Current Events and Updates of the Ministry

Dear friends.

The format of this blog will be a little different than those of the past. As most of you already know, Theresa and I are now living in Manitoba, Canada again, having moved back in the summer of 2016. What you may not know is that we sold our place in Steinbach this past winter and moved to a little town in northeastern Manitoba called Pinawa. Here in the “wilderness” we purchased a little geriatric bungalow (to match its aging owners) and are beginning to feel more settled bit by little bit.

Pinawa is a cute little town of some 1,300 souls nestled on the shores of a large lake system formed by the damming of the Winnipeg River at Seven Sisters just several miles downstream from the town, as well as several other hydroelectric dam sites further down river until it all eventually empties into Lake Winnipeg. The town has lovely walking trails along the lakefront as well as a deer population that walks (and chomps their way) freely throughout the town. We do have a guest bedroom; so, please just give us a day’s notice before you show up on our front door step. We would love to have you visit.

Theresa has just started a brand new job at the Ironwood Senior’s Home here in town and is thriving there (except for the night shifts that she gets called in to do on occasion). They also love her and are moving her up the shift ladder as quickly as the union’s sensitive toes will allow. I am working with an elderly friend on writing a book for him on healthcare reform – (and I’m not even joking – cross my heart)!

Pinawa is located only about an hour and a bit from Winnipeg where most of our kids and grandkids live, and about an hour and a half from Steinbach where my mother and the rest of the family are. So, we are nicely situated within visiting distance of most of the family (one of the prerequisites to our choice of Pinawa).

I was also privileged to go back to Cd. Valles, Mexico over the end of March and into the beginning of April (March 17th – April 3rd) in order to celebrate a graduation and to catch up with the leadership and other friends there again after having been gone for two years.

It was a wonderful, even if extremely busy time there, and was an exceptionally valuable and timely fortnight. When I got to Cd. Valles Carl Thompson was already there, having arrived two days previously. I arrived with Fred Erb who spent the first week there with me, and James and Hka Win Humphries who were able to spend the full two weeks.

The following is written basically in a report style and I ask your indulgence if it is a bit more stuffy than normal. Also, I apologize straight-up for its verbose nature and I fully understand if you begin snoring before you reach the end. However, so much happened, and I have so much to say that there is little else to do except chop mercilessly at what I want to say, and I am not willing to do that. So, without further ado…

Onwards!

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Fred Erb, James and Hka Win Humphries, and I arrived in Tampico on the evening of March 17th and were picked up at the airport by a friend. Arriving in Cd. Valles later that night I met Carl Thompson for the first time at the new building purchased by Mario and Janny for the Bible Institute where we were to be housed over our time in Mexico.

The next morning being Sunday we went to Javier and Cristina’s house where we were served breakfast. At their house we also met two pastors from out of town who were working with another Mexican nonprofit called AVITA. Both pastors were blind and both had come to be a part of the agricultural workshop that Carl had put on the previous day at the Casa del Obrero Training Center campus. Not only are both men being powerfully used by God in the areas of social ministries as well as Christian outreach throughout Mexico, but Adrian is also the president of this nonprofit. It is precisely these brothers as well as the broader membership of AVITA that God had unexpectedly opened doors for Javier and Carl to meet during what humanly might appear as a mistake in the attempted importation of a compressed stabilized earth brick machine some months back. However, instead of being a blunder, God used it as a huge victory in that it opened doors both at the level of interacting with another national-level nonprofit in which many of the leaders and directors are Christians, but also to high levels of the state government and indigenous affairs itself for Javier and the ongoing work of Obreros Unidos para Cosechar (OUpC), the nonprofit covering the various ongoing ministries in Cd. Valles – including that of the Training Center farm. These two brothers were instrumental in bringing in the people for the workshop that Carl taught on Saturday.

After breakfast we accompanied Javier and his family, as well as the visiting pastors to the church in Solidaridad were Javier and Cristina are pastors of the local body of Believers. Brother Adrian preached a powerful message at the morning service where he compared his physical blindness to the spiritual blindness that is in each person who does not know Christ, and asked which one was more blind.

