Ninos Pequenos de Centenario!

We have just completed our last trip into Mexico during my time at the Center for Pioneer Church Planting. I can hardly believe its almost over! Well, this trip was a blast. One reason it was a blast was because I had one of my good friends come from San Angelo as a translator. None other than the Fonze! He did a great job translating as well as being a servant and keeping the group in tears of laughter all week! Also, for the first time since PNG I was not working in a medical or dental clinic. This freed up my time to play with the kids, see the village, learn spanish songs and work with VBS, and my favorite...PLAY SOCCER! Many of the teens of the village would come around in the afternoons and we would play soccer from about 7 to 9 or 10 pm. During the day we had VBS around 10 am and another session around 3 pm. Ivan, a pastor and one of the men on my team, taught the lessons using Piper's children's curriculum. We sang songs with the kids and did crafts relating to the lessons. Ivan wrote a song by the title of this blog that we taught to the kids of Centenario. They didn't seem to know what to think of a song written for them, about them! I also spent part of my day in the kitchen with Carmen. For food on these trips we pack a tub of food specifically for a lady in the village whom we pay to cook a meal each day for us. It was a great way to practice my spanish and learn how to cook some tasty mexican food. It is also a great opportunity to build a solid relationship with someone in the village and share the love of Christ with in the process. They also are blessed by a little supplemental income. One day we were invited to a family's house for lunch. I love going to the homes of those living in the village to see where they live and to know more about their lives. The meal was excellent; they cooked a goat for us as well as chicken and an unlimited supply of tortillas it seemed like. Another thing I love about Mexico is the food!! However, there are things that break my heart when in Mexico. Recently we had an ex-Catholic priest, Richard Bennett (www.bereanbeacon.org), come speak at our school and teach us about Catholicism. With a broader understanding of this religion and Satan's vice grip he has on the majority of the hispanic population, it crushes me to see it's influence everywhere you look in Mexico. A lady named Juana invited us over for coffee on two occasions. While sitting in her kitchen drinking coffee, I noticed a framed picture of Mary hanging on the wall just above a shelf with a vase of old, dried out flowers and other little belongings as if they were offerings to Mary. Juana is a sweet (not to mention short...I'm 5'3"), elderly lady who will not go to heaven if she dies without Christ. "Sweet" is a great adjective for the majority of the people we meet in the places we go to in Mexico. But that is coupled with a veil blinding them from the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of CHRIST (2 Cor. 4:3-6). Another yard in town is home to an idol of Mary encased with glass and white christmas lights to light it up at night. This doesn't begin to describe the bondage of sin. My heart breaks for these people that someone would live there permanently to be a steady, consistent witness of Christ to them by their lives and by the preaching of the gospel. I pray God plants His church there, raising up spiritual worshipers to worship Him in Spirit and in truth.

The last night in Centenario, we had a fish fry that we invited the whole town to. The whole town didn't come but it was neat to see families gathering together at the school where we stayed, eating together. It was a blessing to us to be able to show the love of Christ in sharing a meal with them. The fish was quite tasty too. I have never once in all my life liked seafood in America but in Mexico I have never once NOT liked it. Mom and Dad...you would have been proud! These fish were scaled only before battered and thrown into the oil to be fried. Other than the bones and organs, I ate every bite! My fish was so cute with his little buck teeth that I thought I would give him a kiss! There are other tasty things to eat in Mexico that are much more appealing to the eye like chocolate covered bananas with sprinkles that I was forced to try by one of our other translators name Irian. I gave in with little complaining.

Like I said above, I have two more weeks of classes before our graduation. After that my plans are to spend some time with family and friends and speak at various places before leaving for La Barra. Here are my plans for the next year (Lord willing):

August 17th-Graduation

September 24th-November 20th- La Barra

January 08-August 08-Teach at the Center for Pioneer Church Planting (missionary first

aid) and work with Mark Faulkner and Chris Johnson as short term mission directors.

September of 08-PRAYERFULLY-planning with a team to go to some unreached people group

with the gospel long term!!

