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Thanks for praying! (No, really.)

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I don’t always report back properly after asking you to pray – but then again, here on earth we only see a fraction of the results of your prayers!

Renacidos
Gospel presentation from Renacidos. In the foreground, reading glasses and hearing aids we gave to specific people in need.
For example, we had an excellent weekend with Renacidos. New people were connected to the community of believers, and many many people heard the gospel.

I mentioned to you the Bible studies I was doing on Friday nights – recently focused on how to understand and study the Bible. These have been fun studies – and hopefully useful! Tonight we’re doing an extra-special study – a review of what we’ve learned, and a look at how to look for Christ in the Old Testament.

Sometimes I specifically ask for your prayers before I preach on a Sunday morning. I sometimes wonder – if I really knew what I was doing, and what was going on people’s hearts – would I freeze and be too nervous to speak?

God does amazing things in our hearts through His Word.

The last time I spoke, it was on Mark 5:21-43 (listen in Spanish). In this part of the book, Mark tells us about two hopeless causes – a woman who no doctor could help, and a girl who was beyond help because she had died.

Afterward I got thinking about the people who were listening. Someone with a mother in their house, who had come home from the hospital for her final days. A man who we almost lost this year, who has one leg and recently lost a good part of his remaining foot. Someone with a father with cancer. A sister with a chronic illness. The list goes on and on – and in such a small group!

There is no hope from me – no hope from within this world. But such wonderful hope from another world – from our Lord Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life!

Pain is not the basic reality of life. Death is not the end.

So this is why we need your prayers – because the darkness is deep, and the Holy Spirit must shine His light to guide us beyond what we can see.

Thanks for praying!

We have License Plates! But….

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Oh, aren’t we negative. Just when we should be jumping up and down and celebrating, we have to add that nasty, negative “but”. Some people’s children.

Well, first of all, yes, we are thankful to have license plates! I spent the better part of 3 days, this week alone, in long lines and interesting conversations with officials trying to get the process completed.

In all, it’s been 107 days – over 15 weeks – that I’ve been trying to get license plates. And we haven’t been able to drive our van during that time. 3 months and 17 days with no van, and countless hours spent in lines over – how many times did I visit that office? 8 times? 9 times? I’ve lost count.

I could tell you stories about this week alone. Like how two officials came out of the office after I’d been in line for a long time and said,”Well, the power has gone out… we’ll see if it comes back on…”

Or the time when someone came and said they were only taking 45 more people that day, and there was some confusion over whether I was person #44 or person #46.

And every day they found something else that I needed to bring next time.

And because it took so long … I had to pay a fine. Yes, even though I started the process the first day I possibly could.

But – thanks to the kindness of certain people in said office, and thanks to many of your prayers, and thanks to God’s mercy – we have license plates!

But…

But, the van will be parked tomorrow, because we won’t be allowed to drive it.

First of all, to drive here in the city you need to verify (emissions test) your vehicle. And we can’t do that until next week (because it takes that long for the new license plate process to finish going through the system). That means we can’t drive on Thursday (tomorrow), or Saturday, or until after 11am any weekday.

To add to the fun, the people at the verification place and the license plate place are arguing about one of my documents. The people at the verification place say that I need to get a form, go to a bank, make another payment, and then wait several days more before I can get the vehicle verified (bringing us to the end of next week before I can even try to get it verified!). They blame it on an error on one of my documents.

The people at the license plate place say “That’s ridiculous! We filled the form out perfectly, you shouldn’t have to pay that extra amount.”

And even after that, the question remains – will the van even pass the emissions test, or will it need some work done first?

So I hope you won’t be too hard on me for adding the “but”. We are glad to have the van – that we can drive sometimes. But the adventure of finishing all the paperwork could continue for another week or two. And I have three days of work to catch up on in the mean time!

Visa #1: Finally.

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The visa.You may not believe it, but I have my visa. And the picture to the right is proof.

93 days ago, we sent in the first document for the process. About 79 days ago, the government office started the official process. And now – what else can I say? It’s done!

