Current Events and Updates of the Ministry

Unfortunately there was a small glitch in the sending of my last Ministry blog dated August 8th: http://www.vitwministries.com/wordpress/2022/08/that-joy-may-be-made-complete-by-having-you-share-in-the-joy-of-salvation/

Hopefully we have updated the WordPress stuff necessary so that you will once again receive blogs as they are posted. You can click on the above link to receive the missed one for August 8th.

Sorry for those of you who were waiting.

Blessings,

steve

We are writing these things to you so that our joy [in seeing you included] may be made complete [by having you share in the joy of salvation]. 1 John 1:4 (Amplified Bible)

The summer is swiftly passing and I have been neglectful of including you in the powerful things that God is doing in the work in Mexico, especially among the Pame tribal group in the Sierra Madre Oriental Mountains to the west and southwest of Cd. Valles where Javier and Cristina and their missionary teams have been ministering for the past several years. I want to update you so that you too will find delight in what God is doing among this isolated people group and will be able to share in the joy of the salvation that they are also beginning to find as Believers.

I think that it will be beneficial to begin with a letter that Javier wrote at the end of May of this year. It gives a rounded look at how God began to open doors for Javier and Cristina to begin working in the Pame region within the historical background of their ongoing ministry over the years. Ministry and Christian service do not happen in a vacuum. Rather, they are the fruit of lives that are already yielded to God.

Since Javier wrote this letter about two months ago much has happened, and God has continued to open doors for the gospel and to tear down strongholds of the enemy. But first of all I will let Javier speak in his own words:

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To the God of Israel be the glory always in our lives because he is Lord and the owner of our very existence.

Jesus told us “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt.28:19, Mark 16:15).

“Go” is an imperative word that my wife Cristina Núñez, and I, your humble servant Javier Santos, have taken as part of the core of our being – as a part of who we are as workers sowing the Word of God into communities in response to Jesus’ command.

Throughout the journey of our spiritual labor the Holy Spirit has guided us to enter various communities in different ways, and using differing techniques. In the communities of San Ciro and Palo Alto it was through utilizing evangelistic campaigns to preach the gospel. In San Rafael, through our contact with friends we planted a church. In Ciudad Valles we were able to minister to a small group of believers, touching their lives daily until an autonomous church was established. In 2015 we began to work among the Tenek ethnic people group and churches were established among the Tenek villages.

In 2017 God clearly directed us to another ethnic people group located in the southwestern regions of our state of San Luis Potosí – the Pame tribal group – making His call to us very clear and unmistakable. This tribal group has historically been very closed and distrustful of any outsiders. They speak their own language called Xi-Ui, and live in the rugged regions of the Sierra Madre Oriental Mountains to the west and southwest of Cd. Valles. This call has all been very new and stretching for us, but it is also very interesting.

I myself am ethnically Tenek and speak the Tenek dialect. However, I do not speak or understand Xi-Ui, making communication difficult at times. Thankfully many of the Pame also speak Spanish as well, making this our common language. Still, having ethnic roots myself, even though not Pame, nonetheless allows me to be identified with them and gives me a point of acceptance and connection with this usually closed tribal group.

God has opened doors for us throughout the Pame region and it has become clear to us that there are four specific religious centers made up of several communities within each. The first of these that opened to us is the town of Tanlacut with its surrounding district. In the town of Tanlacut itself God has now established a group of Christian believers, and through personal evangelism and witnessing we have managed to touch four communities in the surrounding region with the gospel, and a Body of Believers has been established in these.

The second Pame religious center that was opened to us is Tanlú and the region surrounding it. Here churches have now been established in the two communities of El Coco and Chacuala.

God has also established another third group of Believers in the Pame municipal seat of Santa Catarina where five more families have come to the Lord. From Santa Catarina, with much labor of personal evangelism and the whole of the local church working, doors have slowly begun to open into the next stronghold and religious center – that of Santa María Acapulco – an important tribal center with sixteen surrounding communities, and the very heart of the Pame ethnic region and religious area.

All contact here into the Santa María Acapulco region has been very difficult because of their strong cultural, animistic, and tribal roots. They have customs and traditions that are different from ours, they have their own government which they maintain autonomously, witchcraft and sorcery are powerful and deeply entrenched into daily life, and no one has been able to effectively enter here to date with the gospel. Government statistics have calculated that there are more than 16,000 indigenous Pame people living within the sixteen communities in the Santa María Acapulco region alone. Only a few of these have ever heard the gospel, but there are no pastors who go there.

The reason for this negligence is several-fold; first of all it is very far from so-called civilization. There are almost no toilets and most people simply defecate in the open. It is not necessarily that they live in poverty, but that there is a deep and profound level of ignorance.

However, here we also see a field ripe for harvest with communities full of children and people loving their language and their culture, and we recognize that the only way to reach them is by providing for their needs and belonging to their communities.

I ask God to give us grace so that they will receive us and consider us as a part of their community. It is for this reason that I believe that we need to buy a property within the community where we can build a simple structure and rooms where we can begin meeting the felt-needs of the community by attending to the necessities of the children and giving them meals and instructing them in the Word of God. By working with the children we will be able to gain the confidence and friendship of the whole of the community. In this way, when trust has been established, we will be able to go even deeper into the community by beginning to educate the adults in personal hygiene (since it is common to see human excrement everywhere). Then finally, after having gained their confidence we will be able to freely introduce the Gospel of Jesus from a vantage point of trust, having earned the right to be heard.

