This little church was built by NewSong Church from Grove, Oklahoma

I want to thank each of you who responded to my article yesterday concerning Jessica and James’ need for prayer. Thank you for your outpouring of love and support in this difficult time. I am so very grateful that we have a God who loves us. We are not alone in this equation, we stand with the maker of the universe beside us.

Yesterday I mentioned  Las Pitas, and promised that I would write an update on the outreach there as well. Please pray for the work in that little mission church.

Satan, our Enemy is not a gentleman, and he always strikes when we are not looking. Our young man who has been moving forward into leadership ministry there has been attacked by him. Although he remains firm in his faith, he, none-the-less, can no longer continue in a leadership role at present and is no longer part of the team.

This means that our little church now does not have a national to lead it other than Daniel.

Danny, as we all call him, is doing a wonderful job. However, he is only fifteen and lacks the maturity of years. Also, he has not been a Christian for too long.

We also have young Benjamin who is not a leader, but is an excellent helper, and leads the worship with his guitar. Along with Danny and Benjamin are Tanya and Karen. Both of these young women are sixteen and wonderful girls. Their role in the team is to teach the children, who in reality, form the main part of the church at present. These precious girls take the children and nothing but a head full of songs and Bible stories, into an unfurnished, dilapidated shack where they are building Christ’s Church.

I wish that I had taken the camera with me the week-before-last. When we got to Las Pitas torrential rains began to fall. Thunder rolled, lightning flashed, and water ran like rivers down the mud streets and paths of the village.

I didn’t expect anyone to arrive for church, but sure enough, we had over a dozen children show up like little drowned rats, drenched from head to foot, and covered with mud. The girls took their little flock out the back to their shack and sheets of rain fell so that one could barely even see where they went. I wish that I had pictures to show it, as words are inadequate.

This past week I did bring my camera to show you some typical village shots. It was not raining, and so you will only have to imagine what it is like in the little huts when the water runs in torrents across the mud floors.

This village is not unusual, or different in any way than hundreds and thousands across Mexico. Each one needs God to bring forgiveness, hope and salvation. These villages are steeped in witchcraft, poverty, death, hopelessness, and now in recent years, in the satanic cult of the worship of “holy death”. This satanic worship is a strong demon which has gripped Mexico over the past ten or so years, bringing with it evil, physical death, and spiritual deep darkness. It is linked very closely with the rise of violence and drug related murders in Mexico.

At the moment I am waiting for Benjamin to arrive so that we can head out to Las Pitas. Unfortunately he was to have been here more than two hours ago.

We hope to purchase this house for native worker to live in.

I guess, like as was mentioned in a recent blog that I posted, we will simply need to be “flexible” again. I am afraid that he is not going to show up.

The other kids on the leadership team are all involved in the Vacation Bible School program which is running here in the Cd. Valles church this week. I know that they could not come today, however, Benjamin was still supposed to come. So, once again, things change…

I have just been invited downstairs to be a part of the Vacation Bible School program, so I had better run.

We need and covet your prayers.

James and Jessica with the boys

There is some confusion in my spirit right now as I begin to write this entry. I have been meaning to sit down and prepare a blog for some time. Two weekends ago we had a wonderful men’s retreat where there was a powerful move of God. Just the weekend previous, there was a women’s retreat where the Holy Spirit also moved powerfully among the fifty some women present. I want to speak some about that. I also want to write a bit about the ministry that is progressing in Las Pitas, and request your prayer for that little work, but that may need to wait for another blog. However, what lies heavy on my heart is a pressing need for our son and daughter-in-law, James and Jessica Frey.

With James and Jessica’s indulgence I will direct you to their personal blog site which you will find at www.mainlandmessage.blogspot.com. This is a wonderfully poignant, sensitive, insightful, and oft times hilarious look into their lives as missionaries in Beijing, China. We love Jessica and James and their two young sons dearly, and are intensely proud of them.