Fish Tailing in Fish Town

We recently returned from a trip to Mexico where I served in Emiliano Zapata (EZ) and Chris Johnson served in Fish Town, AKA Las Higuerillas (LH) with a translator named Bianca. Tuesday night was a graduation ceremony for some kids in EZ that I wanted to go to, see the kids and follow up on some people we gave bibles to and shared Christ with. Chris and Bianca went with me so we could go to LH the next morning to see Pastor Hacinto and the kids they ministered to. Another girl went along with us named Christy. We spent Monday afternoon getting my vehicle registered so I could drive it past the checkpoint in Mexico and getting visas for Bianca and Christy. We left Tuesday afternoon and made two last minute stops: getting the satellite phone from the Sitton’s house and getting 24 hour Mexican auto-insurance. I will say right now Praise God for His sovereignty over those two actions!! We made it to EZ and waited with the people there for the activities to start but soon it began pouring rain. We stood inside the school building for some time before the event was cancelled. We decided, since everyone abandoned building and went home, that we would head out to LH that night instead of the next morning. We were driving along quite nicely in the dark around 9:30 pm with the drizzle falling on the windshield, enjoying each other’s fellowship when all too quickly some potholes appeared. I nonchalantly said “uh-oh”, like I do when we unexpectedly approach a tope (Mexican speedbumps, pronounced toe-pay). That uh-oh turned into some fish tailing and I hear from Chris who is in the passenger seat, “You got it!” Well, about the time my car was facing the opposite direction we were originally heading and we were in the grass on the opposite side of the road I knew I didn’t “got it.” All I saw were trees and grass and at that point I threw my hands in the air above my head and said “Lord?!” and we began to roll. At that point I just remember waiting for the glass to shatter and my body to be broken but all I heard was silence and all I felt was peace. The car came to a stop on all four wheels in the midst of trees. Immediately Chris and I began asking if everyone was okay and we all were. Not a drop of blood anywhere. Christy said, “Can we pray?” and realizing my car was still on I asked for some strange reason, “Should I turn my car off?” I turned it off and we held hands and prayed. My door was still in tact and able to open without any problems. We all piled out and Chris and Bianca went to the road to flag down a ride while Christy and I grabbed what we could. A man named Teo took us the rest of the way into LH and to Pastor Hacinto’s house. We sang along the way in english and spanish and when we arrived we gave him a spanish bible and some money for gas. Pastor Hacinto wasn’t home but his mother-in-law told us he was in Matamoros and that we could stay in the church building across the village. This little building was a refuge to us from the lightning that made the night turn into day and the storm raging on outside. It made me think of how God is our refuge, a shelter from the storm, a safe place. That night the four of us sang to God, praising Him for sparing our lives so that we could praise Him more on this earth and take the gospel to the unreached! We reflected on ‘to live is Christ, and to die is gain’ and how if our lives were taken in that crash it really would have been gain because we would have been in the presence of Jesus, face to face. But God let us live. Why? He still has good works planned for us to walk in. We still have glory to bring Him while on this earth. We still have people to reach with the gospel. We talked about how there is no one like our God. I couldn’t talk about it enough to explain it so I read Psalm 115 under the dim light of a small lantern light we brought. When I realized the first verse of Psalm 116 said "I love the Lord, for he heard my voice ("Lord?!"); he heard my cry for mercy", I went on to read the rest. All of us were greatly ministered to by that psalm. And of course I had to read Psalm 117 because that is the reason we exist! We exist to bring God glory and to tell others of Christ that they too would praise and extol Him and bring glory to His Name. We prayed for the people of LH that night and EZ and the other towns we have been to thus far. We prayed that God would establish His church among the people in the Mezquital region. We prayed that He would be honored and magnified in our lives and that He would use us to magnify Himself among the nations. It was a sweet time of fellowship in that little chapel. I believe the last song we sang together was It is Well With My Soul. And with my bible and a rolled up sheet for my pillow and wooden pew benches for my bed I went to sleep.

The following morning we returned to the vehicle to realize that what we had left in there had already been ransacked. My CD player was tactfully removed and stolen along with my CDs and other belongings we left behind because we couldn’t take them with us. But I will rejoice in the plundering of my property because it’s not mine in the first place and it’s not eternal! Besides, now somebody has a whole lot of Christian music and a CD player to listen to them with. They are missing out though because they left behind my Piper sermons!! After Chris used the satellite phone many times to work out all the details a tow truck came and pulled my car from the forest of mesquite trees (or whatever kind of tree that is) that surrounded my car like a taco! The trees were the taco shell and my car was the meat!! The adjustor said my car was probably totaled. We left my car in Mexico and headed back across the border in the Sitton suburban with Mark who came to get us.

I don’t know what will happen next so I would appreciate your prayers that God would provide and that everything would work out with the insurance company. Praise God with me that the four of us exited the vehicle without a scratch on us. We are a little sore but that is to be expected when you roll a car three or four times!! Praise God that we have another day to enjoy Him and His creation, to bring Him glory, and to tell others about the saving grace of Christ.

Porque para mi el vivir is Cristo y el morir es ganancia. Filipenses 1:21

Behold Him there the risen Lamb, My perfect, spotless, righteousness

The Great Unchangeable I AM, the King of Glory and of Grace

ONE WITH HIMSELF I CANNOT DIE, my sinful soul is counted free

For God the just is satisfied, to look on Him and pardon me...to look on Him and pardon me.

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)