In truth, their religious adoration is purely demonic, and the whole region is steeped in deep spiritual darkness. They worship a human skull in their temple. They practice witchcraft and shamanism, and worship various Gods. They are zealous of their beliefs and animistic religious observances and pagan practices: mainly that of the Cult of Death. That is why we need to establish Life through the Word of God. He will strengthen our arms to conquer hearts with the Word of God.

We thank you in advance for your prayers for us. We know that the God of Israel will cast Satan and all of his spiritual hosts from that place in the name of Jesus, and that together with your help we will conquer hearts through the Word of Christ Jesus.

Your prayers have mighty power. Together we bring down demonic strongholds, false religion, witchcraft, and sorcery in the name of Jesus.

Blessings my beloved brothers and sisters in Christ

Your servant,

Javier Santos

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God continues to miraculously open doors and show unimagined favor to Javier and Cristina and the missionary teams throughout the whole of the Pame region. New Believers are being added to the Body of Christ almost every time that the team goes into the region – usually every second week for several days.

The first evangelistic conference ever held in the region (mentioned in my last blog) was extremely fruitful, and many new souls gave their lives to the Lord. Besides this, there was also great favor shown to Javier and the team throughout the region, even in the governmental seat of Santa María Acapulco, heretofore closed to them. In fact, the town leaders even gave Javier permission to hold meetings in the grounds of the local Catholic Church yard because a priest never comes into the region unless paid several thousand pesos to do so. The leaders even assigned their local police force to the task of ensuring that nothing took place against Javier or the team during the meetings.

Indeed, it appears as if the community leaders in Santa María Acapulco will even grant permission for Javier to purchase a property there and give approval to continue to come into the community on a systematic basis to offer social and spiritual services. One of the men in leadership there told Javier that although he is not a Christian he could see the profound difference between Javier and others who proclaimed religion, and he was happy to assist his people by doing what he felt was a positive thing for them. God is miraculously opening doors that have been tightly closed for many years.

One Christian worker spoke to Javier in wonder at how God has rapidly been opening these communities to the gospel in recent months. He said that for many years no one has been able to penetrate these iron bars of darkness and hostility. However now, suddenly, God is blowing open formerly barred strongholds.

One of the tools that God is also using in the evangelization of this region is the Christian radio programming network called “Somos Radio Familia”( We Are Family Radio) that I mentioned in my last blog. They continue to broadcast Christian preaching and music into the region, and have built a new transmitter tower which has allowed their message to be heard even deeper into the mountains. For many Believers this is the only way that they can systematically be fed spiritually due to the great distances and difficult terrain between communities where they could worship with other Believers. A team from Somos Radio Familia have also come down to assist Javier and Cristina in the Pame evangelistic ministry on occasion.

This Christian broadcasting has been so successful that Javier and the mission team are now using a new tool in ministry among the far flung villages – they are giving small transistor radios to new believers. I love the ingenuity and common sense of this approach to evangelism! Javier told me that he is able to purchase simple transistor radios for around $225 pesos (about $15.00 dollars). With this tool these new believers can be mentored and grow in their knowledge of the Word.

With this in mind I would personally like to challenge you as an individual, your Sunday school class, your family, your coffee group, your quilting guild, or your church to take this opportunity to raise funds for this very hands-on and practical project. If you could collect and raise funds for the purchase of these small radios for Javier and the missionary team to distribute, many more new believers could be mentored in their walk in the Lord. Perhaps rather than the $3.65 per day for a Starbucks Cinnamon Dolce Latte coffee we could rather give the amount for a week or two to this ministry among the marginally-reached Pame. If you are interested in my challenge please feel free to email me at steve_frey_74@yahoo.com and we can come up with some plans.

A new group of Believers was “discovered” by Javier only very recently in a small community close to the already-established work in Tanlacut. Until only months ago Javier had no idea that they were there, and they had no fellowship with the other Believers only miles away where a Church has been established for some time. This small group of Believers was planted some years ago by an American missionary who has since returned to the United States. They have no pastor, and until “found” by Javier they had no outside fellowship with other Believers. Javier’s intention now is to involve them into the larger community of Believers already established in the area, namely that of Tanlacut, Agua Nueva, and Milpas Viejas.

Javier’s profound burden is to raise up leaders to advance the work among the unreached Pame tribal people. He also sees a deep need to strengthen and deepen Believers in sound doctrine.  Unfortunately many who have had some exposure to the gospel in the past have no sound roots, and even some in spiritual leadership lack any depth of solid doctrinal training and teaching. As stated in my last blog, Javier’s own words are “I also feel a burden to begin training men and women in leadership positions among these fledgling churches in doctrinal truths. I believe that in the very near future God will open the way for us so that we can teach systematic, foundational biblical truths among these Pame leaders so that the Church will be strengthened and grow into purity”.

As I also mentioned in the same blog, Javier sees a need to attend to the personal spiritual needs of pastors and other spiritual leaders already serving among these secluded groups in order to encourage them so that they can continue to minister. I further stated that Javier was told by these leaders that they felt a great need to be ministered to themselves so that they would have the strength to serve their flock. Many of them said that they often feel isolated and alone in the service of God. Javier then went on to say “The work of the Lord is difficult, and in many cases lonely”. He then reiterated, “As I also mentioned previously, there is also an urgent need to teach the truths of sound doctrine to these leaders. Many of them have a very limited knowledge of foundational doctrinal truths. To begin, I hope to have a full day conference for church leaders, elders, and spiritual laborers in the month of September to encourage and build up these dear brothers and sisters as they serve the Lord”.