After the morning service we spent the afternoon with Javier and Cristina and their family, along with Armando and Alicia and a number of the other leaders, at the Training Center farm where we ate our midday meal. I was thoroughly impressed with the progress that they have done on the farm campus as well as in the ongoing vision for the ministry there. They have been producing vegetables, tree seedlings, and animals (pigs and sheep), as well as chickens, besides the continued production of sugarcane. Everything looks green, productive, and lush. Presently three retaining swales have been dug on the high side of the property as well as a diversion ditch in order to reduce erosion and entrap topsoil during the rainy season. A further and larger swale will be placed in the upper area of the field, but it is presently covered with sugarcane, and work cannot advance on it until after the cane harvest. The vision for the training ministry on the farm is strong – both that of the teaching and training in the Word, as well as that of training in farming and animal husbandry and agroforestry. Javier clearly sees that all that has been done in all of the areas of vegetable growing, farming, animal husbandry, and agroforestry is only the very beginning and experimental in nature so that they themselves can learn how to best do it in their particular harsh climate. From here he sees the potential for continued development in growing and training. In his heart, as in mine, there is no division between the spiritual (“sacred”) focus of the farm Training Center and the “natural”. There is no clergy / laity divide in our walk in Christ.

On Monday and Tuesday Fred, Carl, Javier, Cristina, Mario, Janny, Blanca, and I met at the Bible Institute building in order to cover the leadership topics that were a large part of the purpose of the whole trip. I had purposed to keep these meetings very intimate among only the core leaders – those who had a reason to be there – and who were directly involved in the direction seeking issues at hand.

In our discussion and prayer time together on Sunday night about the plans for Monday and Tuesday’s direction, Carl discussed a format of listening with Fred and me that he had been introduced to, and which seemed to be what the Holy Spirit was indicating to be a useful tool for discussing the topics which needed to be addressed over the following days. Both Fred and I agreed that this was a wise and solid way to go, and I asked Carl if he would mind leading the sessions following the suggested format since he was neutral, and didn’t have any history of the issues on the table.

During all of Monday and the morning of Tuesday we all sat and listened to each leader individually share without interruptions his or her visions and passions for life; for ministry, but also, and very importantly for all areas of life including family, personal, and any other areas that each person wished to present. The final question for each person was always “If all of this was taken away – all ministry, all of your family, all of your finances, everything was stripped away – what would you then do? What then would be your remaining passion? If nothing was left humanly speaking, what would then be your heart?” In truly hearing each other’s dreams in this way there were many things that we all learned of each other. On Tuesday Armando and Alicia, the direct trainee-leaders of the Training Center farm were also asked to share their visions and passions as had the others on Monday. After a brief lunch break after which Armando and Alicia were dismissed, the meeting moved into the second phase more directly involving leadership issues and decisions.

The overriding message that Fred and I attempted to bring throughout the afternoon session was that of the releasing of the leadership from any perceived burdens that they may have been carrying, and the negating of anything whereby they felt that they needed to perform in a certain way due to any external demands or desires from us. Rather, we desired that they understand that they are 100% free to seek what God has for the specific ministries that each of them is directing. There was also a time of prayer for the leaders for continued clarity of purpose and vision in ministry.

On Tuesday after the afternoon session we met with Cristina and her students and trainees at the sewing school. I will address this aspect of ministry in a later part of this report. However, let me simply state here that this is a powerful evangelistic ministry which is touching women’s lives for Christ, and that it is a labor of love given by Cristina which I believe we absolutely need to continue to support financially and spiritually through prayer.

On Wednesday I drove Carl Thompson back to Tampico in the evening in order to catch his early morning flight. It was a pleasure to meet Carl on this trip and to have found my heart closely woven with him in vision and purpose of ministry. I trust that this will not be our last time together.

The rest of the week was very full for me personally because I had a long list of things that I needed to take care of involving various aspects of the work besides simply that of the three main areas of the ministry. One significant part of this was that of visiting with Marina and her four orphaned great grandchildren that she is now raising. I will also address this in a separate area of this report. However, I believe that it is absolutely necessary that we complete the commitment that we have made to God in caring for this widow and these precious orphans. It is impossible that we should expect her to have to do it alone. However, Javier and I have also come up with a plan; the concept of which I believe was placed into Javier’s heart by the Holy Spirit.

