The Miller Family in Mexico City

A Beautiful Day for a Baptism...or 7!

It was a long and joy filled day yesterday as 37 people witnessed the baptism of 7 of our church family.  Four of the women are from our new church plant in Xochimilco and how EXCITING it is to see their growth and eagerness to undertake this next step of their new faith.  We sang, prayed and played together as we thanked God for his goodness and for the changed lives we witness each year.  What a way to end our term here.  God is so good.  Pictures speak better than words...(by the way the water was straight from the mountains and COLD!) so be sure to check out our photo album of the baptism located in the right hand column.

Super soap for sale!

Mexico City women are now selling soap through SEED.  Go to Janette's blog to read all about it and see the different types!  And then you can buy some for your friends, your family, your neighbors, your dog, and your own home !  Just email seed@fmcna.org or call 1-800-342-5531 ext.249 to order today!  The soap sells at $2.50 for a regular size bar or $5.00 for 3 square bars.

Sowing in Xochimilco

Pastor Juan and Eva have been ministering with one family in Xochimilco (So-she-mil-ko) for a couple of months now.  (We learned of this contact through a family member who is living in the United States.)  They have typically had two adults and 2 children attend a Sunday morning class.  While the numbers weren't large, the mother and daughter were very interested in learning more about God and the Bible.

Now enters the Peterborough, Canada VISA team.  They accompanied Pastor Juan and Eva to Xochimilco where they had a kids program of puppets, music, clowns, and a Biblical drama.  Several neighborhood families came to the outreach.  The team was also able to give some of the basic necessities to these needy families who are often hungry and without adequate clothing.  But would any of these families return without the draw of the Canadian children's ministry?

Praise God, the answer is YES!  Pastor Juan reports that yesterday morning 16 people came to the Sunday School in Xochimilco.  It is a beautiful thing when short-term teams are able to give a jump start to the work.  Thanks, Peterborough friends, for your willingness to serve and for the love you demonstrated to the "least of these" in Xochimilco.

Sorry, we don't have any pictures of this new house church yet.  We'll post them when we do.

Church Math

We seem to be trying to balance our addition/multiplication with subtraction/division in the local church these days.  God has done some amazing things in the last few months and yet we are also facing some of the most difficult challenges we've ever had in our church this week.  The last couple of days have been very painful for Janette and I but we can also testify that God is with us.  Many of you have prayed for us despite not knowing the details or even that something was going on.  We thank you for that and ask that you continue praying that God's will be done in us and in the church leadership and in Mexico City.

God's Word has been so uplifting and healing as well.  What a privilege to have the very words of Jesus and God's servants to remind us of his love and faithfulness.  The Psalms have been especially meaningful.

There are things that we learn from being broken and from suffering.  Is it possible that just as Jesus' wounds were our salvation, so our wounds might be a healing for others?

Women's Discipleship Group

I am excited that we now have a women's club!  This is a new ministry focused on discipleship for women in our church.  It is still in the beginning stages as it has been going for only 3 weeks but I am encouraged to see that 13 women are now attending!   The Wednesday morning time is spent participating in a cooking lesson or craft, enjoying a teaching time from the Bible, setting personal goals for becoming more Christ-like and sharing our prayer requests.  And without any prodding we are seeing the women reaching out to their friends and family and inviting them to come along.  Out of the 13 women attending, a third of the women do not attend our church nor do they profess to be Christians but have a desire to share, learn and fellowship.  And as questions arise during our teaching time we are proud to see our church members learning to respond in love with truths from the scripture.   God is working in Mexico City!  Please pray for our Wednesday morning Women's Club.

Happy Birthday!

At the Casa de Paz FM church, our tradition is to celebrate birthdays once a month with a meal and a cake after church.  Occasionally there is a piñata as well!  On Sunday, we celebrated January birthdays including Hannah's and Joel's.  The "pitched-in" foods included beef and chicken for tortillas, macaroni salads, a variety of beans, and rice.  We always look forward to these times for the Body to gather and share a meal and a time of fellowship together.  You can see by the smiles on the faces that we are becoming a family.  It was also encouraging to see a good group of adolescents at this particular fiesta.

Dulce Yaneth enjoys a moment with son Hector.

 

Andres and Bertha enjoy their first fiesta with us.

Two by Two They Came

Like the animals coming into the ark, God is bringing people into his Kingdom.   Our recent experience in Mexico City also parallels the ark story in that they are coming by twos.  In the previous post on this blog, you read about Andres and Bertha coming.  We praise God for drawing them to Himself.

On Sunday morning, Pastor Juan and Eva traveled to the southern delegation of Xochimilco (so-she-milk-o) to share in a home.  How they were led to this home is a real story in itself.  Several years ago, one of the sons (Aldo) left home for California where he now lives and works.  While in California, he attended a Free Methodist church and accepted Jesus.  He has been sharing long distance with his family telling them that he would try to send them someone to share this good news.  Through a contact in one of the northern Mexico FM churches, the message was communicated to our Pastor Juan that a family was waiting in Xochimilco for someone to share the gospel.