I am thankful to be able to tell you that the September conference that Javier was praying about will become a reality. On the 8^th of September Pastor Marty Dyer from Newsong Church, a long-time friend of the ministry and of Javier, will be teaching in an all-day conference along with Javier. We pray that this will only be the beginning of many such times of edifying the Pame Church.

Please continue to hold up Javier, Cristina and the missionary teams as they continue to penetrate into this region of deep spiritual oppression and darkness. Let us not be lulled into apathy or lack of prayerfulness because we see that God is apparently bringing spiritual advancement into this region so dominated spiritually by evil forces and demonic powers.

We must always remain mindful of what Paul stated in Ephesians 6:12: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places”.

Then, finally, I want to remind you to pray for the continuation of the finances needed for Javier and the teams to minister in this mountainous and difficult region. These ministry trips, pounding up and down the very bad mountain roads take a terrible toll on both body and vehicles alike. The cost of gasoline in Mexico, like everywhere, is increasing almost daily and is becoming a major expense for the ongoing ministry there.

Remember to pray for the people in Mexico as they face their fourth year of drought. Rivers are again dried up, crops are almost nonexistent in some areas, and the poor, especially, are suffering due to the heat and drought overlaid by out of control inflation.

Please remember to pray for Javier and Cristina personally as they pour themselves out in ministry. Locally, as they pastor the flock in their church in Solidaridad and the surrounding mission churches; Cristina as she ministers to the children in the Hidden Manna Feeding Program; and as she serves the women in the sewing program that she tirelessly runs. Besides all of this, please remember them as they spend more and more time ministering among the Pame Believers. Neither Javier nor Cristina are young anymore, and Cristina, especially, is not in good health. Please pray for health and strength for both of them as well as for their entire missionary team.  Javier confided with me very recently that the work, although exhilarating and blessed to be in the center of God’s will, is nonetheless exhausting, and that both he and Cristina are physically weary.

Also, Theresa and I covet your prayers as we are in a time of transitioning in our lives as well.

We love each of you and thank you for your prayers and your love for the people of Mexico.

Your fellow servants in the love of Jesus Christ our soon-returning King,

Steven and Theresa

As we prepare our hearts to remember the death and resurrection of our Savior may we never forget the profound and limitless price that was paid for our salvation. I’m afraid that too often Easter becomes just another occasion to celebrate family gatherings and the church community – all good things, but not to the exclusion of the true heart of our redemption.

Thank you Jesus for paying a price so profound, so beyond imagination, so immeasurable, one that I could never pay, and certainly one that I can never repay. Thank you for salvation.

I want to take this opportunity to post some recent communication which I have had with Javier in Mexico. I am so profoundly blessed to be a part of the ministry and labor of Javier and his dear wife Cristina, even if only vicariously.  

What a privilege it is to be able to be involved in their work through prayer and giving, and to see the Kingdom of God being advanced through them and the passion that they have for our Lord and Savior.

I trust that you will find the following correspondence to be an encouragement as well.

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Javier writes:

March 14, 2022: This week, in a village called Poytzen, I saw the meeting place of the brothers and sisters in Christ. They have been trying to build their house of prayer for almost two years and have not been able to do so due to lack of funds. I felt sadness in my heart to see their meeting place in this deplorable condition. This village is a mission that God allowed me to preach in while I was still pastoring in San Ciro many years ago. We went to Poytzen every fifteen days, as well as to Octzen. Poytzen is where a brother-in-law of mine donated a small  property for a church to be built, and although they have been trying to do so now for years they have not been able to because of the extreme poverty of the believers in that village.

The present condition of the meeting place for the believers so far is only a ditch where they plan to pour a footing for the walls, and a little thatched roof built on poles for protection from the sun. It has been in this condition now for two years.

Of course the Catholics in the village of Poytzen make fun of the condition of the Believers who have nowhere to congregate and worship.

I feel the need to support them from my personal resources wherever I can so that they can buy material to build their house of prayer – rock, blocks, cement, etc., in order to sow into the kingdom of God. It has been almost twenty two years since I was preaching there, and now to see the sad state of the brothers and sisters makes me very sad for them.

I believe that God has placed the desire into hearts to assist in this labor, and that Jehovah has already prepared hearts so that His work may not be put to shame.

On the second of April we are going to have the first regional evangelistic crusade and Christian conference in the Pame ministry. We will hold services in the gallery in the village of Tanlacut as well as open air gatherings.

God has given us the victory to be able to hold such an event in this formerly extremely closed region among the Pame people.

Our missionary team continues to push up into these mountains every second week in order to minister to, and encourage the new believers scattered throughout the outlying villages, as well as to present the gospel message to those who have yet to give their lives to Jesus Christ.  The work is difficult and has its distinct challenges, but it is a joy to be able to serve in this way, and to see the lives of men and women transformed by the gospel as it reaches into their hearts and shines the light of Jesus into the one-darkened and hardened places.