One of the other urgent needs during these days was to provide James Humphries, the founder and international director of Project LAMBS, along with his wife Hka Win with time to meet with Mario to formalize the ongoing work of LAMBS in the whole region – of which Mario is the regional director.

On Friday evening Fred and James were the keynote speakers at an intercity pastor’s and leadership conference presented in the Bible Institute building, and on Saturday the week culminated in the graduation of students from all three Bible schools – Project LAMBS, Casa del Obrero, and Luz de Las Naciones (Light of the Nations). In total there were twenty one graduating students present at the ceremony as well as one who was unable to come because of illness. Represented were also teachers from each of the schools, as well as pastors from various churches across the city, several board members, and current students of the Bible schools, along with friends and family members.

On Saturday morning we also visited the children’s feeding and teaching ministry where Cristina and Alicia are pouring out their hearts and love to the children in an impoverished squatter’s village where housing is such that most Canadian and American farmers would not even keep their animals; and where there is no running water, electricity, or sewage, and most shacks are made out of pieces of scavenged scrap. Some of the children who have been a part of this ongoing work for several years are themselves now teenagers and are faithful Believers and are becoming helpers to their own peer group as well as to the younger children. I also want to address this need separately in another area of this report as I believe that there is a tremendous necessity for financial support for this wonderful ministry to the poor.

On Sunday afternoon I took Fred Erb to Tampico in order for him to catch his early Monday morning flight back to Canada. Although the distance is only a bit over a hundred miles to Tampico from Cd. Valles the round trip always takes a minimum of six hours and I did not arrive back until after midnight.

On Monday James and Hka Win and I drove with Javier and Cristina and their three boys to a small Pame community called Tanlacut – some four or five hours west of Cd. Valles and across a number of circuitous and almost impassible mountain ranges. The Pames are an indigenous and historically extremely closed tribal group with a very distinct language and culture. Tanlacut itself is a village of around a thousand souls and the doorway to the Pame zone – a region of some 20,000 indigenous people who populate a large geographic area. It is here that God has burdened Javier and Cristina to begin a work to this largely unreached people group. During the practicum ministry month of Armando and Alicia’s Bible school training they had spent an entire month living and ministering in the village of Tanlacut.

However, it is not only Javier’s burden to plant a new mission outreach to the village of Tanlacut itself, but into the surrounding mountain family-group communities scattered across the region where the true gospel of Jesus Christ has seldom been preached, and where the name of Jesus has scarcely been heard in an accurate way other than entrapped with pagan and religious accoutrements. One of the Believers that we visited after bouncing our way for two hours up an almost impossibly-bad mountain path painted a striking word picture for us during our ministry time with them. She said that many times she feels like a plant that is withering due to the lack or water, and that when someone comes to preach the Word to them it is like a refreshing watering which again brings spiritual life to the wilting plant. No wonder, since any time that they have to go to the nearest store or village requires a two hour walk each way with the youngest of the children strapped to their backs; the older children must walk on their own. It is little wonder that there is a dearth of spiritual refreshing, and a hunger for fellowship among these scattered Believers.

It is also here in the little Pame family community of Agua Nueva, about a half hour drive down a rocky road from the village of Tanlacut itself where a property and building is being donated to the ministry. It is here in Agua Nueva where Javier envisions a ministry training center and base for a vast work amongst the Pame tribal people group. It is here where people from the far-flung and almost inaccessible mountain communities can then come and be trained in the Word, in farming and growing techniques, and in other practical areas so that they can take the Life of Christ back to their own communities. As Javier sees his ministry and that of the work of Jesus Christ, it is all-inclusive and not divided out into compartmentalized “spiritual” and “secular”; but rather, all is Jesus, and the Life of Jesus involves all. He does not see any difference in teaching and discipling someone from the Bible, or in them training in how to grow vegetables to feed their family and community. Nor do I.

There is another astoundingly obvious truth that is all too often missed in transcultural ministry. What do we truly expect when we uproot a person from his mountain community where he has grown up and attempt to transplant him (with religious, but misguided zeal) into the city for Bible and educational training? Do we truly expect that they will wish to go back to their own people? Do we naïvely believe that they won’t be changed and/or contaminated by the “lights and mod-cons of the big city”? Do we incredulously think that this will develop men and women who will go back to win their own tribal groups?

