Current Events and Updates of the Ministry

The visiting missionary team stands in front of the Casa del Obrero building at the Training Center

Day three: 22 meters (72 feet) at the close of today’s drilling. No new water has been found. It is estimated that the well is currently producing enough water for a one family household if it is used sparingly, and if it is pumped continuously into a reservoir tank (a tinaco) on the roof.

This is not what we have been praying for, nor what we need for the Missionary Training Center. We simply need more water than this! We are praying for an extravagant miracle of abundance to meet all of the needs of the Center.

Matthew 7: 7-8 says:  “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened”.

Right now it is easy for me to start second guessing – did I make the right decision? Should we have placed the well over there, or there, or maybe there? Should we pull the plug? Should we go on? Etc., etc.

But then I come back to several factual, non-emotional things that give me hope again: this well is to bless God’s work. He has provided funds to begin the drilling. Much prayer has entered into this event. We can neither make water appear “down there”, nor have predicted exactly where it would be (or for that matter, if there even would be a good source of water on the land at all). We cannot force God’s hand. But the water is to bless His ministry, and to expand the possibilities of the Training Center. And most of all, we have, and serve a very, very big God, and he loves us and cares for us.

So it comes back to this – please pray! Please hold this need before God again when you open this blog (Friday). We have decided to keep going in faith, but the funds will run out after one more day’s drilling if we do not hit water.

Today we had a wonderful time of sharing the vision of the work and of prayer on the farm with the team from the north (all Mexican nationals, but some of them now living in Texas). I believe that our prayer time with the team today was another pivotal point spiritually – a defining moment in the heavenlies for the ministry.

We await a miracle.

Please hold us up in prayer. Friday will mean God’s blessing and success in the quest for water, or basically a dry hole.

We wait with you with bated breath and a prayer on our lips,

Steven and Theresa

52 1/2 feet at the end of day two.

Just to update you with what is happening with Wesley’s Well:

Today is day two on the rig. Yesterday they went through about 4 meters of soil before hitting rock. They then pounded their way through about 4 more meters of rock before shutting down for the day, making a total of 8 meters (about 26 feet).

Today, day two, they did hit some water, but not what we continue to pray for. They ended their day at about the 16 meter mark (about 52 ½ feet). Everything below the first approximately 4 meters is solid rock.

We have agreed to go to 20 meters (65 ½ feet), and at that point see what seems best. This

End of day two shut down. Please pray for a miracle and abundant water tomorrow

means that tomorrow we will pound through the last 4 meters (13 feet) and see what we find.

Please pray that God will provide a miracle for us and that the bit will break though into the subterranean rivers and massive aquifers that we are believing for.

Also, we just had a team of seven arrive from Texas and Matamoros who will be ministering in the area for the next several days. Theresa and I have the privilege of hosting one of the couples. We look forward to being with them all. It will be a busy time, and we await expectantly to see what God will do while they are here.

It will also be a time of little sleep, so I think that I had better head off to bed.

Please don’t forget to pray for the miracle of abundant water tomorrow.

Blessings,

Steven and Theresa

The drill rig is positioned and the tower raised

In Isaiah 44:3(a) the prophet declares the Word of the Lord stating “I will pour out water to quench your thirst and to irrigate your parched fields” (NLT).

Today I want to write a quick blog to bring you up to date on what we trust will be the literal fulfillment of this prophecy for the Casa del Obrero, and to ask you to be in prayer with us for the miracle that we believe God will provide.

But perhaps I am getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning…

If you will look back to the last posting dated June 20, 2014 you will see that close friends of ours provided money to begin the drilling of the water well for the Casa del Obrero. I will paste the pertinent paragraph here from that blog:

“Our dear friends Kevin and Jackie Penner have donated money to drill a deep water well

The bit is positioned over “Ebenezer” – my touch point of blessing

on the Missionary Training Center farm. The well is to be called “Wesley’s Well”, and it will transform what can be done there. Water is literally life, and in our climate especially, it means the difference between productivity and bareness. This is a very exciting thing. Thank you God for your answer to our prayers, and thank you Kevin and Jackie for being used by God to bring the answer”.