We have also been able to utilize a new tool for this work in the form of a newly established Christian radio programming network called “Somos Radio Familia”( We Are Family Radio) broadcasting from the city of Matamoros, and with a local relay tower in Rayon. In this way we are now able to reach into many homes in these mountains with the gospel of Jesus Christ, and hearts are being opened to the Good News.

https://www.facebook.com/103696048034434/videos/3056856581296105/  (hopefully this will open in the correct Facebook page. It should say Facebook Live and have the heading: Pastor Javier Santos De Ciudad Valles S.L.P.)

Utilizing this tool, and through the wonders of technology I am now able to speak through WhatsApp on my cell phone from my home in Cd. Valles, and connecting through the main station transmitting out of Matamoros my voice is now heard throughout the mountains in this whole region.

This has been a powerful tool for the proclamation of the gospel, and through it God is beginning to open doors that were once closed to His Word. This programing has also been a real encouragement to Believers who were once extremely isolated, and who had little ability be in contact with other Christians. They can now listen to Christian programing of preaching and music, both in Spanish and their native Pame language of Xi’ui.  

Although this in no way diminishes the need for us to continue to personally minister in these mountain villages, still, we are encouraged with this tool which God is using for the advancement of his Kingdom.

March 19, 2022: This evening our missionary team arrived into the mountain village of Santa Catarina where we will spend the night at a house that one of the local believers has loaned to us for a place to stay while here in this community, as well as a place to hold church services while in the region. We will now be able to use this village as a hub, spending our nights here and then going out to minister in other communities in the region from this base of operation.

We want to program the upcoming evangelistic campaign in the village of Tanlacut for April 2^nd with a concentration on missions for that day. We are spending time in intense pray for the Pame region and for the activities of the campaign. We are believing God for a change in the heavenly realms for Tanlacut and the whole surrounding region, and for a spiritual breakthrough specifically among the Pame people.

The Christian Pame brothers and sisters are also promoting the missionary campaign in their native tongue of Xi’ui.

Drought has come again this year for the third year in a row, and we are once again struggling for water. Formerly full and strong rivers are again drying up and are reduced to dry gravel beds and waterless gullies. Last year even the wells in the region dried up and the people had to carry water by whatever means possible for many kilometers for even basic needs.

Sometimes on our missionary ventures even some of the National team members find themselves stretched. My wife is very adventuresome and enjoys presenting us with new dishes local to the mountainous area. Our “natural food” on our last trip consisted of rice, beans, and pemoche flowers which Cristina prepared for the team. The pemoche flowers are actually very delicious if prepared correctly, and make a lovely vegetable to accompany any meal. (https://youtu.be/1hKIgavvT7g).

April 6, 2022: This past week from April 1^st though the 3^rd we experienced the power of God in an evangelism campaign in the Sierra Madre Mountains among the Pame people. We ministered in the villages of Tanlacut, Santa Catarina, El Puente,and Cardenas. God gave us victory and more souls in those communities were won for Him.

The picture below was taken in the village of Tanlacut where there was a great harvest of souls for Christ. Also on this day a property was donated for the construction of a church building in the village. Praise God for this gift. We are excited to see His kingdom grow strong and take root.

Upon arriving to minister in the village of Santa Catarina where we have already established a fledgling church among Pame Believers we were met by representatives from two surrounding communities, those of Del Barranco and the ejido of La Parada who came and insisted that we come and minister the Word of God to their communities as well. In this way two new missions were also opened in these communities during this visit.

The story of the gospel in the ejido of La Parada is an interesting one. Quite a number of years ago a National couple from a different state came to this little ejido in order to begin translating the Bible into Xi-ui, the language of the Pame people of this region. Apparently they ministered here for some time in translation work, and a group of believers was established in the village. Later a small team of foreign missionaries also followed. Their work also focusing on Bible translation into Xi-ui. Today, although the whole of the Bible has not yet been translated, we are able to benefit from the fact that portions of the Word of God is able to be heard and read in Xi-ui, the heart-language of the Pame people, and we are grateful for the work of these missionaries who labored in this region in past years.

We are also very grateful for the tiny Body of Believers which was established in the little ejido of La Parada where this ministry was centered. However, since the work of these missionaries of the past was focused almost exclusively on translation and not necessarily upon the preparation of leadership in the fledgling church, today it is painfully evident that there is an overwhelming need for basic doctrinal teaching among the Christian leaders in this community, as well as in the whole of the Pame region.

After the evangelistic campaign in Tanlacut the brothers and sisters of the local church fed all the people who came. There is a new fire in the hearts of these brothers and sisters. I thank God for the victory that He has brought, and my own heart burns within me to see what He is doing among the Pame people!

During the three days of the evangelistic campaign God allowed us to spend time with the extended evangelism team, a number of which came from the city of Matamoros, as well as and a group of Pame brothers and sisters who came from the ejido of La Parada. It was wonderful to be able to spend time together with these brothers and sisters, especially with those of the Pame ethnic group, getting to know them better.

We returned to Cd. Valles to find a city on fire once again. This year it looks like we will again be repeating the history of 2013 where much of the Huasteca region and huge areas around the city itself burned due to the intense heat and drought conditions that we faced that summer. Unless God intervenes and sends desperately needed rain very soon and breaks this multi-year drought we will face this same disaster again this summer. 

While we were ministering in the mountains 100 hectares just to the north of the main city of Valles were burned due to high temperatures which have soared daily from 43⁰ to 47⁰ degrees Celsius (117 degrees Fahrenheit), and from human provocation and error.

