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 2nd 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 1st though the 3rd 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 26th 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
