Plentiful Harvest, Few Laborers

This trip into Mexico was quite different than the previous two trips. A team of 120 people or so came in last Thursday and Friday from all over the US. We broke up into 6 teams of various sizes and left on Saturday for 6 different locations. These locations are Emiliano Zapata (E.Z.), Centenario, Las Higuerillas, La Poza, Media Luna, and Ruby Island. My team consisted of about 30 people including the Davis Family (students at the CPCP), Chris Berger (last year student of CPCP), a group of people from Kerville Bible Church, and a nurse from Pennsylvania. We conducted two days of medical clinic in E.Z. and two days in Centenario. We dropped off the team at Centenario as we were leaving the village to head to E.Z. our van started making a very strange noise. We stopped the van and piled out while the men took a look. In the meantime, a local was standing nearby so I went over to talk to him with another guy on our team and a translator. He was half drunk and holding a half drunk bottle of beer in his hand. He began to rattle off in broken english..."I am not a bad person. I just like to drink beer. God is my God and I love Him...I just like to drink beer; it makes me happy." We began to show him verses in his own spanish bible like Psalm 16:11 that true joy comes from the presence of God and that this happiness he experiences from drinking beer is only temporary and not truly satisfying. He told us that it is impossible to obey the whole Bible. We showed him Philippians 4:13 and Psalm 119:9-11. He had so many questions. As we got back in the van to head to EZ the urgency of laborers for the harvest was like a blow to my chest. If only there was a consistent, evangelical witness in Centenario who could live and speak Jesus to these people on a daily basis, this man's questions could be answered and a church could be established there! In America, no matter how small a town may be that you drive through, you generally don't get through town without seeing several churches on several street corners. Not in Mexico. Centenario is home to roughly 300 people and EZ has around 260 people. These are people who go days on end without hearing any kind of truth from God's word and don't see it displayed in anybody's life.

WHO WILL GO?

We set up camp upon arriving in EZ and before long we had a soccer game going with the kids. I must say that is one of my favorite things about Mexico...EVERYBODY PLAYS SOCCER!! The next day we began working in the medical clinic. This time we had a doctor on our team so I was able to learn quite a bit by sitting in on the consultations and seeing what he diagnosed and prescribed. I also worked quite a bit in the pharmacy making labels in spanish for Cookie as she filled the little ziploc bags of meds that the doctor prescribed. The people of EZ and Centenario were very grateful for our free medical clinic. Robin, a nurse who lives in La Poza with her husband, was consulting with a lady named Maria Guadalupe. She was complaining of headaches and asked if headaches could be caused by stress. Robin answered yes and came to find out that the stress was due to giving birth to a still born child a few months prior. She didn't have anybody to talk to about this depressing event in her life. Robin explained to her she could talk to God and went on to share the gospel with this woman. While in the process of sharing Christ with her a member from the Baptist Church in San Juan, about thirty minutes away, whom Robin knows, walked in and was able to meet Maria and pray with her. Pray that the believers in San Juan would be burdened for the people of EZ and Centenario and evangelize these places! The rest of the team that wasn't in the medical clinic did a VBS for the kiddos in the afternoons. They went through the gospel throughout the week and did many crafts with the kids. At the end of the week we invited all the kids to return around 7:30 pm and to bring their parents and extended families and friends for the showing of a video. We set up a projector and a sheet and we showed a video called La Esperanza (The Hope). It is an hour long video telling the main stories of the Bible chronologically and ending with the gospel. We had many women and children show up. Rafaela, a woman who did some cooking for our team while we were there, has been resistant to the gospel the last two years teams have gone to EZ. This year she asked for a Bible halfway through the week, she came to the movie, and she came to one of our team devos we had every night. Please pray for Rafaela's salvation and spiritual growth and that God would bring fruit from our labor among the people in EZ.

VBS KIDDOS!! (left)

LA ESPERANZA VIDEO!!(right)

Stateside Once Again

"Brakes give way...over a cliff they go...and they're dead...instantly...and I asked my people, "Is this a tragedy?" I found myself quoting this part of Piper's sermon "Boasting Only in the Cross" often as we traveled through the mountains in Oaxaca state to get to the Coicoyan people. He is referring to two elderly women missionaries, Ruby Aliason and Laura Edwards, who served God faithfully overseas as medical people. As they were driving through the mountains of Cameroon their brakes gave way and they died instantly. In the eyes of the world this would be a tragedy but not for the gospel's sake. They died serving the Lord and in an instant they were in the presence of the Lord! To die really is gain when all our joy and hope is found in the person of Christ because we will instantly be in his presence!! Anyways, these are the kinds of thoughts that pervaded my mind while traveling through mountains that were home to 13 villages or so of people who have never heard the name of Christ or a true presentation of the gospel. We did a medical and dental clinic in two villages, Jicaral and Trinidad, and another part of our group did a dental clinic in two other villages. The need for laborers hit me the most as we set out from Jicaral to travel further into the mountains to Trinidad. We literally drove right through one village. The road went through the middle of the village with houses just feet from our vehicles on either side. There was a huge catholic church on the edge of the village. As we drove on through the mountains beyond, the village would come in and out of sight, reminding me of how unreached they are! Who is going to live among them and tell them about Christ? Who will go? Well, that is David Sitton's aim in starting this missions training school, the Center for Pioneer Church Planting. He desires to train laborers and launch them to the nations. That has been the most sobering sight in every place we have been so far...the magnitude of unreached peoples and the thought of 'who will go?' I am only one person!! If you have the slightest desire to do missions then do as we say here at To Every Tribe Ministries..."Pull the trigger!" Just do it! We have a clear mandate in scripture to go to peoples who don't know Christ and tell them about Him. You have a desire to go...what else do you need? "Pull the trigger!" I just so happen to know of a great training school for missionaries and several places where unreached peoples dwell. Please pray about what the Lord would have you do next in your life. I make this call out of a constant need I have seen everywhere we have gone...a plentiful harvest and few laborers. So, will you join me? If not then consider how you can support those who are taking the gospel to the unreached. Every missionary needs a support system back home. That could be you. And that is no less of a noble task. It is equally part of taking the gospel to the nations. And there is so much joy in both the going and the sending aspect of mission! So, what will you do?

And he said to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest."
Luke 10:2

Our prayer here at TETM has continually been for laborers and we have seen the plentiful harvest which only fuels our prayers more for laborers. You can find out more about TETM at their website: www.toeverytribe.com. You can listen to Piper's sermon, "Boasting Only in the Cross" at http://www.desiringgod.org/Search/?search=boasting+only+in+the+cross. Click on the sermon and a box should come up and you can listen to the sermon.

I do thank you so much for all your prayers thus far and thank you to those who have sent money to TETM for my schooling here at the Center for Pioneer Church Planting. I can't express to you how grateful I am for this training and the opportunities I have had to take the gospel to people who have never heard. I can't imagine what kind of missionary I would have been now that I know what I have learned through this school. This experience has been priceless to me! Thank you. I love you all and pray for you often. May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face shine upon you.
Side by side
Phil 1:27
Cara