The house of one of the Christian sisters in Buenos Aires, along with that of a neighboring family were burned to the ground due this flash fire that got out of control in a neighboring village called Montecillos due to the extremely dry conditions. Thankfully our Children’s Ministry Center, Hidden Manna, also in Buenos Aires was not involved in the fire.

Everything is tinder dry, and without water to fight the fires it is almost impossible to stop their spread once they have begun. In 2013 thousands of hectares were burned in the Huasteca region.

Sometimes with disasters such as this, and the extreme poverty and needs of so many I feel totally overwhelmed and unable to even scratch the surface of need in order to help.

We have now been facing drought for the third year in a row, and inevitably it is the poor who suffer the most from these hardships – the very ones whose lives are already tragic in so many ways.

Please pray with us for God’s mercy, and for rain. Already rivers are again drying up and temperatures are souring – and the dry season has only begun!

May God have mercy!

On the 26^th of March some of the children who are a part of the Children’s Feeding Program in Buenos Aires which Cristina and I run came to us crying that their school was being destroyed. We discovered that the kindergarten building in this squatter’s village was being torn down and destroyed due to a legal dispute over land title. Please pray with us for this village, and specifically for these children and the families affected. These poor children have already suffered so much in their young lives.

Nonetheless, I encourage my heart in the victories that God is giving us among the Pame people where He is opening further paths for the gospel among new communities even deeper into the mountains. There are now eight communities where there is either a newly established Body of Believers, or where the door is now open and we have an invitation to continue to bring the gospel. These communities include: Milpas Viejas, Agua Nueva, Tanlacut, El Coco, Chacuala, Santa Catarina, Buenavista and the ejido of La Parada. (The ejido of La Parada is where Bible translation was begun by missionaries in the past, and because of this work we now are able to benefit from portions of the Bible in the Pame language of Xi-ul).

My heart is so blessed, and I consider it a great privilege to be able to be a part of this ministry of bringing the gospel to the Pame tribal people.

But after soaring to the great heights of spiritual victory with the evangelistic campaign and the opening of communities to the gospel I arrived back in Cd. Valles with a limping, tired, and broken down burro. My pickup truck needed to receive some much-needed maintenance. It no longer wanted to start or run properly and I needed to have a tune up done on the engine, the radiator hose changed because it had broken, the transmission worked on, and then finally a wheel alignment done, shocks changed, and two new tires put on because the extremely bad mountain roads had chewed the rubber on the old ones to pieces and they were no longer safe.

My burro needed time with the doctor. Poor burro!

On April 1st I met with a number of pastors from the communities of Cardenas, Rayon, and El Puente and I saw again the necessity to attend to the personal spiritual needs of these men of God, and to encourage them so that they can continue ministering. They told me that they felt a great need to be ministered to themselves so that they would have the strength to serve their flock. Many of them feel isolated and alone in the service of God. The work of the Lord is difficult, and in many cases lonely. As I also mentioned previously, there is an urgent need to teach the truths of sound doctrine to these leaders. Many of them have a very limited knowledge of foundational doctrinal truths.

To begin, I hope to have a full day conference for church leaders, elders, and spiritual laborers in the month of September to encourage and build up these dear brothers as they serve the Lord.

I also feel a burden to begin training men and women in leadership positions among these fledgling churches in doctrinal truths. I believe that in the very near future God will open the way for us so that we can teach systematic, foundational biblical truths among these Pame leaders so that the Church will be strengthened and grow into purity.

Thank you for your support and prayers which make this work possible. Please remember to keep us in your prayers as we serve the Risen Christ Jesus, and that many souls will come to Him. Please pray that God will bring us much needed rain, and that this drought will be broken.

Blessings,

Javier Santos

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I trust that this has given you a better insight into the day-to-day work of the ministry in Mexico and the heart of Javier and Cristina as they faithfully serve the Lord there.

Please also remember Theresa and me in your prayers. This has been a difficult year for us so far in a number of ways. God is good, and he is in control. We praise Him for that!

Your brother and sister in Jesus Christ,

Steven and Theresa

As I sit in my little office in our basement in Manitoba feeling internal nervous tension due to the multiple stressors that seem to be crushing in around Theresa and me at present I am struck by the juxtaposition of the dreamy magic that we try to create for “Christmas”, and the truth of what it really was 2000 years ago when our Savior, the Lord God Almighty, was born and took on “flesh”.

We desire picturesque cards with snow-ensconced cottages and white-steepled churches. We fill the house with the crooning voice of Bing Crosby singing “White Christmas” in the background as the lovely scents of freshly baked cookies, mandarin oranges, and hot chocolate waft throughout. The tree stands stately and beautifully bedecked in the place of honor in the living room, while carefully wrapped presents overflow the hand-sewn tree skirt under the brightly-lit symbol of “Christmas”.

But is this truly what Christmas is all about?

Today I step back and ponder the account of Jesus’ birth given to us in the 2^nd chapter of Luke:

“In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. And everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth to Bethlehem because he belonged to the line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.

 On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived”.

I notice something in these verses: Jesus’ birth took place within the pressures and burdens of daily life, or perhaps to others, the mundane. For Israel as a nation, crushed down and enslaved by tyrannical Roman rule it was an horrific time as a people. The census and taxes imposed upon them by Rome were brutal and unjust. The taxes would mean financial ruin and perhaps even slavery for many who could not fulfill the ruthless and cruel edicts of Rome.

