Theresa with the EBDV Team
How good and merciful our God is. There are so many praise reports to bring you up to date on…
First of all, the biggie – we now, at long last, have the land and sugarcane contract transferred and legally in our possession. After many months of taking a step forward only to find that we had regressed two backwards in the process, we have finally been able to close the purchase and the contract. Praise the Lord!
There remain some details to finalize, but there is a newsletter coming in the mail within a few days so I don’t want to bore you with the details, nor do I want to steal all of my own thunder by giving you the details in this blog. Suffice it to say that the past couple of weeks have been very intense for Theresa and me, along with the whole Board of Obreros Unidos para Cosechar, the Mexican non-profit. But God has been faithful, and I know that he will continue to work out the minor details which still need to be taken care of over the next couple of days.
Now begins the real work. We are ready – more than ready – to begin breaking up the soil for planting in the later
EBDV Training Session in Tampico - Steven and Theresa Attended with Team
summer. Looking at the land site brings new meaning to the old chorus which says “Break up the fallow ground, let it rain, rain, rain”. The land has not been fallow, but has not been tilled for years now, and the old root systems of the sugarcane which had been growing now needs to be broken down and completely cut up to allow the rains of the rainy season to penetrate and soften the soil.
We are now beginning to fight the clock as the soil must be able to be opened and allowed to break down the old, dead clods before the rains begin in a month or so. We will be beginning, Lord willing, this week to hire a tractor and implements to start working.
As I have mentioned several times already, one of our prayers and needs, is for someone to donate a used tractor and implements for the work. With our own tractor we would be freed from the expense of having to hire someone to work our fields for us.
It is getting exciting, and we are anxious to get our hands dirty in the soil.
Theresa and I just returned from Tampico this evening where we had taken a leadership team from the home church in Cd. Valles to be trained for the Summer Bible School program for this year. Escuela Bíblica de Verano, or EBDV as it is known, is a huge outreach of the local church. The programs are taken to many of the areas of the city, as well as outlying areas, and occupy a couple of months over the summer, and many teachers and volunteers. It was a privilege for Theresa and me to be able to be a part of the preparation and planning.
Theresa and the Team hard at work creating a full-body puppet
There is currently a weekend women’s retreat taking place at a place about forty five minutes south of Cd. Valles called Xolol. Next weekend the men’s retreat will take place at the same place. God has used the “Aposentos”, or weekend retreats mightily over the past year. You may recall that I spoke about these in my May 27 and July 14 blogs of last year. God is breaking down strongholds and releasing men and women during these retreats, and lives are being radically transformed. They are also a lot of work, and take up a large portion of many people’s lives during the preparation and implementation times.
Onto other matters – the weather in Cd. Valles has just been cranked up another several notches. We are now in the direct oven again. No more pleasantly cool evenings – and unfortunately there will be none for some time to come. In fact, things will just get hotter until the rains begin in June or July when the temperatures are at least a bit moderated by the overcast skies. The problem then is that the humidity also
Old photo of the Frey family from 1966 - Thanks to my cousin Rick Martin for making it available.
rises, taking the “feels like” temperatures into the very uncomfortable range as well. Presently, at 11:30 p.m. the outside temperature stands at 94.6° Fahrenheit, and that inside the living room is a rather unpleasant 93.9°. The low for last night was 83.4°, and the high for today was a rather warm 107.0°.
One of the very unpleasant things about modern Mexican building designs is the use of concrete for everything, including the roofs, without any form of insulation. Anyone who has ever walked barefooted on hot stones knows what the sun does to stone or concrete. Also, if you have ever stood against a stone or concrete wall late at night long after the air temperatures have dropped into coolness, you will have felt the warmth of the cement being radiated back to you. This is pleasant enough on a cool summer evening against grandpa’s stone wall, but very
Anna, the daughter of friends of ours. Beautiful and radiant at her wedding. Theresa and I presented the Wedding Bible.
unpleasant when the four-inch slab of roof is radiating back the heat of the day’s baking in the sun into an already hot room. All that I can say is “thank God for the air conditioner in our bedroom”! One can function during the heat of the day, but it is very difficult to sleep at night if there is no respite.
It is almost midnight, and I must get to bed.
Until the next blog…
