Current Events and Updates of the Ministry

Javier and our one-man land clearing crew

Well good evening. It is not my intention to bore you to tears, nor to antagonize you with my ongoing posts of late. However, there are exciting things in the wind, and I just would like to share them quickly with you again this evening. After so many months of waiting it is refreshing to be able to post forward movement.

There are a couple of landmarks to tell you about. Yesterday we

Steven sharpeing chainsaw blade

went to the new landsite with the Board of Directors of Obreros Unidos para Cosechar, the non-profit which is covering the work of the Bible School / Training Center. The purpose was to have a breakfast and prayer time on the land. Oddly enough, some of the Board members had not been to the site before, and we felt that it was now extremely important that they do so.

Theresa and I organized a picnic breakfast (this was the only time that we could get everyone together), and we headed out to the property.

Sure beats using a machete

We were able to pray together and jointly speak of the vision that God is placing on our hearts for this new work. It is a good location, good land, and a big vision. By God’s grace many lives will be impacted, and many will be trained and grow in their personal walk with God, as well as in their personal ministry because of this place.

Then, very exciting news – I believe that God is blessing us with a tractor! I hesitate to actually post this since I tend to be one of those people who like to hear the chicks peep before counting them in the basket. I have seen too many times when the intentions are very good, but the follow through lacks a bit in the “doing” department.

However, this morning I spoke to a brother who I feel confident will perform as promised. The story begins back in

OUpC Board of Directors on the Bible School land site - a time to grow in our vision together

North Dakota with my friend Dan Slaugbaugh. Dan is a good brother, and God laid it on his heart (after some nudging from me), to do some searching for tractors to fill the need that we have here at the Bible School land. A couple of days ago he contacted me with some exciting information. After a phone call this morning Theresa and I have a visit with the ministry located in Kansas.

There will be more follow-up blogs after the visit, and after the chicks are peeping a little more boisterously in the basket. Nonetheless, I believe that very soon you will be reading a blog that states that the ministry has a spanking new Ford 8N tractor and front end loader. We will then need implements as well, but I am confident that God will provide these for us as well.

Prayer time with the Board of Directors on the landsite

The next thing that we desperately need, and which I would really appreciate your prayers for, is a well on the land. There is a ministry whose headquarters are located in Houston, Texas with a mission to work with water and wells around the world. The organization is called Living Water International (their website can be seen at http://www.water.cc). As it turns out – one of the crazy God-orchestrated “coincidences” – is that they have a representative who lives only about an hour east of us towards Tampico.

A well will cost us around $5,000 dollars. This will include the drilling and complete set-up of the well. Water is truly life, and if the Bible School is to be able to complete the vision that God has placed onto our hearts – that not only of a school, but of a self-financing farm – then we need water, and plenty of it. The rains in this region are non-dependable. Sugarcane can survive the heat and lack of rainfall, but other crops, especially vegetables, cannot.

We desperately need to have God place the burden onto the hearts of individuals to give toward a well drilling

Theresa's breakfast enjoyed by all

project. I am in the process of communicating with Living Water International to see about times, dates, availability, etc., but I do so without any money to proceed. However, I am sure that God will provide. He has already answered with exciting probabilities with a tractor for the work.

On Monday morning Theresa and I will be leaving for Canada. We do so with every confidence that everything is left in very capable hands. Javier is a very dedicated and gifted man, as are the rest of the men and women on the Board of Directors.

As I alluded to earlier in this blog, we have as full schedule on our way north. A stop in Houston, Texas will be occupied with meeting friends as well as seeing about getting the School site surveyed and prepared for building plans. In Kansas we will be finalizing details on the tractor donation. Nebraska will be a visit with Theresa’s mother and family. Then on to Manitoba – one whirlwind trip – many miles, and many exciting stops in between.

Today’s high, by the way, a very moderate 104.9° Fahrenheit.

Good night, and may you rise in the morning filled with the joy of our risen Lord. He is not dead, he is alive. He has arisen!

The joys of Cd. Valles living. Cooking hot, and not nearly reaching the top yet. This is today's max temp. and humidity as per my little weather unit.

So whose idea was it to do land clearing at 110 degree weather – who exactly was the idiot – oh yah, I guess that would be me.

Yesterday Javier and I hired a crew to clear the acre or so of scrub trees along the front of the property. This is all machete work – Mexican style. I decided to go out and help them with my chain saw (thanks to Dan and Marlys Slaubaugh of Wolford, North Dakota).

I finally made it to the land site at about 3:00 o’clock after a morning and early afternoon of running around trying to put out other fires (thankfully, not literal ones today – just figurative ones this time).

My field work crew were busily finishing off with disking the field, but my machete crew were no where in sight. I can’t really say that I blame them, but this is Cd. Valles, Mexico after all, and the climate here is just hot. Not much that one can do about it.

Apparently one of the guys did show up in the morning and got some clearing done. I guess the rest of the guys decided that mañana would work just fine.

My “lonche” (lunch) that I took out for them today went uneaten. Maybe they will show up tomorrow.

I, on the other hand, did get some chainsaw work done. I will try to get an early start tomorrow and beat the extreme heat of the mid day. The thermometer reading outside was 109.7° Fahrenheit this afternoon as a high, with 68 % humidity. But the inside living room temperature was a nice, cool 100.9°, so one might as well be outside working.