For Joseph and Mary personally this was also a time of great pressure and fear. They were hated and outcasts within their own town of Nazareth because Mary was pregnant while unmarried. As a teenage girl she was now not only anathema, but at full-term pregnancy she needed to accompany Joseph to whom she was pledged to be married on a 90 mile, 5 – 7 day journey on the back of a donkey to Bethlehem, Joseph’s ancestral town in which, undoubtedly, neither of them had ever set foot. This was a brutal and dangerous time in Israel. The journey was long, arduous, physically dangerous, uncomfortable, filled with thieves and robbers, without any amenities or comforts along the way, and no place for a nine-month pregnant expectant mother. Then, to complicate matters, there was no guarantee of any place to stay when they actually did arrive in the Nazareth, a small village approximately 6 miles outside of Jerusalem even though it was becoming increasingly obvious that the time of giving birth was imminent for the expectant teenager.

Something else about the narrative in Luke pops out at me immediately: three times it is specifically mentioned that the newly-born infant was placed in a manger. Now, I ain’t no farmer, but I have been around enough places where animals have been sheltered to know that they ain’t always pretty or sanitary places to hang out in. Let’s just say that Solomon was correct when he noted in Proverbs 14:4 that “Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox”… enough said!

I can’t even imagine the stress placed upon Mary as well as Joseph who must not only deliver Jesus in a filthy stable, but then wrap him in torn strips of cloth and lay him in the only cradle available – a filthy, chewed-up, animal feeding trough. Let us remember that Mary was a real woman, not a Christmas card myth. Childbirth for her was as is faced by every other woman – filled with pain, hours of excruciating labor, and the need for a sanitary environment in order to avoid infection of herself or the baby.

Then comes the account of the shepherds: These were men and boys whose profession kept them on the fringes of society. No doubt they were raggedly dressed, dirty from the dust of the hills, and not very socially acceptable in many ways, more comfortable among the flocks of sheep that they cared for than among the bustling crowds in Jerusalem only 6 miles away among the twinkling lights upon the hill to the north. It was to these poor shepherds that the message of the angels first came “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. A Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord”.

Then, lastly, I want to note something else because it shouts loudly of the humbling humanity of the incarnation of our Lord: “On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child”…  Jesus the Christ, God incarnate, King of all kings, Lord of all lords, the Sovereign Word became flesh, and not only so, but he was conceived in the womb of a virgin, born as a human baby boy and upon him was done what was done to every baby Jewish boy in Israel – upon the eighth day he was circumcised.

How can words ever hope to capture the incredible truth of the Incarnation!

No wonder Paul had to break out in doxology in Romans 11:33 where he shouts “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out”!

So yes, the birth of our Savior and Lord, Jesus the Christ, Yeshua Hamashiach, the occasion for which we celebrate Christmas, did take place within the pressures and burdens of daily life 2000 years ago, and we might feel pressed down today. But this diminishes nothing of its majesty, nor does it detract from the one event which has changed all of human history forever: God became man in the incarnation and dwelt among us.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth”. John 1: 1-14

Because of the mystery of Jesus’ incarnation the Gospel is true; which simply stated is:

The reality is that from the moment of our birth we all have a deadly, terminal condition – life. Unless Jesus returns first, we will all die ONCE in physical death.

However, we do not have to face the SECOND death – spiritual separation from God in hell because Jesus, the Son of God, who, while being totally God, also became a man. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, (Jesus) that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life”.  (John 3:16)

Jesus came to earth because of the fact that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. If we agree with what God says in the Bible: that we are sinners, and that there is only one solution to that sin, and that is to place our hope and trust in Jesus Christ who left the glories of Heaven to come to earth where he clothed himself with humanity for the very purpose of doing what no one else could do – to pay the price for our sins by dying on the cross at Calvary, and then offering forgiveness to anyone who admits that they are a sinner, and repents of that sin and places their trust in Jesus as their Savior – then they will be saved.

That is the essence of the Gospel.

Praise be to God!

I want to now take this opportunity to bring you three accounts that Javier has recently sent to me. They were not originally sent to me in any way thinking about Christmas. However, as I was translating them I began to realize that they are very relevant to the season. I will comment no further, and rather will let you draw your own conclusions:

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There are times in our lives when we become burdened under the pressures of life and ministry and when it is good to look back at “stones of remembrance” as in the account of the Children of Israel in Joshua 4 where they crossed the Jordan River into Canaan at Gilgal, on the eastern border of Jericho. Joshua used these stones as a memorial to remind God’s people of His goodness and faithfulness to them.

I proclaim with certainly that God is, and has been with me as well, and I am grateful that he has also allowed me the privilege of being able to have my own memorial stones along my walk in the ministry.

I would like to share a few of these stones of remembrance with you now.

I go back in my memories to the year 2002 when my wife and I and a friend went to visit a family in a place called Arroyo Seco in the arid state of Querétaro. While our companion Jorge was driving we met a very old man of over one hundred years old along the road. To be more exact, he told us that he was 103 years old.

When we met him he was carrying a very large bundle of firewood on his back and my wife said “Why don’t we help that old man with his load”? We stopped to help, and the old man dropped his bundle of firewood beside the road. Although we were both much younger men almost twenty years ago, between the two of us brother Jorge and I we could not lift the bundle of wood up into back of the pickup truck without dividing the load. We are talking about an old man, who while being extremely old, was almost carrying a load which would burden a full-grown donkey.