So what’s the next step? The next step is to continue our quest to get licence plates for our van, which we haven’t been able to drive since January. They were supposed to call us when the paperwork was ready from their end, but we haven’t heard from them yet. So – a little face-to-face will be taking place in the next week or two (we’re going to be away a good part of next week, otherwise I would be a little more sure on the date).

Now that I have my visa, the rest of the family can begin the process for theirs. That won’t actually happen until late in the summer, because there are limits on how soon we can begin the process.

So, the adventure continues – but this is a big step in the right direction!

Thanks for your prayers!

A Big Weekend with Renacidos!

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We have a big weekend coming up! If you’d like to pray, here are a few highlights:

Children's Day Event 2016 - in Ixtapaluca with Word of Life
Children’s Day Event 2016 – in Ixtapaluca with Word of Life

  • Tonight – I will be continuing the Discovering Life 2 Bible study. This week and next week we have especially fun topics – this week, How to Understand the Bible, and next week How to Study the Bible.
  • Tomorrow morning (11:30am) instead of the normal kids’ club, there will be an outreach in the community of Alfredo del Mazo. A group is coming from Word of Life Mexico (besides the interns who come every weekend) to do some special presentations in honour of Children’s Day (which is actually the 30th). We will also be providing reading glasses and hearing aids to people in need.
  • Saturday evening – another presentation from the group from Word of Life (the group is called Renacidos – Reborn). This time in the Path of Life Bible Church in Santa Barbara.
  • Sunday morning – we’ll be having an early service, so that we can worship and pray for the days’ events. This is actually Children’s Day, so after the service we’ll head back over to the community of Santa Barbara, where Renacidos will have evangelistic activities for the kids and their families.
  • After the activities, we’ll have the interns (I think around 25 people this time around) at our house for lunch. If we can find something to feed them. 🙂

So lots of teaching, outreach and evangelism this weekend! We would appreciate your prayers as we meet new people. We would also appreciate your prayers for the new church in Las Palmas, who will be very involved, and for new people – believers and unbelievers – who have recently connected with the church community.

Ixtapaluca Project: Complete!

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A few years ago, our team initiated a project to help the local church in the community of Jesús María, Ixtapaluca, to purchase land and begin construction. Great news! We have reached our goal, and completed the project!

This project of course is only a gift to help with some of the cost. The church has raised a great deal from other sources, such as offerings and garage sales. But working together, these funds have now been mostly converted into soil and brick and wire. The church has land, and part of a structure.

The next goal is to finish the walls of the main sanctuary and put up the roof. Lord willing that will be done this summer!

For all of you who helped with this project – thank you! If you donated, you should receive a final report sometime soon.

Already this building has been used for Sunday services, Bible studies, counselling, classes for the community, temporary storage of things like wheelchairs for people in need, and much more. As I’ve said often, the building is only one of many means to an end – to see disciples of the Lord reaching out to share His truth and love.

This is a good time to post a few pictures, to remember what has happened over the past few years…

First Service Jesús María
Very first service in a small rented house in 2010. It was packed!

Construction begins
Peeking over the wall, you can see construction beginning. First, they had to demolish the old pig sties! (2013)

First service on the new property
First Sunday service on the new property, in the temporary sanctuary (2014).

Baptisms 2016
Baptisms in the roofless sanctuary in 2016.

Children's Ministry Seminar 2017
Representatives from all three Sendero de Vida churches at the Children’s Ministry seminar in Jesús María (2017).

Visa Progress March 2017

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Queues likelyAs some of you know, I’m in the process of getting my permanent visa for Mexico. Well, good news! The paperwork is almost ready, and next week – Lord willing – I will be able to go to do the finger-printing-and-document-signing to finish the process.

So – we’re very thankful!

The theory is that once I have all my paperwork, I will actually be able to get license plates for our van. As you may recall, we haven’t been able to drive the van since late January, due to the paperwork complications. So yes, it will be nice to have the van again, especially before the teams start coming! (We actually had a couple of teams in March, and it did make things compicated!)

Anyway, just wanted to give you a bit of an update. Still no visa, still no van – but I’m hoping that in a week or two, after a long line or two, I’ll have some more concrete news for you. 🙂

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