Their last entries, and the heart wrenching news which we have recently received as parents and grandparents, is that Jessica has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. Today, Wednesday, the boys will be flying back to Winnipeg, Manitoba with Jessica’s sister and her husband. Tomorrow, Thursday, James and Jessica will follow. It is somewhat unclear exactly when surgery will occur, however, it will be as soon as possible, and both MCC, the organization with which they have been working in China, and the hospital system of Manitoba, have been very sensitive and cooperative.

Jessica with Ari and Jude

With this burden on our hearts it is difficult to be either witty or creative. What a blessing it is to be able to rest in our Lord and Savior. We are so blessed to know that James and Jessica have a secure hope and faith in the God of their salvation. Theresa and I are so blessed to be able to talk to them openly about our mutual faith and hope in our Jesus. We are praying for God’s complete healing and favor in this very serious matter. And, as James said when we spoke to them last, we are praying that God’s will be done, what ever that is. We/they are not hiding our heads in the sand and pretending that this does not exist, but we also know that our hope rests in the God of the universe, the Lord of lords, and the King of all kings.

We covet your prayers for Jessica and James, as well as for their two wonderful boys, Ariel and Jude.

I will keep you informed as news progresses. Also, please look up their blog site and you can get the news straight from the source.

As I have already mentioned, the Cd. Valles church has very recently concluded a three-day women’s retreat, and the following weekend, a men’s “apocento”. You may recall (scroll back to the May 27th blog entry), that Theresa and I took a rather long, bone-jarring trip down to Villahermosa, Tabasco with pastor Ezequiel and several of the other leaders from the local church in order for them to be able to participate in a three-day “encounter” there. As I mentioned at that time, there has been a tremendous out-pouring of the Holy Spirit, and an ongoing revival in that city, directly associated to the “encounter retreats” which have been happening there for the past several years. As I mentioned, at the time that we went down, I really did not know the importance of the visit, but I began to realize that somehow we were linking into God’s power and purposes for the work in Cd. Valles.

The Cd. Valles “Encounters” (or Apocentos) were lead by a team from Villahermosa and a pastoral couple who came in from Guatemala. Space was rented about 45 miles south of town in a little missionary hospital facility at a place called Xolol. The three days led us through teaching on inner healing, forgiveness, our place in God, sonship, and our place as princes – heads rather than tails – sons, and not broken and rejected slaves. Many were healed from rejection and brokenness from past hurts and sins. Many were set free from unforgiveness, and were finally brought to the realization that their sins and past failures have been thrown into bottomless ocean of God’s forgiveness and mercy – never, ever to be remembered against them again. The Holy Spirit powerfully moved, and his liberating presence was very real. Several of the men who had never received Christ as their personal Savior did so, and there was powerful evidence of God’s presence over the weekend.

There were two things which happened for me which I would like to mention specifically – for others, no doubt, it would have been something different which God used to touch them deeply. The first thing was an exercise which we were asked to do. At the end of the first evening, after a session of powerful teaching, we were given a “spiritual clinic” check list. On this sheet were listed three pages of sins. Our exercise was to check off any sins which we have committed in to past, or are actively entangled with at the present. Then in a very moving, symbolic time we nailed these lists to a wooden cross. We worshiped and sang as we watched a series of clips from “The Passion of the Christ” which were set to the song. This was, needless to say, a powerful ending to the first day.

The session the following morning was on forgiveness, and how God, in Jesus, has removed our sins from us – past, present, and future – through Jesus’ death on the cross. Through Jesus’ finished work on the cross they have been thrown into the deepest ocean of God’s forgetfulness. The price, as terrible and incomprehendible as it is, was paid in full by Jesus, and we can be set free if we accept this gift. It was a powerful teaching, and many were moved deeply and wept openly in gratitude, finally set free from guilt and condemnation. Then, at the end of the session, the same wooden cross was brought in, with each “spiritual clinic” sin-list at exactly the spot where we had nailed them the previous night.

We were each asked to come forward and while in worship, remove our sheets, but not open them. We each did so as we continued in prayer and worship. After everyone returned to their places we were told to open the folded sin-lists which we had filled in the previous night, and look at them. Inside, to my astonishment, was not a list of my sins – past and present – but rather the words “You Have Been Forgiven. You are Free”. On the back page was the text of Isaiah 53: 4-6.

