Well, we did it again, a few months go by with no posts. We’re not very prolific bloggers, are we? Even our monthly prayer letters haven’t been going up very consistently, due to a change of format. We’re using Mail Chimp to send our prayer letters, which is a big improvement over Google Groups. So, here at FIM’s training, we’ll post links to our latest prayers letters:

Thank you for your prayers.

In the interest of actually writing here, I thought I’d do a quick general bullet-pointed post. A lot has happened this week, with little time to write. So we’ll go with a list, just to give an idea of a not-atypical busy week!

• Tim, Drew and Gavin went camping this last weekend in Tlatlauquitepec, a small town in the hills of northeastern Puebla (state). It was with five other dads and their sons, 16 males (testosterone!) in all. It was to have fun, teach the boys camping, be together, and most of all to instill in the boys a love for God and a desire to know and serve him. It was a fantastic time. We explored, cooked, went into a cave, rapelled, and saw interesting critters (and ate some of them, too). I’ll link to the photos here when I get them uploaded.
• This week is back-to-school, after two weeks off, so we’re back into all our regular activities. Monday was prep work for our visa, checking on our car (it should be ready next week, yippee!), and an unexpected purchase of a new battery for our borrowed car.
• Monday and Tuesday were also back to Bible studies. Monday we read 1 John 4 with that study. It was a great time of interaction and learning. Tuesday we started a new study with a family. We’ll do our four week study, God, Humanity, Jesus, New Life. This Tuesday was “Who is God?” through the days of creation (7, yes, 7). A good start.
• Tuesday and Wednesday were back-to-school days for Tim, as he went back to computer classes at the elementary school, and we started English club again. This makes for long days, although they are fulfilling and fun, or rather, funny, like having little 2nd graders show you the scar on their tummy from an apendectomy! Wednesday, Tim also had a wisdom tooth pulled. Not “fun” but there’s no pain now!
• Today we turned in the application for our visa renewal. The system here almost makes you enjoy the process (at least in our experience). That is, it’s easy, the workers at Immigration (IMM) are friendly AND helpful, and it really doesn’t take much time to get done. We trust that in 3-5 weeks we’ll have the renewals. This will, Lord willing, be the last time for this kind of visa. Because Gavin and Fiona are Mexican citizens we can get a permanent visa, like a green card, and be done with the process. That will be worth it, we think.

So there, that’s some of what’s going in a full week!

Thanks for your prayers as we work here!

Yesterday was a great day. Jesus is alive! We had a good service at El Camino, where they baptized 10-12 new believers, and then we hustled back over to Pueblo Nuevo for our own service. Things went well. We had good food, a good turnout, and I think some really good conversations with people. We actually started pretty much on time and stayed pretty much on schedule.

We started with a meal. Everyone was going to bring food, but one of the families had made lunch for 200 police officers on Friday (who were on duty for the big neighborhood Passion Plays, yes, plural) so they brought their left-overs and everyone else kind of filled in. Then we held a low-key celebration, with an ice-breaker, reading the story of the Resurrection from Luke, music, a 4-minute Gospel (not Music) video (click here for Spanish subtitles!), and a short message by Abelardo Aguilar. Then we had a Dulce Final–dessert! And people stayed, and talked, and talked, and stayed! We had some really good conversations, including a family that wants to start studying the Bible. In all we were about 50 people of whom maybe 20-25 were non-church people (others were our leadership team and small group members). It was a great way to honor and celebrate Jesus together.

These quarterly get-togethers are one of the steps we take towards an actual church in Pueblo Nuevo Keep praying!

For the photos, click here.

Well, after a very long, and busy, hiatus, we’ll be back, hopefully with a bit more consistency and content. Not that I’d hold my breath. But we’ll start with a quickie link to our latest three prayer letters, from January through March. Yes, we wrote them! No we didn’t post them. Bad missionary!

We’ve been extra-active this month. Except for this week. We tried to do nothing at all. Except for go to the circus, a couple of parks, a bike ride, baseball practice, Valiant Brave, and a family hike.

