of their time and money to make this property and building a reality. I’m talking about people working late into the night, people praying, people washing cars to earn money, people selling food … looking around during the service, surely almost everyone we could see (except for new people) had helped to get us to where we are.
So the work is all the Lord’s – and yet He invites so many to be involved! A great community of people, leading others to worship and praise and celebrate!
It’s exciting that the church now has property that belongs to them – a place to make disciples.
But the neat things is, the church itself (or, I should say, ourselves), belongs to Christ – purchased with His blood – united forever to Him.