On the other hand, a place like Agua Nueva is located in an isolated tribal area and can quickly be developed into a culturally appropriate and very natural training center where Pame nationals can come, study, and be trained in all areas of the Life of Jesus Christ, and from which they can then walk or ride their own horse back to their mountain village. This vision is sound!

It was “interesting” (perhaps not the best word to use here), but on Monday night James was just ending a teaching on the Kingdom of Light and that of darkness and was emphasizing that there were only two choices – either Light of darkness – when five shots rang out in quick succession only a building or two beside us in the public “galera” in Tanlacut, and then were followed very shortly by a sixth. I wanted to believe that it was fireworks, but we were assured that they were bullets and that this type of thing happened often in these wild mountains were the police do not enter, and where there is no law and the pistol rules. The next day we found out what had happened. A thirty year old man who was notorious for drug trafficking and violent cruelty and power in the region was also known to “play” Russian roulette. This time his sixth cartridge hit. The funeral was on Wednesday as we were leaving the area. Truly Jesus is the only Light in the impenetrable darkness of sin. Nothing, and no amount of good works will ever bring us to God except for Jesus.

On Friday evening and all day Saturday several families among the leadership celebrated our friendship in an overnight campout and all-day party at the farm Training Center. Some of the families had tents while others made make-shift covers on the back of their vehicles. I found an old army cot that was still stored in the “bodega” at the farm and slept on it. We ate too much, and visited and fellowshipped together. It was also a valuable time to share memories and history as well as vision and dreams for the ministry among the leadership in a casual and very family-friendly way over a huge batch of donuts that Armando created “out of thin air” for us.

On Sunday morning I celebrated an early morning sunrise service with the Believers at Solidaridad and Javier preached a powerful message of our resurrected Lord being our only hope and purpose, and that it is only because of the empty grave alone that we have salvation.

After an extremely to-the-last-second-busy Monday, James, Hka Win and I were driven to Tampico by Javier and Juan in time to find a hotel for an early morning flight back to Winnipeg on Tuesday morning.

That is a very quick encapsulation of a fortnight of intense ministry. God’s presence was clear, and valuable direction was begun in many areas of the ongoing work. Ministry is never one-dimensional, nor is anything a simple slam dunk when human beings are involved. But God is faithful, and he is doing a powerful work in the Cd. Valles region of Mexico through our brothers and sisters there. I was very blessed and impressed to see the ongoing ministry as it is being walked out by the leadership. I was in no way disappointed or left with any inkling that things are not progressing forward, or in a way that God is not directly guiding. I am happy to say that God is faithful, and that the ministry of which Theresa and I have been privileged to be a part of over the years is growing and continuing strong, and that the leadership is faithful and single-minded in their devotion to Jesus Christ.

I do have some further suggestions and reflections concerning specific needs that I have observed as I have already indicated above:

a) Concerning the sewing training school/sewing classes:

Cristina has a passion to equip women and to bring Jesus to them. She currently has around seven or eight new women, along with a group of teenage girls which she has been training from the poor, squatter’s village of Buenos Aires. Alicia is currently working alongside Cristina in this outreach and training school. The former Bible school building is being rented for this program and is currently costing around $200 Canadian per month to rent (just a tad more depending upon the exchange of the Canadian dollar). What this building provides is a good, clean central location close to bus traffic, and large enough for one of the rooms to also be utilized for children to play in when women come with their little ones. It also has an area which is prepared for a kitchen, but which doesn’t have appliances. The building is large enough to have storage, there is a clean bathroom, and it is well situated. The rent is not high for a building of its type in the location where it is situated in the city.

A testimony of one of the women in the program will illustrate Cristina’s vision and purpose for the school. This young woman with a seven year old daughter found herself and her daughter abandoned by her husband. She is not a Christian and had no reason to live. She was at the point of suicide when she heard about the sewing program being offered from Alicia who has her own daughter in the same school as this young woman. She came to see what was being offered; knowing nothing about sewing at all, but desperate for any kind of love and hope. She still has not given her heart to the Lord, but she now is totally transformed and is filled with purpose and hope for her daughter and for herself, and her face shines. She is bringing other new women to the classes as well in order to introduce them to the love and hope that she has found. She is quickly learning the trade, and when I was there she proudly showed me the dress that she had just finished for her daughter. In fact, Cristina sees her as the one who might possibly be able to go on to higher training in order to teach other women as well.

