Cutting the baseboard and getting the trim work done in the Casa del Obrero
On Thursday night, February 19th, Armando, Alicia and little Ana spent their first night in their new home at the Casa del Obrero Centro de Entrenamiento – the Missionary Training Center farm. There still remains tons of work to finish, but this begins to bring to closure years of work, dreams, visioning, prayers, planning, and sweat. This also occasions one year, almost exactly, from when we celebrated Koinonia 2014.
Let me take you on a little journey over the past year to encourage you in our Lord, and in what He has been doing here in Cd. Valles in our small part of the harvest, and in our little corner of the world.
You will recall that on February 1st of last year we celebrated a time of Christian unity and fellowship in our Koinonia 2014 party. The event was written about in my February 16, 2014 blog entitled “Koinonia 2014 and Other Miracles” (http://www.vitwministries.com/wordpress/2014/02/koinonia-2014-and-other-miracles-2/).
In that blog I mentioned that pastor Moisés, the director of the new Christian radio station
The pump gets placed into the well
Cielos Abiertos FM had planned and organized a “blow-em-out-of-the-water” event on the Training Center farm which he dubbed Koinonia 2014. It was designed to be truly nondenominational and not overtly religious in nature so that it could draw both Believers and nonbelievers to enjoy a day of shared fellowship together. On that day we enjoyed food, live Christian music, festivities, clowns and gifts for the kiddies, and generally a good time together in shared communion and friendship, celebrating what God had done.
It soon became very evident that our celebration of God’s goodness had also stirred up a hornet’s nest in the camp of the Enemy. Two days after extolling the goodness and extravagance of God’s mercy we squared off with the raw forces of evil in a Board of Directors meeting in Theresa and my living room. A brother, and former associate, had allowed himself to be wooed by greed, ambition and pride to try to destroy what God was doing, and to try to rob and control the work of the ministry.
The kitchen cabinets go into the Case del Obrero
One year ago today we were very unsure if we would have anything at all to work with, and uncertain if the ministry of the Missionary Training Center would even exist and if we would have anything at all to hand over to the rising Christian national leaders involved in the ongoing work of the ministry.
Through much difficulty, financial expenses, and outright miracles, God intervened and the attack of the Enemy was turned back and destroyed. Sadly, it also brought about the destruction of unity and ended years of co-ministry with our former brother and friend. But God thwarted the attempt of the Enemy to use this brother for the evil that he had intended. The title on the land was secured, and the ministry of the Missionary Training Center could go forward as God intended it to.
But this still left just Javier and me to do the labor of the farm, as well as that of church
Thumbs up on a very good job Armando
planting in the surrounding villages.
Alejandra (Janny) and her husband Dr. Mario Cázares, along with the other dedicated staff of the Bible Institute Luz de las Naciones, and Project L.A.M.B.S. continued to devote themselves sacrificially to the advancement of the Bible Schools. None of them has ever received any salary or remuneration for their committed labor. Indeed, since the number of students in both schools is so low, the tuition fees of the students is not even enough to keep the doors open on the rented building that houses the schools. The women began sewing cooperatives and selling their wares in order to attempt to raise money to assist in paying the rent. But it has been Mario himself who has personally shouldered the load of paying the rent on the building so that the doors would not close.
Now the cleaning work begins. Each of these jobs is also a mentoring opportunity for Theresa
The Bible Institute and Project L.A.M.B.S. still are not out of the woods financially even today. But praise God, there are more students coming in all the time. There still are not enough students attending that their tuition fees cover the rent completely, but we are grateful for the increase in numbers that we have experienced, and in the encouraging interest in the schools that is being shown within the Christian community. Some of the difficulties associated with the breaking of relationships that occurred over the past couple of years are being healed.
Then, September and November brought a personal “to-the-wall” crisis to me. Actually, I think that both Javier and I felt the same thing. As you will recall from the blogs, we had to plant, and replant one area of the farm five times, each time having all of our work washed away in torrential storms. I was at the point that I wanted to nuke the whole shooting match and just throw in the towel and quit. Javier was not too far behind me I think. I was beginning to feel like a tired old man boxing the wind.
It seemed like God was not answering, and was not about to answer our desperate plea for
Alicia takes over after being shown how by Theresa
someone to take over the work of farm. We were praying and actively looking for a disciple to take over the labor – someone who would train and study under Javier’s tutelage and who would be able to take more and more of the ongoing responsibilities and vision of the ministry. We were not looking for a farm hand or for someone simply to do the grunt work (although we couldn’t even find that). Rather, we were looking for, desperately believing for, and praying for, someone with vision and passion for the purpose of the missionary training center farm. We were not looking for a self-serving freeloader, but for a disciple trainee filled with passion for the Lord. Not an easy role to fill, and not a small order as it turned out.
We looked and prayed. We visited church leaders and Christian village workers. We even drove into the southern Huasteca and began to grovel and beg, but no one came forward or showed even the slightest bit of encouragement. The heavens remained brass as we pounded on them for help. Was God not interested?
