Happy Birds
Something to cheer you up. This tree in the community of Jesús MarÃa in Ixtapaluca, Mexico City, was apparently FULL of very happy birds.
Video Blogs
Baptisms (and Anniversary Service)
As most of you know by now, last Sunday was a very special service! It was the 8th anniversary of the Path of Life Bible Church in the community of Jesús MarÃa. But it was also a joint service – between the church in Jesús MarÃa and the new church in Las Palmas.
12 people were baptized on Sunday, from both churches. This was the first baptism service for the Las Palmas church (although some people in the church had been baptized before we officially started meeting.
Nathanael was the 12th disciple to be baptized. 🙂
I made up this video – about 4 minutes – to share with you, and also to show this morning to those who missed the service. It’s in Spanish, of course, so I’ll explain briefly.
This took place in the new baptismal tank in the new sanctuary in the church, so you can see the progress that has been made.
At the beginning, Pastor Ismael explained the theme – the unity of all believers. So you’ll see that. He shares a verse – you might be able to figure out what it is!
I would have posted more from the service, but so much was music-based, and YouTube gets skittish about that kind of thing because of copyright issues.
But there was congregational singing, there was a special women’s choir, participation from kids and youth, and Rod preached.
Afterwards, Ismael explains a bit about baptism, and then the baptisms begin!
It’s hard to get a picture, though I tried — but basically most people crowded around the stage to watch, with a few actually on the stage – those are the ones you will mostly see toward the end.
These are 12 people to pray for – and people that many of you have been praying for! Enjoy!
First Anniversary Service in Las Palmas (video)
Here are a few clips that I’ve thrown together of the service on Sunday. Due to copyright restrictions on YouTube, I haven’t included any of the music, but there are at least a few pictures at the end.
Anyway, it will give you a bit of an idea of who was there and what we did! Also, if you want to see more pictures, check out our photo gallery.
Retro: Sunflowers
Here’s another Hannah & Nathanael classic for you, a video taken 10 years ago this very day in Cuernavaca.
Relief Effort Today in Mexico State (video)
I just got back from a small town in the State of Mexico. Quite a few of us went from the churches here with supplies, including medications, clothes, water, food, diapers, toilet paper, and so on. I took some video for you.
It was hard to get many pictures to really show you the damage. You could see some walls that had crumbled a bit, but the real damage was inside the houses. Quite a few people in this town had homes that were more or less destroyed on the inside.
The first family I spoke to were sleeping in their car. Their home, which was also their business, was more or less unlivable. You’ll see the outside of one wall at the beginning of the video below, but I didn’t take any pictures of the inside to respect their privacy.
Even parts of the road as we drove in were collapsed, or badly cracked.
We were able to give out the supplies in a fairly organized way. The nice thing was that the people of the town were already gathered, and we actually had time to talk to many of them.
So we tried to give some encouragement, pray with people, share the gospel, give out some tracts and Bibles, along with the other items. People were very open to talking – which is a bit unusual when a bunch of strangers show up in a small town around here.
Pray for these people, and so many like them, who have lost so much. Towns like this are far from the resources that we have closer to us. It will take them a long time to rebuild.
If you would like to help, you can give through this link to help us directly. You can also keep praying. Thanks so much to those of have contacted us with your encouragement.
And now, here’s the video from this evening:
It was hard to get many pictures to really show you the damage. You could see some walls that had crumbled a bit, but the real damage was inside the houses. Quite a few people in this town had homes that were more or less destroyed on the inside.The first family I spoke to were sleeping in their car. Their home, which was also their business, was more or less unlivable. You’ll see the outside of one wall at the beginning of the video below, but I didn’t take any pictures of the inside to respect their privacy.
Even parts of the road as we drove in were collapsed, or badly cracked.
We were able to give out the supplies in a fairly organized way. The nice thing was that the people of the town were already gathered, and we actually had time to talk to many of them.
So we tried to give some encouragement, pray with people, share the gospel, give out some tracts and Bibles, along with the other items. People were very open to talking – which is a bit unusual when a bunch of strangers show up in a small town around here.
Pray for these people, and so many like them, who have lost so much. Towns like this are far from the resources that we have closer to us. It will take them a long time to rebuild.
If you would like to help, you can give through this link to help us directly. You can also keep praying. Thanks so much to those of have contacted us with your encouragement.
And now, here’s the video from this evening:
A Hearing Aid/Glasses Event (video)
Some of you have heard about our recent events in Ixtapaluca, where we have been providing hearing aids and reading glasses for people in need, along with a presentation of the gospel. Well, today you can get a glimpse of what one of these events looks like.
I was able to help one lady with her new hearing aid. Her hearing was pretty bad, so I was either shouting instructions or making sure she was looking at me so that she could understand what I was trying to tell her.
This particular person was also waiting to receive a pair of glasses. Her name was called from the front, and up she went. When she sat down, her friend said,“You actually heard them call your name?!” Well, she was pretty proud of her new ability to hear what was going on. 🙂
Anyway, here you can see a little of what happened this time around.