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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. 🙂

A Glimpse of 3 Churches

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Yesterday the church in the community of Jesús María was having its 7th anniversary celebration. They invited the church in Santa Bárbara and also the church in Las Palmas to attend.

So I thought this would be a good time to show you around the new sanctuary (which is still being built – you can help!), and also to show you some of the people from all three churches. The video is a little long – over 10 minutes – but I haven’t shown you these people and places for a while.

There’s no music – sorry – didn’t want to fight with YouTube’s varying copyright restrictions. But there was a lot of cool special music too. 🙂

Anyway, I’ll explain more in the video itself – so here we go!

The Sower

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Earlier this month I preached on the parable of the sower, from Mark 4:1-23. I’ve been reflecting quite a bit on the parable, and its implications in ministry.

As a part of the message I gave everyone four cards, one representing each of the four types of soil – on the path, rocky, thorny, and good. It was a chance to evaluate our own lives, and also to think about the people around us who might represent the different kinds of soil.

In a way, the parable isn’t very encouraging. In fact, in the book of Mark it’s very much presented as a judgement. People had rejected Jesus up to this point (even accusing Him of being demon possessed!), and so the parable really explains why. Why so many people appeared to follow or at least listen to Christ, but ended up leaving rejecting Him.

And one thing to notice is that the soil never changes in the parable. There is no soil that starts bad and ends up good.

But there is good news in the rest of Scripture – hearts do change – and that is a miraculous act of God. And that happens.

And that’s why we can see people around us who seem to be “bad soil”, and we can pray for them, and keep scattering seed, and see God work.

David teaching English in Las PalmasThis past weekend we had another team here from the United States, and also had David here from Calgary. Last night as David and I were walking from visiting someone to get to the English class, we were talking about the ways in which short term missionaries have an impact. Yes, there are teams out there who don’t do much good (and even do harm), but here we have seen wonderful fruit from short term interns and teams.

In a way, it’s amazing that any of us have an impact. Sinners, who don’t see the big picture, who often have the wrong priorities.

But there’s something we do have – the Holy Spirit, and His Word. That’s something that short term missionaries and long term missionaries all have. And we keep scattering the Seed.

We’re really just helpers. The Sower is Jesus Himself. And He’s still working. A lot of people reject His Word. But He keeps spreading it everywhere – on good soil, and on bad. And once in a while, amazing things start to grow!

Quick Recap of the Last Few Days

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The weekends tend to be busy times around here, and this past weekend was no exception! So here’s a bit of what happened…

On Friday, we had a Bible study learning about the Holy Spirit – His nature, what it means to be “filled with the Spirit”, and so on. Hannah taught the kids’ study, focusing on the books of the Bible.

On Saturday, activities like the kids’ club, soccer and youth club continued as normal. Hannah went to the youth club, but otherwise we weren’t much involved because I had a meeting in Mexico City and all three of us went (Shari being in Canada for a few days).

The meeting in Mexico City was with leaders of various churches in the area. Good meeting. And a short meeting. A short meeting is a good meeting. But seriously, it was good to study God’s Word together, pray together, plan together, and struggle with various issues together.

The Word of Life interns were over here a couple times during the weekend. On Saturday night we made “Canadian style nachos” – nachos with things like cheddar cheese and ground beef. The two girls from Mexico said that they had “never done anything like this before” – which goes to show how little much of the “Mexican food” in Canada resembles the real thing!

Fernando Font at Sendero de Vida Las Palmas
Fernando’s concert – look at all the open Bibles!

Sunday we had a guest from Uruguay, who took us through the life of Jesus and beyond – all with music! It was just Fernando and his guitar, and all of us with our Bibles open following along (and sometimes singing along) because most of the music was right out of the Scripture. Fun!

I also preached on Sunday, on “The Sower”, and thanks to a lot of work fighting with technology showed this video.

Garage Sale at Sendero de Vida Santa Barbara
Getting the garage sale started!
One member of our congregation has been struggling with some serious health issues. We were thankful to see him looking a lot better at the service on Sunday. Today Mayra and some of the women from the church in Santa Barbara are holding a garage sale to raise some funds for his medical bills.

And yes, Shari made a brief trip to Canada to pick up a few things, most importantly popcorn seasoning some medication that we can’t buy here. And Lord willing she comes home today!

We’re looking forward to having David Radlowsky back this weekend (and into the week), as well as a team from the USA. It should be another full weekend!

Quick Updates

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It’s one of those times when I have no time to write, but I really should give you a quick update – especially for those of you who are praying!

So – – you can pray for our team mate who has cancer. She has completed another treatment, and Lord willing will be going home today for a while. However, she needs to have another transfusion first. Please pray that she’ll be home soon, and will have a good time of recovery before continuing treatment.

Another couple on our team – Mark and Angélica – were in a car accident (on the way to meet with out team, no less!). They are fine – and the car will be fine eventually. Last I heard they’re just waiting to get the insurance process worked through. So do pray that the car will be repaired soon, and that they can pick it up soon (since it’s in a different city from where they live).

Shari, who was almost better from whatever-nasty-bug we had recently, is sick again. Please pray that she’ll be feeling better soon!

The Camino Mexico Coordinating Team is meeting today and tomorrow in Ixtapaluca. As always, we would appreciate your prayers as we work on things that will impact us as a field.

A team will be coming from Thursday to Tuesday – we appreciate your prayers that God will teach them and use them – and all of us!

After that, there’s a meeting with the leaders of the churches in the Mexico City area – that’s the 11th – we would appreciate your prayers for that as well, as we discuss plans for the future.

On the home front, we’re approaching a whole bunch of deadlines related to Hannah and Nathanael’s school – please pray that they (and we!) can get everything done in time.

What can I say? Crazy days ahead.

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