Today the drilling rig arrived on the property and was set up to begin operating tomorrow morning. What an incredible answer to many months of prayer!

As Christians we believe in a God of miracles, but we do not believe in magical thinking; that is, believing that one event happens as a result of another without a plausible link of causation. Or, stated differently, the irrational belief that one can bring about a circumstance or event by thinking about it or wishing for it.

I say this because I want to take you to another blog of some months back. If you will look at the posting dated January 19, 2014 titled “The Breakthrough Begins!” you will read about our good friend pastor Moisés Gamboa, and how God used him to begin a chain of miracles for the Missionary Training Center. However, specifically, I want to take you to a paragraph in which, during a time of prayer, we drove a stake into the ground in an act of faith, believing, as did the prophet Samuel that “up to this point the Lord has helped us!” (1 Samuel 7:12).

I include the paragraph below from the January 19 posting:

It may not be a thing of beauty, but it sure is beautiful to us. Please pray that God will cause an abundance of water to flow from this well

“And God did something! There began to be a change evident in the heavenlies – something that broke through into the natural and began to bubble up in our heart in new hope.

After our prayer time at the construction site I felt God urging me to have pastor Moi drive a wooden stake into the ground of the farm as a prophetic symbol of the fact that this day was a day of new beginnings and a point of breakthrough for the vision of Casa del Obrero. From this point onwards we were going to see a change. This we did in faith, our eyes as yet seeing nothing”.

This stake has become my “Ebenezer” on the farm, and a place close to my heart when I need a point of reference, a stone of remembrance concerning God’s supernatural provision and his purposes for the work. Again, I wish to be quick to explain that I believe with my whole heart in a supernatural God of the miraculous, but not in a god of magical thinking that we create to fulfill our wishes.

When we needed to decide where to place the well, I chose what for me was an obvious

Wesley’s Well is to soon become a reality for us. Thank you Lord!

solution – the place, the touch point where God had promised his blessing to us, and to the ministry of the Missionary Training Center – the stake that we had driven in the ground back in January.

There were also left-brained reasons for choosing this spot – it was close to the building sites (the present “galera house” staff house, as well as the proposed future site of the larger buildings and dorms), it is close to where we hope to have electricity, it is close to where we hope to have greenhouses and shops, it was easily accessed by the drilling equipment etc., etc. But still, my choice of this exact spot was due to the fact that it is a place where blessing has been spoken over the ministry.

So now, the drill rig is set up and the bit is ready to begin the hunt for water. This is where I ask you to intercede for us. Please pray that God will not only bless us with abundant water, but that he will surprise us with subterranean rivers and massive aquifers which will be profusely bountiful and immensely and enormously blessed. Pray that there will be such an excess that we can be a point of blessing for the neighbors around us – that we can give away and bless by “pouring out water to quench their thirst and to irrigate their parched fields”.

I will keep you posted on Wesley’s Well. I trust that the next entry will be an exclamation of praise at the blessing of the Lord.

Please pray.

Also, for our Canadian friends: Happy Canada Day. For our American friends, your day is coming on the 4^th.

Be blessed,

Steven and Theresa

The first fruits of our mango crop

“From opposite standpoints of the Christian world, from different quarters of human life and character, through various expressions of their common faith and hope, through diverse modes of conversion, through different portions of the Holy Scripture will the weary travelers enter the Heavenly City and meet each other – “not without surprise” – on the shores of the same river of life”. Dwight L. Moody – “Heaven” (Moody Classics)

I found the above quote the other day and decided to include it in my blog, not necessarily because it has anything to do with what I hope to say today, but rather just because I like it. It speaks to me about the diversity and delightful variety of God’s family, our brothers and sisters in the Kingdom. I suspect that it will be true that we will meet – “not without surprise” – on the shores of the same river of life in God’s Heavenly City.