I am off to bed as I have trees to cut tomorrow.

Until next time…

Lighting the piles (it seems simple enough)

One of the songs which we sing here at Esfuerzo Magdiel (actually, one that I really don’t care for), is a song which has a bridge which repeats the phrase “quema” “quema” “quema” in reference to the Holy Spirit – he brings a burning in or lives.

Today I thought about that song as Javier and I worked for hours to beat out grass fires and struggled against 107° F temperatures and an increasingly developing wind.

It all began simple enough. We were going to burn off the old, dead piles of grass and bagasse, or sugarcane stocks from the field. We began at a reasonable hour, and expected to spend about two hours at the landsite. All went very well in the beginning. We were very much aware that there was a mature sugarcane field to the one side of us, and that everything was absolutely tinder dry. However, we had a gently breeze at

Well contained, and controlled burning

our back, and a very well defined roadway between us and the mature crop.

We were pretty much finished and were having our coffee break when I noticed that the fire had gotten away at the far end of the field – the sneaky hotspots had fooled us and the flames were heading into the trees.

Fortunately the conflagration which resulted from this was contained in an area of garbage trees along the hedgerow which needed to come out anyway. But it suddenly cranked everything up into high gear for us. Forget coffee break – let’s get these fires out.

Should be an easy day

Javier and I cut palm branches and beat flames until I simply could not beat any more. The harder we worked, the more the sneaky little things flamed again. The hotter the day became, the stronger the wind grew.

All ended well, and there was no negative results except that I ended up puncturing the sidewall of the van tire on a stump.

The field is beautifully clear of garbage now – much more so than

Oops!!

we ever intended.

Tomorrow the disking begins. Then more pulverizing, and then we pray for good rains this year.

Palm Branches and burning eyes

It has been a long day. I am off to bed.

The fieldwork beins on the land

There is truly so much to praise the Lord for in the developments of the Bible School Training Center land over the past few days. So much in fact, that I am busting at the seams to write another blog and bring you up to date on the events.

As I noted in my last blog, the waiting game is over and we own the land and sugarcane contract. Now the real work begins.

Johnny Appleseed, Mexican-style, visited yesterday. Theresa and I needed to go about forty five minutes south of Cd. Valles to a place called Xolol. There is a small Baptist clinic there at which we were privileged to be able to drop off some medicine – the remaining vestiges of the clinics of the past. Just a bit further south of Xolol there is a town called Huichihuayan. This area is full of roadside “viveros” – nurseries, where one can purchase all kinds of plants for very cheap prices. The prices in the Huichihuayan area are at least half of what they are here in Cd. Valles, even though we are only a little less than an hour north. Theresa had the idea that we should invite Javier Santos, his wife Cristina and the children to go with us so that we could fill up the van with seedlings in preparation for the rainy season.

Javier Santos is our farm administrator, a pastor, a man who loves the Lord, and a man who loves the soil. He is a good man, and his wife Cristina is a wonderful friend of ours. Javier and I had just been out at the land site the day before, and he had been talking about the fruit trees which he envisioned that we should now be planting as soon as the rains began.

Javier and the family willingly accepted our offer and we all packed up a “lonche” – a picnic, and piled into the van and headed south. We dropped of the medicine donation at the clinic and went to purchase seedlings. It was like

Johnny Appleseed seedlings waiting for the rains to begin

Christmas as we proceeded to fill the back of the van:

– 7        litchi seedlings

– 7        mango seedlings

– 4        pistachio seedlings

– 4        lemon seedlings

– 6        orange seedlings

– 5        mandarin seedlings

– 3        ruby red grapefruit seedlings

How exciting, and what fun!  For the moment they are all well watered and cared for at our place. As soon as the rains begin they will be planted at the land site in preparation for much abundance in the years ahead.

The next thing – equally exciting – is that as of this morning the land began to be worked. Praise the Lord. At long last it is happening!

Javier surveying as the cutivation begins

Javier made the final arrangements for the hiring of the tractor and worker last week. Yesterday Javier and I grabbed our machetes, hats and “guajes” (water jugs), and headed out to the land to cut down shrubs and trees which had grown up in the field and dragged them into the hedgerow in preparation for the tractor to arrive. Today the first tractor work began. There will still be several days of fieldwork which need to take place during this first stage, but it is going forward well. There is still disking, harrowing, and other things which need to happen before the rains begin. We are now very much fighting for time against the rains. We need to get the preparations taken care of so that the soil will be ready for the rain when it does come. But God is in control of this. We are content that he will be with us.

Tomorrow morning Javier and I will go out to the site and burn off the old thatch that is still left. We need to hire some men to cut down the remaining acre or so of old, useless, thorny trees on the field edge so that that area can be made useful as well. There is lots of work to be done now that we can finally do it.

All of the hacking, cutting, burning, and other work must also be done in the heat of the April and May sun. Today the high reached a toasty 103.8° Fahrenheit, and it is only going to get hotter before it cools down at all. One must be

Javier - a good man!

careful to work early in the morning and later in the evening, thus avoiding the extreme heat of the midday. Also, of course, water is a necessity at the jobsite.

We are blessed, we are excited, and we are now beginning to see the vision starting to become fleshed out into potential reality.

Thank you for sticking with us, and for continuing to believe in us during the long wait.

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…