Our Thanksgiving turkey – truly a day for Acción de Gracias with our many friends around the table
One month, and a lot of water has passed under the bridge since my last blog, and I think that it is time that I put pen to paper (or fingers to the keyboard, as the case may be), and get one off again.
Celine Dion is warbling “Blue Christmas” in the background, and the Christmas tree is twinkling in the corner of the living room. The season is “fixin’” to by jolly (according to the lingo of my Texas friends), and we are all looking with expectation to the days and weeks ahead. According to the online chronometer there are only 9 days, 3 hours, 4 minutes, and a rapidly decreasing second countdown until Christmas day arrives. Wow! Where has the year gone? And what have we accomplished in it?
Very quickly, in order to bring some continuity with a few of the things mentioned in my last blog:
The police have proven 100% inept, or unwilling, or both, in solving the case of the stolen
Give Thanks – we truly have so much to be thankful for
farm implements. I suspect that they have long-since been sold, become scrap metal, or a boat anchor somewhere. I guess we will need to try to go on without them, or attempt to try to import others as we are able.
The field work has finally been finished, and we have recently had rain on the seed planted. Things are growing – slowly due to the cooler weather – but they are growing and looking hopeful. Praise the Lord for this report at long last. The weeds have been placed under control for the moment, and we are truly blessed to see that some of the stress of the farm has been diminished.
But, what is there new?
Actually a lot. There are a whole lot of good things to report!
The Oklahoma Gang (and a few extra)
Over the past month Theresa and I have had the privilege of being asked to share on missions in two separate churches in the area, once in the city of Valles, and once about thirty miles away in the little town of Zaragoza. It was a special blessing to be to be able to share in Zaragoza because my parents, and brother Larry and his wife LaVonne were all instrumental in funding the building of the church there about fourteen years ago. I had not been back for at least ten years, and it was good to see old friends again.
We also had the privilege of being asked to have our house used as a “host spot” for celebrating Thanksgiving. This was unusual since Thanksgiving is not a typical Mexican celebration. However, since there are enough people who are aware of the northern tradition we were chosen to host it. We began with about fifteen around our table, but by the end of the day I think the final count was around twenty-five people who were fed – including a couple who walked up to our gate from the street asking for food. We were blessed to be able to extend Thanksgiving to them as well.
Then, over the very first part of December pastor Marty Dyer from Newsong Church in
The panther has returned – face painting in the children’s ministry with the Oklahoma team
Grove, Oklahoma, along with a team from his church, and friends from Jimenez, Mexico, arrived to present a two-day conference for national pastors from the southern area of the Huasteca. Theresa and I were blessed to be able to be a part of the team, and to attend the conference as guests on Friday and Saturday, the 5th and 6th of December. Then after the session on Saturday night, the men headed out to a little village the middle of the mountain wilderness of the southern Huasteca where they slept on the floor of a church building. In the morning, Sunday, they hiked about two hours down into, and across a mountain canyon in order to speak at a little indigenous village church on the other side of the gorge. Things would have been a little bit less dicey if it hadn’t been raining all night, and if the sheer drops into oblivion hadn’t been quite as slick. But, praise God, we made it, and are none the worse for the wear.
While this little Sunday adventure was taking place with the guys, the gals were blessing about seventy children in the town of Huichihuayan with a Bible lesson, crafts, lunch and backpacks with school supplies. When the men arrived back in the late afternoon they were just finishing with the all-day program for the children, and loading them on the back of pickup trucks and other vehicles so that they could return to their villages scattered in the mountains around Huichi. It was good spending time with Marty and our other friends from Oklahoma and Jimenez.
The excitement of new backpacks and school supplies – “What did you get in yours?”
The Oklahoma team had no more than gotten down the road for points north when we had another delightful visit – this time from an eighty five year old couple from the southern Huasteca. Fransisco Martinez Hernández and his lovely wife are from the little mountain village of Coxcatlán. We “happened” to run into them several months ago when we were at a wedding party celebrated with our friend Ollie Lovett from Rancho Louisiana following a ten-couple, mass wedding, as mentioned in my September 24th blog (http://www.vitwministries.com/wordpress/2014/09/why-i-dont-play-the-lottery/).
Theresa and I had briefly met Fransisco and his wife at the wedding party and exchanged telephone information because of the fact that we were both hailing from the Huasteca (while in a different region of the country). You know how it goes: “Oh, so you’re from the Huasteca too. Well, my wife and I live there as well. We will have to visit you sometime. Where exactly do you live? Blah, blah…” Never expecting, of course, to ever see them again.
