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A Weekend for — KIDS!

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This is a weekend that we’ve been looking forward to (and praying forward to!) for a long time. And I know that some of you have too!

Word of Life InternationalTonight, a group of students is coming to Ixtapaluca from a Bible institute north of Mexico City (Word of Life – some of you are familiar with them). This is a big weekend in Mexico, because it’s CHILDREN‘S DAY (on Saturday, but we can celebrate all weekend)!

Tomorrow the team will be doing presentations for kids, and a youth event, and who knows what else, in the neighbourhood of Santa Barbara, hosted by the Path of Life Bible Church here.

On Sunday, they’ll split up between the two churches, helping with Sunday school and music. Then in the afternoon they’ll do their children’s presentation twice – at 3pm in Las Palmas, and at 5pm in Jesús María. Busy day!

On Monday they will be doing some presentations in the local public Junior High. Now, there are I think 1500 students there, so they will be doing classes, 3 going at the same time every hour, from 7am until early afternoon.

Word of Life Children's ShowWhy not just do the presentations in two or three big groups? Well, apparently because of the current state of pollution, the school is not allowed to have classes outside. Never mind that they have classes in rooms with open doors and big windows with no screens a few metres away. ??

So – busy weekend! We’re still getting organized to make sure everyone is fed, and to be prepared for what happens and for the new people we’re looking forward to meeting.

Thanks for your continued prayers, for the Palabra de Vida (Word of Life) group, with students, as I understand, from various countries in Latin America, for us, for the other believers here who will be involved, and for the many who will hear God’s Word.

Work & Fun in March & April

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So what’s been going on over the last two and a half weeks?

We enjoyed having David Radlowsky here. He was around for a couple of weeks, learning about the ministry in the area. We went to Puebla, toured a Christian publishing house, and spent time with fellow missionaries Chalo and Beth (including some time downtown with Chalo’s Model T Ford). We also enjoyed visiting some people around Ixtapaluca, and then in Ixtapalapa as well. (Say that five times fast – Ixtapaluca, Ixtapalapa…)

Chalo and his Model T
Chalo chats with people in downtown Puebla.
We also finished up our community centre classes for the semester, and had our closing program.

There was a soccer tournament in Las Palmas on the 21st, and then we welcomed our friends Shelene and Alyson here for about a week and a half. We showed them around Ixtapaluca and Mexico City, enjoyed Resurrection Sunday here with our church family, and then headed to Taxco for a few days off with them, where we road cable cars and camels and had various other adventures.

Hannah and Nathanael are continuing with school. We’re struggling to keep up this year, with so many other activities going on. But so far so good.

I’ve been working hard to prepare orientation materials for new missionaries coming to the field. We’re creating packets with resources and requirements for missionaries at various stages, particularly at the beginning of their journey to serve here.

We’ve got some big things coming up this month. A retreat for our Camino missionary team in a little over a week. A visit from Shari’s parents. And – why are they coming again? Oh yes, for Hannah’s 15th birthday party! That will be a big deal. And the weekend after that, a big outreach event – actually four outreach events, over the course of four days!

As usual, we have emerged from cold season and have entered directly into hot season. So within the space of a month we’ve exchanged scarves and gloves for fans and sunscreen.

The practical parts of life are complicated as usual. Lately our water pressure has been turned way down during the day (and other random times), which means either you do laundry when people are trying to sleep, or you don’t do it. And showers are touch and go.

Hoy No Circula
Driving Restrictions April – June 2016
But the big topic of conversation is pollution and new vehicle restrictions. Pollution in Mexico City has improved a lot in 25 years, but it took a down-turn recently. So the government has decided to restrict all vehicles during April, May and June. That means that we can’t drive our van one day a week, and an additional one Saturday a month (that’s 16 days over 3 months).

During that time, they’ll be thinking up new restrictions for the future.

So juggling transportation, and trying to be home when there’s water pressure, does make life interesting.

But right now I need to prepare for next week, get some things ready for the kids’ school, and deal with some practical matters. Talk to you later!

Shelene and Alyson
Shelene and Alyson going for a ride.

Too busy to post (too busy not to post)

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I actually haven’t posted any substantial news since last month! So let me give you a quick update on what’s been going on.

First of all, the weather has been a topic of conversation this month. Before the end of February, the weather changed – it wasn’t getting so cool at night, and felt warmer. This brief reprieve was replaced by rain, and howling winds, and snow at higher elevations. One day the entire state closed the schools because of the cold.

I’ve concluded it’s virtually impossible to explain the impact of this kind of cold to a Canadian, who has survived -20C but can always go inside to warm up. No sun, and no heat in the cement block houses simply means some very miserable days. And whatever explanation you care to give (I have a few), it’s very hard to stay healthy in that kind of weather.

Since the season had already changed, when the cold front disappeared it was instantly replaced by summer. Our thermometer was up to 30C yesterday, and the memories of wearing four layers, and gloves, in the house, are quickly replaced by concerns about drinking enough water and using sunscreen. At the same time, pollution levels rose to their highest in 11 years, which means unusual restrictions on vehicle circulation this week.

My bones haven’t quite thawed out from last week. Once they do, maybe I’ll start to complain about the heat. Maybe. Until then, I’m thankful!