When Juan and Eva arrived, they found Aldo's mother and sister as well as two young children waiting for them.  Juan shared a short devotional with Gloria and Veronica and both expressed their desire to follow Jesus.  Eva spent the time with the two children who also committed themselves to Jesus.  There are other extended family members living on the same property and we pray that others are able to come and hear the life-transforming message.

As Noah obeyed and opened the door of the ark, we want to be available to open the doors of the church- to break down the barriers that stand between people and a new Life.  Let's keep bringing them in...two by two, three by three, ten by ten...however the Lord chooses to work!

New Life

By God's grace, we are seeing new spiritual life at the Casa de Paz local FM church.  We believe that God is answering prayers (yours and ours) that His presence might be revealed here in Mexico City- in and through us.  As God opens the doors, we are learning to walk through them.  Pastor Juan and Eva are leading in this area by example.  What a privilege to watch them share their testimonies and lives with all who will listen.

We are also learning that we all have a part to play in this effort.  The following excerpt from a report I wrote on Friday illustrates how the church and social ministries are working together to give people opportunities to meet the Lord...

We are taking a prayer walk this a.m. in the neighborhood with Pastor Juan and Eva.  God is at work here- there is a sense of excitement and anticipation in the air.  A 50-ish couple (Andres and Bertha) made a decision for Christ this week.  Their story is an example of what we hope/hoped would happen with the work here.  They have a son in AA and had attended some of those meetings where they were introduced to the Bible and started reading on their own.  Our first contact with them was through the clinic- they both had various physical complaints.  Even in the clinic, however, their language betrayed the fact that the greater need was spiritual.  "I have this emptiness inside that I don't know how to fill."  "Something is lacking."  As they came to the clinic almost weekly, we pointed them to Jesus and this Monday they made the step of coming to the Bible study.

Since the other Bible study attenders are in a leadership curriculum, Pastor Juan took them into the parsonage and they decided to start the Timoteos (basic discipleship) series.  They had their Bibles and started the first lesson- "How to start living a Christian life".  By the second verse of the study, Bertha was weeping and Andres was visibly broken.  Juan stopped the study and asked them if they would like to have this kind of life.  They gave their lives to Jesus and are now continuing their walk alongside the rest of us.  Last night they came to the prayer meeting and are planning to invite one of their friends to the Monday night study next week.  You read and know about the Spirit working in this way but when it happens in your life and with your friends, it is still amazing and refreshing.  God wants to use us and we want to be available for the Spirit to work through us, transforming lives.

We praise the Lord for this fruit that he is giving.  Andres and Bertha were in church yesterday, praising the Lord for their new life in Christ.  They are still learning what it means to be a Christian and we are glad for the opportunity to come alongside them.  Would you be in prayer for them too?  Would you also pray that God would continue to give the spiritual fruit as we obey Him?

Making inroads into the garbage dump.

On Saturday morning, we went with our pastor, Juan, and met 4 leaders of the organization Operation Serve International downtown.  We came away feeling greatly encouraged!  OSI is the organization that  Joel works with that runs the medical brigades into the garbage dump communities.  Presently there are two garbage-dump communities that are within a reasonable distance for us and are without any known church presence.   These are two VERY difficult areas due to politics and mafia influence not to mention all the other issues that confront the garbage dump communities.  It has taken OSI 17 years to get into one of them!  They have accepted the compassion ministries of OSI as long as they run them from the political center.  OSI is able to share the love of Jesus and bring people to Christ but no churches are allowed within the walls.  OSI has tried to send converts to nearby churches but these people of the dumps are considered "unacceptable" and are treated badly.  Our desire is to plant a church near the opening to the compound that would be a place for Christians from the dump to attend and there offer holistic ministries, such as the clinic, on a consistent basis.  Pastor Juan and some church members will go this week with OSI to visit both compounds, pray and see how God is leading us.  Please pray with us!

Woman's Retreat a Success!

With great joy we celebrate our first women's retreat of southern Mexico. Sixty-two women from 6 churches as well as 5 "delegates" from the north of Mexico united for a weekend of encouragement, Bible study, prayer, laughter and love.  Jann Allen shared the following story, "One fantastic story that came out of the retreat is about a young woman who has grown to be a strong leader in our Tizoc church.  She has only been a committed follower of Jesus for about a year, and has grown by leaps and bounds.  Before she became a Christian, she was in a relationship with an older man.  Her friend managed to steal the boyfriend, and Y's hatred for the other young woman grew.  (Actually, now she can see that it was a bad situation for her to be in anyway.) Most times when our Bible study meets, Y tells us of some thing the Lord has changed in her life.  Recently she mentioned that the Lord told her she must forgive the woman who has caused her such unhappiness in the past.  Then along came the retreat, and Y invited that very friend to go to the retreat.  We never suspected that N was the friend from her past, as Y only treated her with love and friendship during the retreat.  On the way home, on the bus, Y talked to her friend about Jesus and invited her to become a Christian, too.  N is too afraid of the boyfriend's reaction to take that step, though she did express that she would like to be a Christian.  Please pray for this young woman."  Praising God for his work is Mexico.