“Yet it was our weakness he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God for his own sins! But he was wounded and crushed for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace. He was whipped, and we were healed! All of us have strayed away like sheep. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the guilt and sins of us all”.

How incredible is God’s mercy and unmerited favor in our lives. I especially like the wording of the New Living Translation in this text. Somehow there is new freshness in the statement “…it was our weakness he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down…he was wounded and crushed for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace. He was whipped, and we were healed”. The very wounds which crushed him, the very blows with which he was beaten, and from the selfsame tearing of his flesh which resulted from the whips which disfigured his body, my healing and my forgiveness was won. Oh, the incredible gift to me, the unfathomable price to him! God forgive me if I ever demean and devalue the price that you paid.

The second thing which I want to mention about the Encounter Weekend was something which is very personal in nature – a word picture and prayer which God kept bringing back to me over the weekend. It has been years since I have read the book “The Secret Garden”, but there was a part of the story which became my prayer as God was working in my life. In the story, if I remember correctly from the very distant past, is a little girl who is staying with an uncle or something, and a young, and sickly cousin. These are unimportant characters in the word picture which God gave to me. Rather, the key part is a young friend, a local boy, who knows of the secret garden which is hidden within the walls of the large mansion in which the children are trapped by the overbearing uncle. This boy, I have long since forgotten his name, was constantly looking at the tips of the vines and branches for what I believe he called “wick”. He would bend and manipulate the dead-looking branches and confidently declare that there would be ample green growth in the hidden garden because the branches were “wick” – in other words, there was life in them. This part of the story was brought to my mind along with a second picture. I don’t know if you are familiar with cork trees, but the bark and outer layer of these trees are what we know as cork. This impenetrable and thick outer covering is useless for the sap of life of the tree. The prayer in my heart was that God would cut deeply through the cork which has formed in my life, and down into the very “wick”. Lord, I want to know the freshness of your Spirit and your life in me.

The plans are to continue with the Apocento Weekend encounters here in Cd. Valles on a regular basis. The harvest fields are white, the laborers are few…Pray to the Lord of the harvest so that he will continue to send laborers.

My cool "new" desk - a gift from a friend in Texas. A lot of my time seems to be spent here of late. What you do not see is the fan under the desk in a desperate attempt to try to keep the mosquitoes from devouring my ankles and legs.

Let me begin this entry by giving kudos to my good friend Jason Funk. He has done it once again – taken the impossible, and made it simple. I sent a CD of photos to Jason with the request that, if possible, he would put them onto the VitW website. I had no idea what was involved, but he assured me that he would get them on. Sure enough, not only are they there, but there is a beautiful, great big, red button on each page of the site which will take you into the new photo section. Simply click onto any of the sections and you will get a full selection of pictures in that segment. Click onto a picture again and it will enlarge. Move your mouse onto the enlarged picture along either the right or left side and you will see an arrow appear which will let you advance forward or backward through the pictures in that selection. Coolest!  Thanks Jason.

So, what is a day in the life…. around here?  Good question, and I’m glad that you asked. Let me try to let you know what it is like. First of all, let me assure you that one of the first requirements seems to be flexibility and versatility. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING stays the same, or ends up being what you though it would be, or was told that it would be. That is simply the name of the game – period. It used to drive Theresa crazy I think, but she is getting more accustomed to it now – everything changes and is in flux. I have learned to live with the unexpected I think, but it was a learning curve for her. For one thing, I have learned to live with minimal information – if I need to know I will no doubt be told (perhaps only when we should be walking out the door to do it, but none-the-less, I will be told). Theresa on the other hand, likes to know ahead of time what, when, where, why and how. I just shrug and grunt “I don’t know”.

Here is how it will go: Theresa will be preparing a meal for us. Just as we are about ready to sit down someone will come by and say “be ready to leave in five minutes because you are invited to a quinceañera party”. Okay, so what do you do? You pack the stuff away and know that you are going somewhere, right? Wrong. Theresa will ask me, when, where, why, how, etc. I don’t know, I didn’t ask. If they wanted to tell me they would have, right!