But in that we squeezed in time to write an update to last week’s VBS. Praise God, it was a great time. The text is below the jump…

Read more…

One of the great lacks of Puebla is green space–parks. There are some decent ones, and we love them, but coming from very green areas (WA & PA) we sometimes miss wide swathes of green grass and lots of trees rustling in the wind. Yesterday we found a neat little park by the river. It’s a new space that the city is trying to rehabilitate into a river walk. It’s got a long way to go, honestly, because of the quality of the water in the river, but there are places where you can feel yourself just relax–there’s something special about trees and water, isn’t there? And that’s about as poetic as I can wax. But I can put up some iPod photos after the jump.
Read more…

We had a great week—50-60 kids, most of whom we have regular contact with (only about 25 were from our ESL camp two weeks before; many others were from school and sports with some walk-ins). Thursday we gave an invitation and somewhere from 12-30 kids responded. Eddie did a great job with his kids (12) and there’s no doubt they “got it.” We also invited parents to have a Bible study and 13-15 responded. So we’ve got our work cut out for us. Pray for Mexican partners in this process. We need Mexican leaders from the beginning—which we’re thankful to have, but sometimes a weekly Bible study require a step up in commitment level. We have 3-4 families and some seminary students that we pray will jump into the work.

There were cops watching our work all week, as I mentioned in the prayer letter I sent out. They were listening, taking our snacks (!…which we offered), and asking questions. On Thursday night (9-12) we showed Courageous to somewhat more than 60 of them as they were resting there. Great contact. God is showing His presence here in a special way.

Well, I’m an idiot, officially. I’ve managed to lock the keys in the rental van twice in two days now. That was a lousy ending to a good day. We’ve got a locksmith scheduled for 7:30 AM. Aagh. Cars shouldn’t be made without a keypad, although I’ve never locked the keys in our car before.

But everything else has been good. We had 59 kids today, and I think everything went well. I wouldn’t say we’re a well-oiled machine, but everything has gone really well. Miguel A. gave a really good talk–a review, and the life of Jesus, culminating with his death and resurrection. A skit followed that emphasizing Christ’s substitution for us. In crafts and snacks we emphasized John 3:16, and in games, well, games were just games, but we introduced the older kids to Ultimate Beachball. At the end we had 20-30 parents listening as we reviewed and Constantine did a very effective paper trick with everyone that shows our need for Jesus. It ends with a surprising twist that elicited gasps from many people.

So tomorrow we finish up–we’re doing a final invitation & push for kids to accept God’s gift of salvation and transformation as well as offering a Bible study to families. We’ve got a painting project to finish, a trip to see a 2000-year-old pyramid, and possibly a showing of the movie Courageous to the police at the hall. And I have a 7:30 appointment with a locksmith.

Just a real quick update after a long day. We did VBS today and had about 50 kids. About 30 were from the ESL camp and about 20 were walk-ups. We were pleased. The best part is that we already know most of the kids. Relationship-building is going well. Now we’re praying for the next step of Bible study. In the afternoon we worked on some ladies’ houses, painting, prepping for painting, and putting up blinds. Then, a Puebla treat: tacos árabes. Mmmmm. Debrief, and…yeah, to bed.

Today we took our FBUP team out to a camp to join with Comunidad Bíblica at a baptism service. What a special day! Our US home church with our former Mexican church, celebrating communion, Sunday worship, and baptism. It was a very emotional time. And the camp is in a beautiful place as well. Two things made the day extra special. First, Tim baptized Drew. We are so thankful for God’s gracious hand on Drew and the evidence of salvation in his life. He understood and wanted to be baptized.

Second, a family was baptized with a special story. Seven years ago on Easter, Tim was able to share the Gospel with them and the dad made a profession of faith. However, within a very short time after this, they received kidnapping threats and moved away from Puebla within days. We only saw them sporadically after this. Their spiritual growth stagnated, the daughter has made some bad choices, and there was really no good sign of life in their family. However, the folks at Comunidad have been faithful in following up with them over the years, especially with the daughter. They all moved back to Puebla a year ago or so, and this year have been faithfully attending church and eagerly seeking to grow in a relationship with the Lord. Just yesterday, meeting with Pastor Chris, they decided that they wanted to confess their faith in Christ and be baptized. So today they were, father, mother, daughter. It was a thrill to see. God is faithful. Over seven years have passed since Tim shared the Gospel and they responded. Over eight since the church first made contact with them. And of course today is not a culmination, only a significant step forward in the Lord. We’re never finished growing and following Jesus, are we? But we’re thankful for milestones like today: for Drew, the family, and the others who were baptized, and for this display of God’s faithfulness in Comunidad Bíblica.