Certainly, the longer that I am here in Mexico rubbing shoulders daily with my brothers

Roberto places final color on columns. We hope to place a roofed porch over this concrete pad in the near future.

and sisters, the more I realize that we are not always of the same ilk. Indeed, many times we all go away mutually scratching our heads wondering what the other could possibly mean, and what motivated a certain choice or reaction. We, even in the natural, are not all the same. We bear a different stamp and serial number, a different background, a different seal of culture, a different formation of mental processes, a different line of thinking and logic from each other. If this is true in the natural, then it is even more so in the spiritual. As Moody put it, sometimes we come from opposite standpoints, from different quarters of life and character, with different expressions of faith and hope, different doctrinal viewpoints – all to stand together, shoulder to shoulder – at least, so we should stand.

I am grateful that God enjoys variety and is not a God of uniformity. This gives me hope, and means that I don’t need to strive to try to fit into the life of cookie cutter Christianity. Let us revel in God’s creativity and variety. We are free to be conformed into the image of Jesus as Paul speaks about in Romans and 2^nd Corinthians – seeking to keep our eyes on him (Jesus) – rather than trying to do such and such because so and so or this rule or that regulation of religion says so. I have long ago reconciled myself to the fact that I am cut from a different cloth than many. I don’t necessarily want to be weird, but I also don’t want to have someone’s (or some society’s) set of rules dictating who and what I must become. After all, we all come with a different background, history and world view.

The inside of the galera house takes shape.

But I fear that I have digressed, let me proceed…

There is something new happening here in the work. I have a sense of something different and fresh, but I can’t necessarily grab it in my hand as it twists and turns and remains somewhat illusive. But I will try to describe what I am feeling. Forgive me if I struggle for the words to fully relay what I am trying to say.

As far as our daily lives – we have been busy. Theresa has just returned from spending some time in Canada with our children. It was difficult to have her gone, and it is good to have her back again. I have been working on the galera house on the farm, getting it ready while we wait for God’s answer to our prayers by supplying us with a couple to take over that part of the ministry. We have continued to work in village outreaches and church planting. It has been hot and miserable with daily temperatures holding up in the 110 – 118 degree Fahrenheit range with humidity in the 80s – very normal for this time of the year.

Besides this, some very good things are also being birthed. They are not fully formed yet,

The bridge begins to take shape

but they are beginning to become reality – seen through the eyes of faith.

As I already mentioned, the galera house, the house on the Casa del Obrero Missionary Training Center has now been finished. Finished, that is, except for having electricity, water, any kitchen cabinets, appliances or fixtures, any bathroom fixtures or appliances, any furniture, and some other little tiny details like that. Nonetheless, it looks beautiful and we continue to pray earnestly that God will provide the especially chosen couple that he has prepared to run the hands-on part of the ministry that is required of a mentor couple who will live and work there.

Bridge work begins about a mile from the farm. This is where the autopista will cross the access road that passes the farm site.

Our dear friends Kevin and Jackie Penner have donated money to drill a deep water well on the Missionary Training Center farm. The well is to be called “Wesley’s Well”, and it will transform what can be done there. Water is literally life, and in our climate especially, it means the difference between productivity and bareness. This is a very exciting thing. Thank you God for your answer to our prayers, and thank you Kevin and Jackie for being used by God to bring the answer.

The executive body of the three branches of the work – the Bible Institute, Project LAMBS, and the Casa del Obrero Missionary Training Center – have just spent a couple of days with me meeting with the Board of the Berea Bible Institute in Monterrey, Mexico. We approached them to request the possibility of coming under their academic and accrediting, as well as spiritual cover. This is the Bible Institute where Javier attended many years ago, and which formed so much of his missionary heart. I feel very comfortable with their ministry vision and “style”. It is much more similar in nature to what we feel God is calling us to do than many other “academic-focused” institutes – certainly than the curriculum and focus of the denominational-based program that we are presently using. We still need to present a formal written request, and they still need to accept our application, and some further negotiation will no doubt still need to be done. But things look very positive and as if God is bringing us together with their work. This is a very good thing, and another answer to many years of prayer.