She is just one of the women; each of them has her own story. However, the sewing school may never in fact become a money-generating center for the women as was initially intended, but rather always a place of ministry. Sure, some of the women, and certainly Alicia and Cristina have used sewing to generate income, and others will no doubt do so from their homes as well. However, most of Cristina’s income from her sewing work goes back into the running of the school, and in the end it is the ministry that the school provides to hurting women and girls that she has a passion for, and not the money. Cristina’s vision for this ministry is that it remain an evangelistic tool and not necessarily an income generating co-op. In fact, even if it never generates one centavo of income for the women involved but is a means through which they find eternal salvation in Jesus Christ then it is an overwhelming success. Some will probably use their training to generate income from home and some may not, but that is all beside the point. From my perspective we need to continue to support Cristina’s ministry of sewing through continuing to finance the paying of the monthly rent for the building. Further, there is a great need for more furniture such as fans, chairs, a stove for teaching cooking and baking, and possibly other needs as well. Further, there will always be a need for small ongoing purchases such as fabric rotary cutters and blades, thread, sewing machine repairs, etc. Unfortunately, since the vision is for it to be an evangelistic outreach the idea of it being self-financing at any time soon is probably completely unrealistic and I believe that this is a valuable work which we should continue to support as a ministry.

b) Concerning Marina and her four orphaned great grandchildren:

Marina is sixty eight years old and is tired. When I met her she told me that she was feeling very sad because she had just buried her brother a week before and her eldest daughter is now dying of stomach cancer. She is now also raising her four young great grandchildren alone after their mother, Elizabeth, was brutally murdered by her common-law husband after it was revealed that he had been sexually abusing the little girls for many years, and that he was about to be turned in to the authorities.

[For more on this family look back at the following blog posts:

http://www.vitwministries.com/wordpress/2010/08/the-face-of-poverty/

http://www.vitwministries.com/wordpress/2012/01/671/

http://www.vitwministries.com/wordpress/2010/08/manzanas-maravillosas-dona-marina/]

The children look good, and on the surface seem to be happy and adjusted. However, it doesn’t need someone with a PhD in psychology to understand that when your mother has been bludgeoned to death and you have been sexually molested for years that there will probably be deep emotional and spiritual scars. The little twin girls are eight years old and the brothers are ten and eleven. They all live in a two-room shack. Marina earns about equivalent to $10 – $12 (Canadian) after a long day of making donuts and then walking door-to-door to sell them. Twelve dollars in Mexico buys about as much as twelve dollars does in Canada. She has not had the energy to make donuts now since her brother died. She said that she is tired. There is little to no help coming in from the children’s biological father who also has another family now that his meager wages as a day-laborer must support as well, and there is no one else to help.

When Javier and I discussed ideas with her of how she might be able to generate an ongoing income for herself and the children she ruled out selling food or having a little store on her property because all of the neighbors also have no money, and promise, but do not pay their debts if anything is given to them on credit. However, she stated that what she could see is to raise some animals for sale – specifically pigs.

Marina now lives in a small shack in the town of Citlalmina, however she does own a small property a bit south of town where she lived for many years. During the years that she lived there she kept the place planted and usually had some animals that she raised – usually several pigs. It has only been in the last ten or so years, since she is older, that she has moved to town. Javier and I went with her and the children to look at her property again with her. It is now completely overgrown, but does have an unfinished cement block house on it. Although she has been trying to sell the property for many years, no one will buy it because it has little value because of its location. However, with an investment of very little money into finishing the house and cleaning the property it could again be lived in, and animals could be raised there. The main thing that would need to be done is to run a line into the property so that it would have water. There is no power, but that is of lower priority than water, and lanterns could easily be used for light as Marina did for many years.

