How was your Holiday (er, Christmas, just kidding!) season?

We got to spend  Christmas with  our good  friends Miguel and Socorro and show them around the Northwest: Seattle, the Olympic Peninsula, Mount Rainier.  Besides that, it was great to encourage them and just be together.  Of course it was wonderful to be with  family here in Tacoma for the first time in six years.  We  are so thankful for  God’s  gift of Jesus.

This year we are looking ahead to going back to Puebla.  We have a schedule in place (see below) to visit our remaining churches to report on what we’ve been doing.  But we are most excited about sharing what  we believe God has for us going forward.  We’ve mentioned our desire to work in Pueblo Nuevo, the area we lived in, and how we feel it will be necessary to invest for long-term in serving the needs of the community in order to open doors to the gospel there.  We are excited about what God could do through us, but also through others who are willing to give themselves to serving Jesus there.  This year we want to highlight a few possibilities with the thought that YOU or someone you know could serve alongside us in Pueblo Nuevo.

We’ll start with the idea of missions trips.  One model of missions trips that we’ve been encouraging churches is for the church to make a 5-year commitment to a place (Pueblo Nuevo, in our case!).  The idea would be to send a group down for the next 5 years with the same leaders.  Different people within the church could go, but having 2-4 leaders who commit to going each year lends consistency and quality to the project.  As your church goes to Pueblo Nuevo over the years you’ll see friendships open up, a more effective work done, and unique opportunities presented.  Why?  Because of the investment you’re making as well as the fact that people on-site begin to get to know you—and with that comes trust.

There’s obviously more that could be said about the idea, but we invite you to dialogue with us about ideas and questions you have.

Other plans for the new year include (but are not limited to):

1. Tim has a thesis to write (well, actually to propose, get accepted, then write).
2. A fair bit of travel; we have 5 months of reporting to our churches.
3. We are going to be working on putting a team together for work in Pueblo Nuevo.
4. Getting ready for a road trip back down to Puebla in August.