Last week Shari, along with Mayra and Aurora, taught the first baking class in Jesús MarÃa. They were also joined by Tiffany, who came down for a few days from Arkansas, USA to help us out. It was great to have her here!
Shari and Tiffany, along with Claudia (it was her house) at the baking class
There was a small devotional, about 8 women taking the class, and there were a whole lotta sugar cookies.
A report on our weekend in Texcoco and Pachuca. I had to cut out a few clips here and there to make it under 10 minutes, but other than that I think it went all right (yes, and after 10 minutes I still left things out – busy weekend!). 😉 I actually recorded this this morning, but wasn’t able to post it until now, due to unforeseen (by me, not God) circumstances.
Also, I talk about something I got in the mail, and a creative way you might be able to touch a community here in Mexico City if you’re interested. Check it out…
As promised in my podcast from earlier today, here’s a little tour of the neighbourhood where we’re currently offering 10 weeks of English classes. You’ll see a little bit of what the area is like, meet the English teachers, and see some of the potential for more ministry in this area.
I failed to mention in the video someone who has been helping with teaching. Rod’s son Daniel has also been helping teach, and you’ll see him in the video in a green shirt with Allan.
In this video you’ll hear from both Rod and I, and even see a glimpse of the planning meeting we had just last night. Most of the footage from Jesús MarÃa was taken last week during the English classes on Wednesday and Thursday.
Edit:Rod corrected the population numbers for me. He writes: In the neighborhood of Jesus Maria, there are 3800 houses. Bordering it lies Los Heroes, Ixtapaluca, with 27,000 individual residences …Just beyond Los Heroes lies San Buenaventura, a huge, sprawling neighborhood of 22,000 homes … Figure 3-4 people per house, and just in these three neighborhoods you have approximately 200,000 people living.
Note that this is the immediate area – I also spoke about “hundreds of thousands” that were close – the municipal area has hundreds of thousands, and of course connects to the millions going further into Mexico City.
Some news about the new outreach in a nearby community, the upcoming Days of the Dead, meetings at our children’s schools, and many activities coming up on the weekend. Thanks for your prayers!
This past Friday to Saturday our church hosted a men’s retreat in the Paso de Cortés, the mountain pass between two of Mexico’s famous volcanoes, Popocatépetl and Ixtaccíhuatl. 16 men were there, not as many as we had hoped for, but I think everyone enjoyed it.
The night was cold and rainy, and the day was windy and cold, but we just kept moving and all was well. Rod Fry (see Rod’s take on the retreat here) put a lot of work into the weekend, and led some discussions on integrity which were really great.
Here’s a video to give you a bit of an idea what we did. For your viewing pleasure I’m posting the director’s cut, which includes the extended waterfall scene. 😉 I didn’t film what we had to eat on Saturday afternoon because I imagine we would soon have 20 or 30 people coming to Mexico to "help out" for all the wrong reasons. Boy, that was delicious. 😉
But here’s some better motivation for you. Besides Rod and I, I don’t think there was anyone there who had been in the Lord for more than 8 years – the vast majority 4 or less. So if you think it’s all been done in Mexico, or that God’s not doing anything, think of these first-generation believers worshipping God in the mountains…