So you move along in a direction that you are pretty certain that you heard God nudging you – take the language school for example. You open it with the sweet confidence that this is a “God thing” – this is the thing that will be a tremendous blessing to many. Within months it has its ruby lips above the water, blowing bubbles soft and fine. You say “Well, that was a disaster”. But just then God brings about a crazy “coincidence” and Rogelio walks into the picture. New vision, new direction, and a whole new ministry comes out of what looked like a dead stump. Once again you need to do an about face.

Or right now, only minutes ago, there was a knock on our window in front of Theresa’s desk. She was busy getting some tests put together for the language school and I was writing this blog entry. The knock was Pastor Ezequiel on his way down the hallway. When I stuck my head out the door, his question was “Is Theresa ready?” Ready? Ready for what? Oh no, today is Tuesday isn’t it. Theresa has sort of, by default become the child care person at one of the cell groups which Veronica ministers at. Ready? No. I haven’t even thought if it at all, or realized that I was expected to go. But she quickly puts a few things together and heads out the door.

But then there are the good surprises as well – I am working away at the desk (which seems to be where a good deal of my time is occupied of late), and head out to the kitchen to prepare a bite for lunch. There in our living room is a couple sitting, and obviously waiting for someone. You notice that he is reading one of your English Readers Digest magazines and looks suspiciously American, but you go by and give a greeting in Spanish. You ask who they are waiting for and if they are all taken care of. You offer them a cup of coffee, and then go on with your business. As the course of events go on, you find out that the gentleman is indeed American and from Georgia. His wife is Mexican and they live in a little fishing village towards Tampico. Wait just a minute – I know that village! Hey, are you the American missionary couple that I was told had moved there, and that I have been trying to look up over the past eight months or so? Sure enough – wow, what a small world! So you chat away, sometimes in Spanish and sometimes in English (both wives speak only one language – the opposite one). No importa, you chat away anyway. As it turns out, Socoro, the wife, is a professional seamstress and is teaching the women in her little village how to sew. However, they are both feeling that they are soon going to be moving out from the little fishing village. We chat some more and both Theresa and I feel that we should offer them the “Chedraui House” if they feel that God is moving them towards Cd. Valles to assist us in the work here.  We excitedly bring out one of the sewing machines that we brought down a year ago with the vision of training the women in vocational sewing classes, but which have been waiting for the right timing – could it be now? They are interested – she, perhaps more than he – he is still praying that God will open the door for them to go back to the little church in Falfurrias, Texas where he pastured years ago. But they are open none-the-less. We discuss the sewing classes for the Vocational school some more and decide to hop into the van and give them a quick tour of the “Chedraui House”. From there they head home after a hug, and the promise to pray to see what God is saying. So what is the end of the story…? I haven’t got a clue. This whole thing only happened about three hours ago. FLEXIBILITY that is the key!

You are getting ready to go out on a Friday evening for the movie ministry “Evangelism Explosion”. The equipment is all ready and set out to be taken downstairs and packed into the van. One of two things might happen. Perhaps, none of the team shows up and you slowly pack all of the equipment away again. Or maybe they do show and just as you are all ready to start packing the van with equipment the heavens rumble, and the skies open. Worse yet, you are pretty much set up outside in a colonia at a cell group (all of the movie ministry is outside), and the black clouds roll in and the rumbling begins. We have tried all kinds of things, but eventually the rain always wins. So you quickly pack away the electronics and roll up the screen, trying to get as much mud off as possible. You wipe the cables as free from grime as you can, and repack the van. You continue to minister through the rain and darkness, ducking under whatever cover there is to be found. When you get home you lug everything back upstairs and hang up the screen to dry. Tomorrow you will get the rest of the mud off of it.

Maybe you are at las Pitas on a Thursday. Isaias, a dynamic young man of eighteen who is heading up the work there could not come that week because he had to finish off his last high school exams. The young woman who normally takes the children’s class is not there either. However, you have two young men with you and you head down the road. You go door-to-door inviting the whole village, as is the customary procedure in this mission church, and then wait. In the end there is only one adult who comes out besides those who will be ministering. However, there are about sixteen children who eagerly await their class. What do you do? Theresa is more than willing, but she cannot speak Spanish. So we decide to do a combo – Theresa leads in some action songs in English. One of the young men does some in Spanish. We work together. Theresa tells a Bible story – I, for my part, interpret the story as best I can, and the young man (who speaks no English, but has his Bible open to the story) tells the parts that I stumble over or miss. In the end the children are happy, and we are able to pray over them and bless them.