A very happy little girl. This is the first time that Ana has ever had her own bed, or her own room
Then, something unusual began to happen. You might recall reading about the process because I blogged about something mysterious that God was beginning to do in my own life at the end of a rather “blue” November 11th blog entitled “Why Art Thou Cast Down?” (http://www.vitwministries.com/wordpress/2014/11/why-art-thou-cast-down/).
Then, later, in my December 16th blog entitled “It’s Fixin’ To Be Jolly” (http://www.vitwministries.com/wordpress/2014/12/its-fixin-to-be-jolly/) I wrote “…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”.
What a journey this all was!
Incredibly, Armando and Alicia were under our noses all along. In fact, Javier had spoken of
Alicia sets up her bedroom with the first chest of drawers that she has ever owned
them often and expressed his feeling that some day they would be involved in the ministry, and that at some point they would become a part of the vision of the Training Center. But for many months we simply passed them over – they were too close to see. They were, and are, a committed part of Javier and Cristina’s little church in Solidaridad, and an active and faithful part of that little congregation. For many years they have been discipled by Javier and Cristina as their pastors. The transition into full-time ministry was obvious; it was just too obvious to be seen by us.
Then suddenly, excitingly, in December – KABOOM!
Have you ever watched one of those weird clockwork contraptions where gears suddenly begin to mesh, pieces rotate, sections click into each other, wheels whirl and spin, the whole thing makes a clicking and humming sound, and things begin to move all over the machine to do crazy things?
Little Ana shows off her mom and dad’s new bedroom for the camera
This is a little bit how December was for me. Suddenly there was clicking and humming beginning to happen. At exactly the point that Theresa and I made a definite commitment to end our role as in-country missionaries, and rather, to move to Texas in order to work for a year in order to be able to establish a financial fund for the ongoing work – right then, precisely at that time, things began to whirl.
At that point Armando and Alicia came on board as our first students/disciple trainees of the Missionary Training Center and Javier began to mentor them one-on-one. At that same point God almost literally threw a confirmed job into Theresa and my lap in Texas which we would be able to begin on the 1st of May. At that point we also began dialoguing with two Christian ministries to explore the possibility of some sort of an ongoing cooperation in a ministry partnership. At that point God laid it onto the hearts of dear friends of ours, and fellow visionaries in the ministry to take it upon themselves to personally pay Javier’s honorarium, thus allowing him to continue in the ministry as the Director of the Casa del Obrero Missionary Training Center
Even the bathroom looks great. Of course, there is no water or electricity in the house yet, but that will come some day, the Lord willing
farm. At that point also, as I personally began to hand over more and more of the responsibility of the work and ministry of the Casa del Obrero, as well as that of its administration to Javier, I found that he was soaring on wings. His shoulders were broadening, and he was even catching on to how to run a computer and send emails; how to use the Skype phone and MagicJack to communicate; how to scan and send copies – and in short – how to take over. I gave him my filing cabinet along with file hangers and a handful of manila files. I set him up with one of the computers that we had brought down for the school several years ago. I gave him my printer and desk and a used phone for his MagicJack. He got set up with internet access in his new office, and he is now ready to go. Wow! Several months ago he couldn’t even turn on a computer, and the thought scared him. Now he is fixin’ to take over the administration of the Missionary Training Center. Oh, there will be glitches I am sure, but God is bigger than little setbacks.
When Theresa and I got back from Canada, and from spending some time visiting friends and churches on our way back, we arrived at Cd. Valles on the 27th of January to find that intensive one-on-one Bible School classes had begun for Armando and Alicia in our living room at the beginning of the year. Javier has been meeting with them for direct training with a custom-built, missionary-oriented curriculum two to three times per week. He envisions that this will continue for three or more years, over which time he intends to pour his heart and passion into them. So, not only is Armando being taught to run the physical farm, and not only is he being given hands-on leadership training in church planting by taking over the ministry of the little mission plant in San Antonio Huichimal, but he and Alicia are also being instructed in intensive classroom-based Bible teaching. It is truly a pleasure for me to watch as Javier and Armando work side-by-side in the daily work of the farm. There is rarely an occasion which does not lend itself to allow Javier to use it to mentor Armando in either a natural, physical skill, or a spiritual discipline or application of leadership. Armando is being truly mentored and fathered. Wow, how beautiful!
The first breakfast in the Casa del Obrero
We fully believe that soon both Armando and Alicia will themselves be able to begin to take over more and more of the leadership and mentoring of others under the careful guidance and tutelage of Javier and Cristina.
It is beginning – the dream is beginning to become reality. The very thing that the Enemy tried to stop and rob is growing. True, it is just a grain of mustard at the moment – a tiny seed – but it is beginning to grow! It will, by God’s grace, grow and expand. It will grow strong and become a tree that the birds can build nests in, and where they can be safe and secure.
The same is happening for the other schools as well – the Instituto Biblico Luz de las Naciones, and Project L.A.M.B.S. God is doing the work. The ministry is growing.
As the Newboys joyously proclaim in their song “God’s Not Dead”:
My God’s not dead
He’s surely alive
He’s living on the inside
Roaring like a lion
Praise his name!
Your friends and fellow laborers,
Steven and Theresa