When we finally got his load of firewood into the pickup truck we asked the old man where he lived, and he directed us to a very luxurious residence and said that he lived there. This surprised us greatly, almost as much as everything else about the whole encounter because it did not seem to agree with anything that we had seen about him. We helped him take his firewood to his house but we did not see any family at all.

There still remain many questions surrounding this strange encounter: how is it possible for someone of his greatly advanced age to carry so much firewood on his back? – we are talking about 200 to 250 kilograms which he was carrying easily on his back. Also, how was it that his house was not a humble hovel as one would have expected from his personal appearance, but as we saw, it was an elegant dwelling? It simply is not possible for someone to have so much strength at his age.

Another experience that happened to us was when we went on our second missionary trip to the Pame village of Tanlu in the Sierra Madre Mountains to the west of Cd. Valles. On the way back we met a man along the way who was in a cornfield. I got out of the pickup truck and asked him if he would sell me some ears of his corn. He said “Of course. Take what you want”.

Ana, Armando and Alicia’s young daughter also got out of the truck and came into the corn row to pick the ears of corn, and the man picked as well. Together we picked about 12 ears of corn which he gave to us, while all the time we were talking with him. He told me that his name was Ciro Apolinar and that he lived in a nearby community called El Coco. “I live there” he told me, “and if you can, please come and visit me”. He was a very poor, simple man in appearance.

A month after we had encountered him we went to look for Ciro in that community. We immediately found Ciro’s family but we did not find him. We continued looking for him for three months every time we returned to the region on a missionary trip. What we learned about him over that time was that he was a drunk who did not come home for long periods of time, and that he had left his family without food and without any means of maintenance. Despite this we continually held him up in prayer asking that God would change his path, believing that God would break through the darkness in his life.

Three months after we began praying for Cyro’s condition I finally found Ciro. But I was in for a very big surprise because the Ciro from whom I had received the ears of corn and who had invited me to his community was not Ciro. The person who had invited me to that community and who told me “I live in El Coco” was another man, unknown to anyone from the village. However, it was through this encounter and the resultant search for Ciro and the ongoing contacts with his family that the doors to the village of El Coco were opened to us and to the gospel, making it possible for a mission church to be planted there.

Another one of these unusual experiences occurred just last week:  I left Cd. Valles and travelled into the mountainous region to the west of the city on a mission outreach into the various Pame villages in which we minister. On Sunday I ministered in Santa Catarina. The next day, Monday, I left from there in order to minister at the mission church at El Coco. I finished the service in El Coco at 12:30.

I had taken the pickup truck and it was the first time that I had gone alone on one of these missionary outreaches because I always try to take a ministry team with me. However this time it had not worked out to do so. When I was driving on the road leaving El Coco I encountered an old woman who was standing beside the roadway and was asking for a ride. She was carrying a very large bundle of brooms made from branches. What seemed strange to me was not meeting an old woman who was carrying branch brooms, no doubt on her way to some market to sell her wares, but rather that the bundle of brooms was huge and she hefted it into the back of the truck without any problem. She then got into the passenger seat of the truck without any difficulty. Another unusual thing is that she never raised her face.

I started a conversation with her and asked her where she was going. She told me that she was on her way to El Salto, a village along the way where she was going to sell her brooms. I asked her how much she gets for the brooms and she told me that she sells them for $45 pesos. I told her that I would like to buy one, and we continued talking.

I asked her where she was coming from and she told me that she was coming from the town of Tanlu but that she had no actual home, and that she was from here and there, and that she had just been to a place called Los Puercos. I asked her what her name was and she told me that it was Joaquina Fernandez de la Cruz.

Upon reaching El Salto she took down her brooms and spread them on the ground and told me to choose the broom that I wanted. I take one of them and put it into the back of the truck. I then got into the driver’s seat of the truck to start the motor and looked into the rear view mirror in order to see where the old lady was.

To my great surprise she was no longer there. I opened the door to see where she was, but she was nowhere to be seen. At the time I did not reflect deeply or question what had happened, rather I simply felt a sense of peace and security.

When I arrived at Agua Nueva for the service there some of the sisters from Milpas Viejas were sharing and were talking about the visit of the angels to Sodom and were commenting on how no one recognized them as angels or realized who they were. It was then that I understood that the old woman who had accompanied me was an angelic being.

I began analyzing the meaning of her name that she had told me twice, emphasizing each time, saying: “my name is Joaquina Fernandez De la Cruz”.

Joaquina – “Jehovah will establish”,

Fernandez – “protector”,

 De la Cruz – “from the cross” – My assurance of salvation.

Thank you God for your appearance. Courage. And my gift of salvation.

That is the meaning of the old woman’s name. Thank you Lord!

Javier Santos Hernandez

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I trust that this has been a blessing to you. May the joy of Jesus fill your heart and life as you reflect anew upon Jehovah our King and our protector, and upon the gift of eternal salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord whose birth we celebrate.

Merry Christmas.

Your fellow laborers in Jesus Christ,

Steven and Theresa

“This is what the LORD says — Israel’s King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty:

‘I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God. Who then is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and lay out before me what has happened since I established my ancient people, and what is yet to come — yes, let them foretell what will come.

Do not tremble, do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago?

You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me?

