Hello everybody! Welcome to Steve and Kay’s first blog. That is, their first blog EVER!
The LORD is awesome and worthy to be praised!
That is so true, and we feel privileged to have the opportunity to tag along and experience much of what He is doing. It is incredible. And to be a part of some of His activity is way beyond cool!
TULTEPEC, Edo. de México, Fraccionamiento Hacienda del Jardin. (Tultepec is a city in the state of Mexico in the northern part of the greater Mexico City metropolitan area. Fraccionamiento means neighborhood.)
Our ministry in Tultepec is both exciting and hurtful. Hmmm, we best explain the hurtful part first. One of the ways that we have
made inroads into the community is by eating at the fast food places in the neighborhood and by Steve playing basketball once a week with the young men that work at the hamburger stand and the taco stand (those are the fast food places!). Well, to make a long story short, Steve is 54 and his body is not what it used to be (big secret!) so he usually walks around for five or six days limping and showing off his bruised fingers. It doesn’t go a long ways in getting him any sympathy but it must make him feel
better. The up side is that Steve is very accessible and has been approached by two of the men that has led to a study in the neighborhood.
The first couple that approached Steve is Carlos and Yeri. They invited us to study in their home and we have been since early November of 2011. Carlos and Yeri, are very special people. We believe that the Spirit of God is working in them. They are fun to spend time with and to share God’s Word with. We have finished the book of Mark and started the book of Acts last week. Mark gave them a great introduction to the person of Christ and Acts will expose them to many conversion stories. Somewhere in there we will ask them if they wish to surrender their lives to Christ.
Last Thursday, February 16th, another young man named Ernesto approached me after we had finished two hours of basketball.
He started the conversation by asking where we lived and why we came out to the neighborhood. I explained that while house hunting, almost a year ago, that we had started eating at the food joints and met the guys that work there. From there I started playing basketball every Thursday. Then I shared that we had a study with Carlos and Yeri and helped them with their English. That really caught Ernesto’s attention and he asked if we were available to study with him. After I explained that our main focus was God’s Word he was just as excited. He is a young married man that works with his wife in a home decorating store. After visiting with me he talked with Carlos who was also excited that others would be joining our group. OH! Yeah! OK! That really is great! We are glad that Carlos has taken ownership of the group, after all, it does meet in his home. The following Thursday we all met together at Carlos and Yeri’s place. Ernesto joined us and we hope he is interested in continuing. Pray for Carlos, Yeri and Ernesto.
TEA, T4T and the Tinaco.
These T words have nothing in common except that they explain some of the busy activities that we have been involved in over the past two weeks. When I started writing this blog Kay was downstairs hosting a women’s tea. OK, that may be too British sounding, but they were having tea, playing some games and talking up a storm. I thought it might be a bit boring, but no, they are playing some kind of dance moves on the Wii and bowling. I guess, since they stayed as late as 11:00 pm it wasn’t boring at all.
T4T is the title of a book written about the incredible church planting movements taking place in Asia, Africa and other areas of our world. The Mexico Field Team met together for three days at the New Life Christian Church in Pachuca where our co-workers Greg and Vicki Syverson and Pam Akihiro are involved in ministry.
We were pleased that David Giles came to lead the training seminar and to facilitate our time together. It is exciting to read and discuss what is happening in other parts of our world and to consider how the same process can be effective in reaching people for Christ in Latin America.
And finally, what is a tinaco? It is the plastic water tank that sits on top of the roof and supplies water pressure to the house. It did not take us long to realize that the house we rent does not have adequate water pressure. You could ask the Reach Interns from last summer if we had enough water pressure and you would get a unanimous NO! Well, that has finally changed. Our friend from the Eagles Church, Cornelio, and I poured a new cement platform for the tank that gives us not only another four feet of height but also allows us to change the plumbing that was contributing to the pressure problem. It took a couple of days for the air bubbles to move on but the end result is a nice HOT shower on the second floor.
Wrapping up the Blog. As fun as this blog is. I think in order to make the rest of it go quicker I’ll reduce it all down to bullet points. Oh, yeah, and we need your feedback on this blog. So click on “comments” and let us hear from you.
- We attended two Valentines Day activities, a Date Night via Focus on the Family and a couples dinner at the Eagles Church.
- Steve is continuing to help the youth praise group, although less and less as we begin to phase out of ministry in the
Eagles Church. - We are studying Church Planting Movement (CPM) materials and hoping to get a grasp on what is happening in many areas of the world where thousands, hundreds of thousands and even in excess of a million people have come to Christ in different movements over the last decade.
- We attended a Quince años fiesta for a fifteen year old girl at the Eagles Church. And would you believe that Steve
erroneously had them beat on an empty piñata until it broke only to discovery there was nothing in it! It really was funny, and he did have another piñata filled with candies. - Steve, Cornelio, Pedro and others helped construct, clean, paint, varnish wood, weave rope and fasten ladders, climbing
rocks and slides to the new playground equipment. Even Kay, Natasha and Ben helped paint. - We attended worship at the grand opening of the Mosaico Christian Community in Puebla, Mexico. Todd and Tonja Hancock are working with this new and they and they mostly university students and graduates are very excited. See their blog at http://tthancock.cmfmissionary.org
- A couple of weeks later we attended the Mexico Field Team meeting, also held in Puebla, giving everyone the opportunity to attend Mosaico. I think in the span of three weeks they pretty much tripled the number of people in attendance!
- This past week (Feb. 12) we attended services at the El Camino Christian Community and participated in the ordination service of their pastor, Jesus “Chewy” Beltran. It was an exciting and meaningful time, especially since immediately after the ordination we gathered outside in the patio area and witnessed Chewy baptize middle aged man with his wife and sons as witnesses. It is awesome to see God as work!
- Kay travelled to Pachuca, where Greg and Vicki Syverson work with the New Life Christian Church and Pam Akihiro heads up the Community Health Evangelism. As team leader Kay in involved in ministering to our missionary team.
- We have participated in the Instituto Timoteo (Timothy Institute) led by Vic DeLeon.
- And, of course, have met regularly with the leadership at the Eagles Church and participated in the ministry there.