Between the weather and the school cycle here and other factors, attendance at the community centre has been down, but not quite non-existent. Shari is looking forward to her last baking class of the semester on Thursday – fruit pizza – who would want to miss that?! Plus, the closing program is on Thursday – fun times! Oh – AND we have a soccer tournament coming up on Monday. 🙂

On the 5th we connected with David Radlowsky, who is here from Canada for a couple of weeks. We went site seeing at the beginning of last week, doing some orientation along the way. And eating, of course. (By the way, I have a good restaurant in Mexico City to recommend when you come visit…)

Laying sod at the church's property - David, David, and Rod
Laying sod at the church’s property
David has been joining all of us at various times, visiting – what has he visited? A nearby rehab centre – I think an orphanage and senior’s shelter. He helped put clean the church property and put sod down. Yesterday we visited some friends in various parts of Ixtapaluca. Last night he was a guest teacher at my English class. Today we’re heading to Puebla to join our friends Chalo and Beth in their ministry there.

On Sunday we had our 6th anniversary service at the Path of Life Bible Church of Jesús María (Iglesia Bíblica Sendero de Vida Jesús María), which was a real blessing. Lots of people were involved in the service, the temporary sanctuary was full with lots of poor people stuck outside, but we enjoyed good times of fellowship afterwards. Nathanael and Shari were both in two different choirs.

Our family has been struggling with some health issues – all four of us – which has made things a little interesting. As always we appreciate your prayers in that department.

In other news, I’ve been working with our Coordinating Team to update and clarify some of our orientation requirements and tips for new missionaries. How in the world do you introduce new missionaries to Mexico and ministry here? Big topic! But I think we’re making progress.

The kids are busy with projects and things as they finish up another section of school. And we’re getting ready for their big birthday parties coming up in April and May. I’m organizing some of the delegation of funds to the ongoing construction on the church property (almost done that project – help us finish!).

Well, I could go on and on. Busy days!

But if you want to pray over the next few days, we would appreciate your prayer for health issues, for wisdom as we share with many people in various ways, and strength as we try to get so many very different things accomplished.

Some of you have also been praying for Alan, a fellow Camino Global missionary (working north of Mexico City) who had a heart attack. God graciously spared him, and he is home. However, his recovery is being hampered by a lack of sleep right now – I know he would appreciate your prayers. He has a long road to travel still.

You made it to the end of this post! 10 points for you! Have a great day. I’m off to Puebla…

Coordinating Team: Mexico

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As the leader of my team of Camino Global missionaries, I’m also a member of the Coordinating Team for Camino Global in the Mexico field.

Now the Coordinating Team (CT) actually doesn’t coordinate all that much – most decision-making is done at the team level. And most of that tends to be done by consensus (on our team, anyway). You thought I was actually important there for a second, didn’t you? 😉

Camino Global MexicoSeriously, though, the CT does have some important roles. Facilitating communication between the various teams of missionaries, for example. Making sure field-wide events happen, talking about field-wide strategies. And representing Camino Global in communication with certain organizations in Mexico – in our case that includes Camp Koinonia and the Puebla Bible Seminary, as well as the churches that are related to our mission.

There are a lot of seismic shifts taking place among these groups here in Mexico, which makes our job much more interesting – and challenging.

Today I’m on my way to the city of Puebla, where the CT (made up of of missionaries from various parts of the country) will be meeting tomorrow to discuss a variety of things – many of them very important, things that could impact the ministry here in Mexico for many years to come. We would very much appreciate your prayers as we meet!

A Visit, and This Week

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Visiting Laura - February 2016
Visiting Laura – February 2016
Thanks to those who prayed for Laura and her Mom last week. We enjoyed a good visit with them, and made some new friends along the way. If you want to continue praying, that would be great. Lord willing He will allow us to visit again later this year.

For those who have our prayer calendar and are following along, you can most certainly pray for the children at the orphanage this week. However, it looks like Hannah’s visit there on Saturday has been cancelled.

But there are other things coming up this week! I have a couple of English classes on Tuesday (my regular class, plus I’m filling in for Tina). Shari has her baking class on Thursday, and the kids’ club and Bible study is on Saturday. We had a great kids’s club on Friday, but no one came for the adult study. But we did have a youth study, led by Rod.

We’re also gearing up for an anniversary service in March, which means that both Shari and Nathanael are going to music practices this week.

I’m also preparing for my last sermon in a series this Sunday – dealing with some pretty major topics, so hopefully my brain will be awake!

Thanks for your prayers – have a great week!

Preaching in February

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Those of you who have received our newsletter now have a prayer calendar for the next few weeks. Of course, I could only include a very small portion of what’s going on, so I’ll try to keep you up to date a little here at Finding direction as well.

One thing that I didn’t mention was that I’m preaching every Sunday this month. On the first Sunday I was able to choose my own topic, so I took the lazy route decided to do something I’ve wanted to do for a while – preach Hebrews. Not preach on Hebrews, but basically preach the book – read it all, word-for-word.

I used a PowerPoint presentation, mainly to put up the verses that the author quotes from the Old Testament, and also had a hand out with some questions for reflection.

It was an interesting experience – great for me, I hope some other people got something out of it. They were at least very attentive anyway (I warned them ahead of time – I think it took around 55 minutes!).

Anyway, it’s amazing what a little context will do. The book of Hebrews may very well have been a sermon that has been written down for us – it does sound a lot like one when you say it out loud. 🙂

1Corinthians 3 - SpanishFor the rest of the month we’re going through 1Corinthians 3:1-5:6. Next week the children will be there for the sermon, so hopefully it will be fun for everyone.

As with every area of ministry, I really appreciate your prayers for these sermons. Unless the Spirit of God works, nothing will happen. And most of these sermons are posted over at en-la-Biblia.com, which means they will be listened to by many other people, both in and out of Mexico.

The job of the preacher, as I’ll be sharing this Sunday, is the be faithful (1Corinthians 4:1-2). That means read God’s Word, explain what it means, and sit down. God’s power is in His Word and Spirit – He is the one who brings true growth (1Corinthians 3:7).

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