A change is beginning to take place here in the ministry – nationals are starting to give

Javier looking into park in Monterrey. This park is where Javier first gave his life to the Lord many years ago through the ministry of a street preacher

financially to the work – not for what they can receive from it, but because they see that it is their ministry. We have been asked by a national brother to receive the donation of cash that several visiting pastors will bring from their sending churches in the United States. Their stipulation was that the money was to go to a work which this brother deemed to be the most needy, or where it would serve best. He asked if the total amount can come to the work of the Missionary Training Center. This is an amazing change in outlook from only a few years ago – national brothers and sisters becoming financial givers rather than receivers. This is an exciting change, and a very good thing.

This same brother is going out of his way to put up water-collecting rain gutters on the galera house at the farm so that rain water can be collected and conserved. He is doing this, not for pay, but because he feels God’s call on his heart. This is very good.

God is at work even if not always with booming displays of fireworks and sprays of exploding pyrotechnics. Nonetheless, in the stillness of his voice we continue to see his power displayed.

Javier stands in front of an unusual statue in Monterrey. We decided that they must be worshipping

As you know, we have finished our harvest for the year and await the payment on this year’s sugarcane crop. However, we don’t expect any great income for the year. Last week Javier received the payment on his personal field. He has roughly two hectares of sugarcane. His first payment for his sugarcane harvest, after all of the reductions and cuts that the milling monopoly took out netted a grand total of $700 pesos. This amounts to roughly $60 dollars for a year’s work. He will probably receive a little more in the final payout – perhaps bringing the full year’s net to about $1,000 pesos if he is lucky. If he does, then he will make an equivalent to $87 dollars for a full year’s crop. He estimates that he has invested $8,000 pesos over this past year to grow his crop. This means a loss of $610 dollars this past year. It is obvious to even someone who does not have a “business head” that sugarcane farmers are in crisis. There needs to be alternatives. Unfortunately, for so many small farmers there are none, and they need to continue to be dependent upon the gouging of the gigantic buying and processing monopolies.

In light of this, we feel the definite need to begin a for-profit business of some kind at the

Javier with statues of two small boys in a park in Monterrey.

Training Center, knowing that sugarcane alone will never be enough to supply for the financial needs of the ministry. Besides this, we have been painfully reminded of late that many wonderful, godly works have allowed themselves to become dependent upon charity and handouts to survive. We don’t want to have our hands perpetually extended waiting for donations.

Now, I am all for a God of miracles, and depending upon the God who owns the cattle on a thousand hills and the wealth in every mine. But I think that it is not wrong to be independent from the need to beg as well. I believe that this work must somehow become 100% Mexican run and funded. Why not! Why can’t it be?

So, we are searching for ways to produce funds from within the ministry – more than the sugarcane alone can generate. We met this morning with a local businessman to discuss the possibility of a welding shop and/or an aluminum window shop. The benefit to this, besides being a source of income for the ministry, is that it would become a place where the student body would learn trades in a “natural” setting as well.

Mill for extracting the juice from sugarcane to make piloncillo

With this in mind, in all honesty, we need people with a business mind who can help us with the startup costs and know-how to begin several small businesses – entrepreneurs, who are not afraid to invest into a Kingdom venture – with the full intention of recouping their investment again. These could potentially be nationals, wealthy enough to invest in such a ministry. However, I believe that the reality is that God will no doubt lay it onto the hearts of a number of brothers and sisters from Canada and the United States to catch this particular vision so that income can be generated for the ongoing ministry.

I don’t have a business mind, finances to invest, nor do I have business experience. We desperately need God to provide the personnel, the money, and the business minds. We trust and pray that he will do so.

Within all of these changes and new challenges Theresa and I are also sensing very clearly that our time in Mexico (at least as it has been) is drawing to a close. We feel the need to hand over the baton to someone else so that we can return to Canada very soon.

Do you know what the Peter Principle is? The Peter Principle states that “in a hierarchy

Cones for making piloncillo – an unrefined sugar that is boiled down from sugarcane juice

every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence”. I believe that my role in this work has been that of being a pioneer, and perhaps a visionary. The work needed to be begun, and I was not afraid to step in and tread into the unknown. Now, however, someone needs to take over who can lead it to the next stages of where it is supposed to go in God. Much of this will be done by the national leaders. I have been extremely blessed to watch as the different members of the executive body have taken direct leadership over the past months of crisis in the ministry. I have been blessed as Javier, Alejandra, and Mario, especially, have proven themselves more than capable to continue the work, and have taken hold with feet firmly planted into the task.