But God had other ideas – Fransisco kept calling me up out of the blue. Unfortunately, I
Transportation Huastecan style
didn’t remember who he was when he called. I put a quick ‘lilt’ and an “Oh, how good to hear from you my good friend” tone (hopefully) into my voice when I answered. But, in all honesty I didn’t have a clue who he was. But then, several weeks ago he called me again and said that he and his wife were in town and would love to see us. I was working at the farm and didn’t know who was calling, but I told Javier that I had better come in and meet them, and excused myself and returned to town to find them. As soon as I saw them I remembered them. How could I possibly forget!
We visited briefly that day, and they promised to come back to visit again, next time for a longer stay. They called me up a couple of weeks later and said that they would be in town for a couple days, and would love to visit again.
What a delight they are. Everyone needs grandparents in the Faith. This faithful couple has been ministering the Word in the Huasteca since the early 40s, long before there were roads to most of the area. They are filled with wit, wisdom, godliness, and confidence in the Lord. They delighted and encouraged us with stories of deliverance from machete attacks, stonings, snakes and wild beasts, and, well, basically the 11th chapter of Hebrews in vivo. They truly fall into the category of a man and woman of faith. He also excitedly told us that they had just celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary the previous week, and that he was as delighted in his bride today as he was when he married her sixty years ago. He then whispered to me that she was celebrating her birthday next week as well, and he hoped to buy her a little gift while here in Cd. Valles (the big city). What a fun and delightful couple. It was even a joy to give up our bedroom for them, and to sleep on the floor while they were with us. It is in this way that one sometimes entertains angels unawares (or, in this case, perhaps in full knowledge).
Our precious grandparents in the Faith – Fransisco and his dear wife
But, it was really for Javier’s sake that God brought them to stay with us for two days. Javier and Cristina had just been stabbed in the back and beaten up by their denominational leadership again at an inter-district pastor’s conference. I had invited him over to meet with our new friends, and when he came he was obviously deeply hurting. We spent almost two days visiting and drinking deeply from the depth of wisdom and godliness of this dear elderly couple, and Javier’s spirit and soul were healed, and he was refreshed with new vision and direction for the work.
Thank you Lord for men and women who have labored long for you, and who have remained faithful. It was a needed time of refreshing and encouragement after seeing so much of the seedy underbelly of religion so often.
Then, the big, big news, and the mega-praise report is that we have a couple who will be living in, and beginning to take over the work at the Casa del Obrero. What an answer to so many prayers!
Armando and Alicia will be beginning on the first of January. They need your prayers.
Armando in the red shirt on the left. He is already faithfully ministering in the church-plant in the village of San Antonio Huichimal
They are young and very “green”. But they are also eager, and very willing to be clay in the potter’s hands. We believe that they are the couple that God has prepared for the long-term of the ministry. They will be the first trainees and workers, as well as the first couple that will be mentored into leadership. We believe that God will prepare them to take on more and more of the direction of the work at the Missionary Training Center, and that they will be able to be co-laborers with Javier as well as disciples.
We praise God for them, and that they were willing to answer “yes” to this call. It is not going to be an easy work for them. As I explained to Armando just the other day – we are not asking them for some of their time each day, we are asking them for their lives. But we are also offering them a chance to enter into life-changing ministry. Please lift them up in prayer.
Alicia with Theresa. Unfortunately I don’t have another good photo of Alicia. But this is usually where I find Theresa and Alicia anyway, so it is pretty accuarate
Theresa and I are very consciously in the role now of preparing others so that we can hand over ministry to them. We are planning on leaving Mexico in the month of April in order to begin the process of returning north to Canada. I say “beginning the process” because there will most likely be a one-year layover in Texas in order to work to put aside funds for the ongoing support of the ministry before we actually return to Canada. But this is all in the exit plan, and a way that the continuing viability of the work can be assured until it/they can become self-funding on their own. But our role now is to prepare and train others, knowing that our own time here is short.
We are blessed to have faithful men and women with whom we have been working, and who are ready to continue after we leave. Please pray that the changeover will be relatively painless, and the continuation of the work seamless as we transition out and Javier, Cristina, Alejandra, Mario, Aminadab, Armando and Alicia, and others will be shouldering the load without us beside them after we leave.
Theresa and some of her friends have been busily sewing curtains, table runners, table cloths, and I am not sure what all, all for sale in order to raise funds for the rental payments of the Bible Institute building. Tomorrow they will be holding the first pre-Christmas sale from our porch. I trust that they will sell all of the items that they have toiled over for so many weeks.
Also, Theresa and I will be heading north to Manitoba for a quick visit with family and friends over New Years and into the first part of January. We look forward to time with family, and a time of refreshing before we return for the last burst to the finish line.
The Lord willing, we will post another blog before Christmas. If not, then we wish you a blessed and joy-filled Christmas and a very happy New Year. But we will try to post before that.
Be blessed,
Steven and Theresa