I could go on, but you get the picture… So, no, we are not building a Bible School building at present. This is not to say that we will not be doing so in the future. But right now, it seems that God has other things in mind. In the mean time, we are busy, and becoming very flexible.

This picture, as you will notice, has nothing to do whatsoever with the text. Still, I think that it is a cool picture of a Huastecan lady.

Today Theresa and I met with the Apostle Paul. Well, okay, maybe not directly with the Apostle himself, but we spent a wonderful hour or more with Miguel Iglesias this afternoon. If you know my story, you will remember that in 2003 I spent a bit over three months in the penitentiary in Reynosa, Mexico on charges of transportation on illegal drugs. If you are unfamiliar with this part of my life then please go to the Voice in the Wilderness website at www.vitwministries.com and look for the tab named “Prison Experience”. When you click there you will find an article by Grace Fox entitled “Jailed in Mexico: 106 Days Behind Bars” which appeared in Power for Living in June 2009. Grace did a wonderful job of capturing my story.

While in the pen I was privileged to meet one of the most gentle and wisest men that I know – Miguel Iglesias. If I have spoken to you personally about my time there you will have heard me talk about Miguel, and will have heard me say that in many ways I feel as if I personally know, and have shared a cell with the one-time Saul of Tarsus, now Apostle Paul himself.

There were many miracles which I was witness to in my life over those three months – miracles which literally saved my life on more than one occasion. However, that is not the point of this blog. What I do want to highlight though, is how God brought me under the covering, and literally into the cell of brother Miguel.  Miguel was both brother, pastor, and cellmate over those difficult months.

Pastor Iglesias was not always caring for the spiritual needs of the flock, nor was he always someone with the gentleness and wisdom of the Holy Spirit delightfully evident in his life. I am not at liberty to disclose why he was in the penitentiary, nor do I wish to glorify evil and sin. Let’s just say that he was not sentenced to 35+ years in the federal penitentiary for no reason. He did not enter as a Sunday school teacher. But then, when I read my New Testament, I encounter the story of a man who also breathed out threats and murder towards the fledgling Church – the followers of Jesus Christ. He also, formerly, was not exactly known for his gentleness.

But at precisely the right time God stopped Saul dead in his tracks with a blinding light, and turned him around 180 degrees. Miguel was not knocked physically off of his horse and blinded, but he was put away in federal lockdown for almost twenty years. There, also at exactly the right time, God began to peal the scales off of Miguel’s eyes. There in federal prison, with some of the most hardened prisoners, God softened and broke brother Miguel’s heart.

God’s ways are beyond our wildest imagination, and his exploits make better story material than the best of fiction. In the hellhole of a drug-infested, murderous, sex-corrupted federal prison, God used a recently converted Miguel to bring the prison warden to the Lord. Through this relationship of discipleship on the part of the warden, God moved on his heart to assist in the petitioning for a piece of land within the penitentiary to be allotted for building a church. With the aid of money from the States a beautiful church was built inside the walls of the Penitentiary. By the time that I arrived in August of 2003 there was a building which seated over 100 men. Often there was standing room only for the daily services. After I left, the building was extended to be able to seat over 150 men. A year ago when Theresa and I returned to visit the Prison Church, we were also shown a beautiful Bible Institute complete with library. This biblical institution has graduated students, who upon being released from the penitentiary, have gone across Mexico with God’s Word.