Still, we believe that there continues to be the need for an expat couple to share in the ministry for the next several years. This could possibly be someone with business skills who could help in bringing the work into financial independence, making it a viable, self-financing, missionary supporting ministry. Please pray with us in this. We are desperately praying that God will bring someone soon.

Well, I have been all over the board – “free flow” I think it is called. I hope that you have been able to follow at least a little of my meandering thoughts, and that at least some of them have been a blessing to you at some level. If nothing else, it will help you to know how to pray for us here in Cd. Valles.

We are blessed. We are so grateful to have you as our friends, and to have God as our Lord.

Blessings,

Steven and Theresa

Placing shelving into the “bodega” (the storage room) at the Casa del Obrero

I bring you greetings from a very hot, humid and sticky Saturday in Cd. Valles. As I sit here at the computer I will try to relay something that has recently been burdening my heart afresh.

 In John 17:21-23 Jesus makes an astonishing statement concerning the Father, himself, and us, his followers:

“That they all may be one, [just] as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be one in Us, so that the world may believe and be convinced that You have sent Me. I have given to them the glory and honor which You have given Me, that they may be one [even] as We are one: I in them and You in Me, in order that they may become one and perfectly united, that the world may know and [definitely] recognize that You sent Me and that You have loved them [even] as You have loved Me”. (Amplified Bible).

How are we doing on the bit about “that they may be one [even] as We are one: I in them and You in Me, in order that they may become one and perfectly united, that the world may know and [definitely] recognize that You sent Me”?

“That the world may know and [definitely] recognize that You sent Me”… Hmmm, let’s take a little look-see at this.

If you will recall my February 16, 2014 blog entitled “Koinonia 2014 and Other Miracles”, you will remember that in it I spoke about the miracle of how the various churches of Cd. Valles, and throughout the Huasteca region were able to lay down their religiosity and denominational walls for one afternoon and actually unite together in koinonia and Christian love. We were praising God that this seemed to finally be happening without cold-shouldering each other due to hyper-religiosity and holier-than-thouness because of denominational superiority one over another.

You will also recall that a huge player in making that day possible was our friend Moisés Gamboa, the engineer who set up the Christian radio station Cielos Abiertos. It was directly through his vision that Koinonia 2014 became a glorious reality.

Shortly after that day in February Moisés’ contract ran out and he had to return to southern Mexico. But even though he

The “cisternas septicas” are being prepared for their placement to finally finish off our septic system

did not say much to me at the time, I was aware that “something was rotten in the state of Denmark” about the way that his leaving took place. He is briefly back in Cd. Valles for a short visit, and I had breakfast with him on Friday. I now have a better understanding of what happened in his departure, and the knowledge saddens me.

We will come back to this in a minute, but let me relate something else first…

In my last (April 30^th) blog I rejoiced with you that God had opened doors for us in the Tének village of San Antonio Huichimal, and that a family had opened their home to us to meet, making it possible for a church-plant to begin. Last weekend we were informed by the family that had opened their house to us, as well as by the other Believers that had been meeting with us, that they could no longer do so. They, and the entire village, are being pressured by the Catholic priest that it is because of the fact that we are visiting the village and holding services there that their animals are dying (or perhaps will die, I am not 100% sure). At any rate, there is tremendous fear of us now in the village, and even though there remains a hunger for God and the truth of his Gospel, apparently no one is allowed to fellowship freely or to seek Him.

My first reaction to this is “you have got to be kidding me. Are we living in the Dark Ages?” But the answer is actually “Yes”. Wherever the kingdom of Satan reigns there is darkness. So, we should not be surprised when the enemy uses fear and lies to confound and confuse, controlling the hearts and minds of people.