There is also an older Christian brother by the name of Marcelo who lives several houses down from her. He is somewhat older than Marina but is also forced to do daily jobs for which he earns about equivalent to $2.50 Canadian per day. Javier’s idea is simple and brilliant and would assist not only Marina and the four children, but would also make her self-supporting and not dependent upon handouts, would provide the children with ongoing training in life-skills and potentially an ongoing inheritance, and would also provide a job for an elderly Christian brother as well. If funds would be made available to run a water line to the property, to do basic finishing on the house itself, and for a small salary for Marcelo, he could be hired to cut down the weeds and overgrowth on the property and to live there and be the caretaker of it for Marina. If further funds would then also be made available for her to invest in several animals and chickens then Marina and the children, as well as Marcelo could look after them as well as take care of the property. It is easily accessed from Marina’s current house being only a several minute walk from it. This would be a win – win situation where Marina and the children would be able to be independently self-supporting through raising animals and food, and an elderly Christian brother would also have an income and a place to live where he could feel useful and loved. It is my strong recommendation that this is a very valid need, and that we as God’s people must be faithful to fulfilling God’s priorities in regards to caring for widows and orphans.

c) Concerning the Saturday morning feeding program and children’s outreach in the squatter’s village of Buenos Aires:

As I have already mentioned above, Buenos Aires is a squatter’s village where the inhabitants do not have any land rights at all, and where they have lived in complete insecurity of immediate eviction for many years. Most of the people who live there do so because they are extremely poor and cannot afford to pay for land elsewhere. However, this puts them into a position where they are unable and unwilling to invest any amount of money into housing or property betterment because they literally could be burned out or evicted at any moment. The children in these families often come from fatherless homes where the man has long-since abandoned the mother and children. These women are the poorest of the poor. There are very, very few social catch nets in Mexico.

Here, in this little squatter’s village Javier and Cristina began a ministry many years ago of caring for the needs of the children. They have a Saturday morning feeding program in a little covered area which always also involves a teaching in Bible principles. Many of the children have grown up through the children’s program and are now active Christian teenagers and are themselves helping in the church as well as in the children’s ministry itself. Some of the girls are also very much involved in the sewing school and are some of Cristina’s trainees there. Alicia has also helped in the children’s program in Buenos Aires for many years and it is mainly Cristina and Alicia’s vision and passion which keeps it running.

The money to buy the food comes mainly from the personal giving of Javier and Cristina as well as from Armando and Alicia; neither family of which can really afford to do so. Some donations do come in from others in the church in Solidaridad where Javier and Cristina are pastors, but although generous givers, this is also a very poor church. Javier confided in me that although this ministry is the passion of Cristina’s heart, the financial burden of running it is personally crushing for them.

I believe that this is a very needed and viable ministry to the poor children of a very impoverished village, and that we should assist it financially. I have seen the spiritual growth in the children over the years, and I have certainly been witness to the poverty and the physical and social needs that are being met by this ministry. By assisting with even as little as one hundred dollars a month along with what they are already doing locally, a large portion of the financial burden that is currently being carried by Javier and Cristina could be reduced, and the ministry could continue to change young lives for Christ, and allow these poor children to experience firsthand the love of Jesus for them. I highly recommend that a monthly amount be given by the ministry for the feeding and children’s program in Buenos Aires in order to buy food to feed these children and to continue the ministry there.

 

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This ends a report/blog post on my trip to Cd. Valles this past month. I was overjoyed to see the progress of the work, and to be with friends again. God is doing a wonderful work, and the vision which he began is strong in the hearts of the faithful men and women in leadership. He is also raising up others who are faithfully moving into areas of leadership as well – notable in this area are Blanca and Juan as well as Armando and Alicia who I know will very soon become leaders in their own right.

On a sad note for all of you who know our sister Rosaura – she has recently had her second chemotherapy treatment for metastasizing cancer and has requested that I send out her request for prayer. Although she is ready to go home, she is trusting God for healing because she believes that she is not yet finished with the work which He has given her to do. Please remember her in your prayers.

Thank you for your faithfulness in praying for, and giving financially to the ministry of Voice in the Wilderness over the years. Your love and generosity is what is making it possible for these faithful brothers and sisters in Christ to continue to bring the message of the Good News of our Lord and Savior to a lost and dying world in the Huasteca region of Mexico.

Beautiful handwork

 

Blessings,

 

Your fellow laborers in the harvest,

 

Steven and Theresa Frey

This entry was posted on Monday, April 9th, 2018 at 9:12 pm and is filed under VitW Blog.