God, through the influence of Pastor Iglesias, changed the complete atmosphere of CERESO II Federal Penitentiary of Reynosa, Mexico. Where there was once a co-ed system where women prisoners were being managed sexually by the male prison guards, where men and women could at one time be seen at any time of the day shooting drugs, and where darkness, murder and death were once common, now the Kingdom of God was beginning to reign. Men were beginning to be filled with a hunger for God. Men were meeting nightly within their cell blocks at lock-down, joining hands and praying for God to move within the walls which held them prisoners. These were men who, although held within prison walls on the outside, were gloriously set free within. It was still a dangerous place to be, and I can attest to the fact that it was no picnic even at the best of times – but it was a shadow only of what it once had been. God was at work, and the power of Hell itself could not hold back the Light. At the pivotal center of much of this move of God inside the walls was one man – my friend Pastor Iglesias.

Miguel was released in February of this year. Today Theresa and I had the privilege of meeting him for the first time as a free man. He sat and quietly related to us how good God has been in his life.

What a man! What a testimony!

Tomorrow Theresa and I will head home to Cd. Valles. We have been in Texas for the past five days getting ministry business taken care of. We hope to get an early start in the morning so that we will arrive back in Valles by mid afternoon. Tomorrow evening we will once again take a team to one of the cell churches where we will show an evangelistic film as a part of the “Evangelism Explosion ministry” of the local church.

Please remember us in your prayers. It is beginning to get dangerous in Mexico, and we covet your prayers.

P.S.: I have purposefully not put a picture of my friend Miguel in this blog. It probably would not be a very wise thing to do for the sake of his privacy. I am sure you will understand. Thank you.

Today is happy __^th birthday for Theresa (you fill in the blank – I sure am not going to!!).

So how exactly does one write a little birthday greeting for the one that he loves? Should it be funny? Witty? Silly? Sober and sensitive? Clever? I don’t know. So, let me bumble on and see what comes onto this sheet. That is the magic of the keyboard – one can begin without knowing what the end will be, and look back and be amazed (sometimes at his cleverness, and sometimes at his stupidity – only the doing will tell).

Theresa is beautiful and sensitive. She also likes things to be orderly and predictable. I will never understand why she agreed to marry me. I could never offer her predictability or normalcy in her life. Still, I think that there is a bit of the unpredictable (and dare I say “rebel”) in Theresa. True, it is buried pretty deeply under her desire for the status quo, none-the-less it sometimes peaks its head out to sniff the air. I love it in her!

Did I mention that my wife and friend is beautiful! Theresa is not only the most beautiful person that I know physically, but there is an inner beauty and nobleness with which she walks and conducts herself that captures ones eye, and makes him catch his breath.

Theresa has left much to follow me. I don’t tell her often enough, but I do love her for it, and deeply appreciate what she has been willing to do out of her love for me. She is a person who loves her children, grandchildren and friends deeply. It has not been easy for her to leave all of these behind and follow me to Mexico and beyond.  In exchange I have offered her little physical comfort or usual friendships in return. She has been willing to shoulder the heat, the lack of English speaking friends, separation from our family, and the unusual living conditions in the understanding that there is a bigger purpose for us being here.  Again Theresa, I too often have neglected to tell you that I recognize your willingness to do this for me, and I thank you for it – no, I love you for it!

Theresa is one of the best teachers that I know. It exudes from her pores, and fills the room whenever she has a captive audience. Probably the times when I have seen her the happiest is when she is preparing for a class, or teaching. Her students love her, and she loves teaching them. It is beautiful to watch as she looses herself into the art – and it is an art. Similarly music can perhaps be mathematically learned and preformed, but if it has no soul it is flat and dead, and comes across lifeless and uninspired. In the same way I believe that teaching is a genius with which one is born – or not.  I, for my part, have a degree in teaching, but I am not a teacher.  Creativity and the art of teaching flows like liquid joy out of Theresa’s inner core. It is beautiful!

I doubt that Theresa and I will get old. Age, after all, is an inner thing. One is only old when he or she thinks old thoughts, and takes on the persona of “old”.  I have known people who are younger than I, but who have taken on “old”, and are therefore old men and women. It is true, Theresa and I will age, but I doubt that we will get “old”. Theresa does not think that way, and I certainly do not. We will age gracefully together but remain young and vibrant, looking forward to what is ahead and not bogged down with what was behind. However, as we do get older I am so very happy to do so with my best friend by my side.

Theresa, I love you.

Happy Birthday!