Placement begins

But this is true of those controlled by the enemy. We are not shocked (or at least should not be) to find that the enemy can, and does use mistrust, fear, division, religion, and disunity to thwart the advancement of God’s Kingdom. After all, as Jesus stated of the Enemy in John 8:44b: “He does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies”. Should we be surprised then when we find him lying, twisting truth, dividing one against another, blinding people with fear and mistrust, and using religion to kill and destroy? Of course not! That, according to Jesus, is Satan’s own nature, and he is speaking his native language when he does so.

But what about when the same thing happens in the Church? Can we then say that it is any different from the unsaved world?

If Jesus’ words are at all to be taken seriously when he stated categorically in Matthew 7:16-20 that:

“You will fully recognize them by their fruits. Do people pick grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles? Even so, every healthy (sound) tree bears good fruit [worthy of admiration], but the sickly (decaying, worthless) tree bears bad (worthless) fruit. A good (healthy) tree cannot bear bad (worthless) fruit, nor can a bad (diseased) tree bear excellent fruit [worthy of admiration]. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire. Therefore, you will fully know them by their fruits”. (Amplified Bible).

“Therefore, you will fully know them by their fruits”. Wow, now that is a mouthful if there ever was one!

So, what exactly did I find out about the hastily concocted discharge of Moisés from Cd.

And a thing of beauty she is!

Valles about a week before his contract conveniently was about to run out at the radio station? Namely, that several of the pastors in the city had raised an outcry against him for disrupting and disturbing the churches of the city. Apparently the Enemy was not happy with the fact that for the first time (perhaps ever in the city), Christians had been able to gather completely across denominational lines to fellowship together in love and koinonia at the event at the Casa del Obrero on the 1^st of February. Satan the liar, and the father of lies, had stirred up apparently God-fearing, evangelical pastors and religious leaders across the city to have Moisés ousted from his work here. It apparently is beyond the lines of religious protocol to be able to fellowship without denominational divisions. Apparently religion, and not Jesus, remains sacrosanct and unchangeable.

The problem is that this came through apparently God-fearing leaders across the city. That there is a hue and cry against Jesus and righteousness from the unsaved world is understandable and only to be expected. After all, they (the unsaved world), speak through their father the Devil. But, how tragic and unimaginable that persecution should come from the Church itself. Is this perhaps what Paul was talking about in Galatians 5:15 where he warned that “if you bite and devour one another, be careful that you are not destroyed by each other”?

I can think of nothing much sadder than this – that the Church of Jesus Christ itself inhibits and opposes Jesus. We can become so self-righteous that we can no longer be used by Him. And certainly, we completely disregard Jesus’ words where he prayed that we, his Bride, would become one and perfectly united in our love for one another. Oh, the world is convinced by the religious Church all right, but not that the Father has sent Jesus his son. But rather, that the Church is a mockery of the words of Jesus as it struts, preens, and swaggers about, full of itself.

Oh God, forgive us!

But, after focusing on the negative, let me also look at the sovereignty and glory of what God is doing. After beginning to write this blog this afternoon, I just now have returned from our Saturday outreach in San Antonio Huichimal. We went not knowing what we would find, or if we would even be able to speak to anyone at all.

What we did in fact find is that some of the families that had been open to meet with us, indeed now are no longer willing to do so, and the house was no longer available for us to meet. Those open doors had been closed.

HOWEVER, what God did today was to open another home to us. Also, one of the men who was supposedly afraid to be with us was in fact very open and willing to continue to be a part of the new work. We met, and had a wonderful service in the home of the second couple who opened their house to us today. Although the husband is not a Believer, his wife is. Despite the fact that there were only three people from the village present, it still was an inroad to the community, and the new church-plant continues to be viable.

God is still on the throne. He has neither abdicated it, nor has he been stripped of his sovereignty. He is still King of kings, and Lord of all lords. Despite the fallibility and sinfulness of man, God cannot be moved.

If we set our eyes on anyone besides God, even trusted Christian leaders, we will be let down. Still, it all hurts. I can only wonder what testimony this is for the world!

Please continue to pray for peace and unity among God’s people here in our little piece of the world.

May God bless you richly,

Steven and Theresa