No, there is no other Rock; I know not one.’”   (Isaiah 44:6-8)

In these troubling and turbulent times how wonderful it is to know that we have a Sovereign Redeemer, the Holy one of Israel, the LORD of Hosts. How wonderful to be able to rest in him knowing that he is in sovereign control of everything and that he is not wringing his hands wondering what is going on around him.

I love the second Psalm where David under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit writes in this messianic Psalm:

“Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the LORD and against his anointed, saying,“Let us break their chains and throw off their shackles.”

The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. He rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath, saying,“I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain.”

I will proclaim the LORD’s decree:

He said to me, “You are my son; today I have become your father. Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. You will break them with a rod of iron; you will dash them to pieces like pottery.”  (Psalms 2:1-9)

We serve a King – The KING; The LORD of Lords, The SOVEREIGN ONE, The ANCIENT OF DAYS!

Despite the meltdown and shifting sands around us we serve the unchanging one — Israel’s King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty. May God be praised!

I don’t have too much new news to bring you concerning the ministry in Mexico; however I do want to bring several prayer requests to you so that you can be praying more intelligently for the work there. To better let you hear Javier’s heart I will also include a letter which I recently received from him.

In talking to him (as you can also sense from his letter), it is evident that he has been discouraged of late. Covid continues to take its toll on Mexico and to grind down the spirits of everyone. Whereas there was relative freedom for renewed ministry only several weeks ago, once again the country is in lock down and government-imposed restrictions. This has also meant that churches have once again been forced to go into a severely limited mode, and that all ministry has again been hampered at all levels.

The missionary outreaches up into the mountainous Pame region to the west has recently also been restricted because of Covid. Whereas previously there was little evidence of any symptoms of the virus in the mountain villages and the people remained open to visitors from outside of the region, now with increased symptoms locally these villagers are no longer receptive to Javier and his ministry team out of fear of the virus. Javier told me that they are still able to minister and meet with the Christian brothers and sisters there; however, doors are no longer open to them among the general population within the communities. This is a heavy burden for Javier.

Also, please pray for clarity of direction for the new board and directorate of Casa del Obrero (the Training Center Farm) as well as of OUpC, the nonprofit which covers all of the various aspects of the ministry including the Bible Schools. As you probably remember, Javier has stepped down from being the president of the nonprofit although he continues to be the administrator of the Farm Center. However, with the change in directorship also has come a change in direction of vision, intensified now by Covid. Please remember this work in prayer.

However, I think that one of the biggest things which is burdening Javier and Cristina at present is an increasingly noticeable decline in Javier’s health and a feeling of depression because of his inability to minister as fully as he would like to due to health issues and the restrictions enforced upon him due to Covid. Please hold both Javier and Cristina up in prayer. Both of them face potentially serious health issues. Covid has placed considerable and unrelenting pressures on them in regards to ministry, and I have little doubt that at least some of their symptoms are stress related, or at a minimum are being made worse by it. However, Javier confided to me recently that he has not been doing very well physically, and that Cristina also is struggling with symptoms of diabetes and heart issues.

The enemy would love nothing better than to destroy their physical health so that they would no longer be able to serve the Lord fully. They are pouring their lives out for Him daily. Please lift them up and be their prayer support.

With these prayer needs in mind I will proceed into Javier’s letter:

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May the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ bless you my beloved brothers and sisters. It is a great pleasure for me to write to you again and to be able to greet you even in the midst of these difficult times that we are experiencing due to the Covid pandemic and the trying circumstances that we are experiencing due to it. 

We are now finding ourselves again in a serious health crisis in our city due to the Covid pandemic. Hospitals are overfilled, and healthcare has collapsed. There are many deaths again due to Covid, even among those who have been vaccinated. Now even young people and children are dying from the virus.

We are also about to be forced to close our churches again as we are at a level orange alert, with the probability that we will be moving into level red restrictions at any time.

Although the government is doing its best to vaccinate young people so that they will be able to return to school classes in person, only God has all things in his hands, and only He is sovereign and in control.

May God save us in this pilgrimage of ours on this earth.

Despite everything that is taking place we continue to shepherd the local congregation and to minister to the needs of our brothers and sisters here in the Cd. Valles region.

We also continue to serve and pastor our brothers and sisters in the mountains surrounding Santa Catarina to the west. it is a continual blessing to be able to visit and minister to our Christian Pame brothers and sisters in the mountain villages of Agua Nueva, Milpas Viejas, Tanlacut, El Coco, and Santa Catarina, as well as the surrounding areas. This is truly a privilege that God has given to us; to be able to bring the Word of God to these dear brothers and sisters. To Jesus Christ be the glory.

Although I have been in rather poor health of late we have been working and preparing the land to replant sugarcane. This is especially important now since we have not been able to harvest anything significant for the past two years due to the drought. We have finally had some rainfall and must plant while the soil is damp enough to allow germination. We do not know what this year’s weather will be and if the drought will go on longer or not, but we will continue to believe that our God will sustain us, and that we will receive a harvest this year which will make the expenses of planting that we are now incurring worthwhile.

I always thank God for you in my prayers my dear brothers and sisters, and I ask God that he will keep you in his blessing. May God bless you today and always. I thank God for your lives.

Your brother and fellow servant in Jesus Christ,

Javier

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Thank you for your ongoing care and love for the ministry in Mexico. It has not been easy for those who are faithfully carrying the burden of the labor. But God is, and has been faithful – always!

Remember, “There is no other Rock; I know not one.”

Your brother and sister in Christ,

Steven and Theresa