Current Events and Updates of the Ministry

As I sit in my little office in our basement in Manitoba feeling internal nervous tension due to the multiple stressors that seem to be crushing in around Theresa and me at present I am struck by the juxtaposition of the dreamy magic that we try to create for “Christmas”, and the truth of what it really was 2000 years ago when our Savior, the Lord God Almighty, was born and took on “flesh”.

We desire picturesque cards with snow-ensconced cottages and white-steepled churches. We fill the house with the crooning voice of Bing Crosby singing “White Christmas” in the background as the lovely scents of freshly baked cookies, mandarin oranges, and hot chocolate waft throughout. The tree stands stately and beautifully bedecked in the place of honor in the living room, while carefully wrapped presents overflow the hand-sewn tree skirt under the brightly-lit symbol of “Christmas”.

But is this truly what Christmas is all about?

Today I step back and ponder the account of Jesus’ birth given to us in the 2^nd chapter of Luke:

“In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. And everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth to Bethlehem because he belonged to the line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.

 On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived”.

I notice something in these verses: Jesus’ birth took place within the pressures and burdens of daily life, or perhaps to others, the mundane. For Israel as a nation, crushed down and enslaved by tyrannical Roman rule it was an horrific time as a people. The census and taxes imposed upon them by Rome were brutal and unjust. The taxes would mean financial ruin and perhaps even slavery for many who could not fulfill the ruthless and cruel edicts of Rome.

For Joseph and Mary personally this was also a time of great pressure and fear. They were hated and outcasts within their own town of Nazareth because Mary was pregnant while unmarried. As a teenage girl she was now not only anathema, but at full-term pregnancy she needed to accompany Joseph to whom she was pledged to be married, on a 90 mile, 5 – 7 day journey on the back of a donkey to Bethlehem, Joseph’s ancestral town in which, undoubtedly, neither of them had ever set foot. This was a brutal and dangerous time in Israel. The journey was long, arduous, physically dangerous, uncomfortable, filled with thieves and robbers, without any amenities or comforts along the way, and no place for a nine-month pregnant expectant mother. Then, to complicate matters, there was no guarantee of any place to stay when they actually did arrive in the Nazareth, a small village approximately 6 miles outside of Jerusalem even though it was becoming increasingly obvious that the time of giving birth was imminent for the expectant teenager.

Something else about the narrative in Luke pops out at me immediately: three times it is specifically mentioned that the newly-born infant was placed in a manger. Now, I ain’t no farmer, but I have been around enough places where animals have been sheltered to know that they ain’t always pretty or sanitary places to hang out in. Let’s just say that Solomon was correct when he noted in Proverbs 14:4 that “Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox”… enough said!

I can’t even imagine the stress placed upon Mary as well as Joseph who must not only deliver Jesus in a filthy stable, but then wrap him in torn strips of cloth and lay him in the only cradle available – a filthy, chewed-up, animal feeding trough. Let us remember that Mary was a real woman, not a Christmas card myth. Childbirth for her was as is faced by every other woman – filled with pain, hours of excruciating labor, and the need for a sanitary environment in order to avoid infection of herself or the baby.

Then comes the account of the shepherds: These were men and boys whose profession kept them on the fringes of society. No doubt they were raggedly dressed, dirty from the dust of the hills, and not very socially acceptable in many ways, more comfortable among the flocks of sheep that they cared for than among the bustling crowds in Jerusalem only 6 miles away among the twinkling lights upon the hill to the north. It was to these poor shepherds that the message of the angels first came “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. A Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord”.

Then, lastly, I want to note something else because it shouts loudly of the humbling humanity of the incarnation of our Lord: “On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child”…  Jesus the Christ, God incarnate, King of all kings, Lord of all lords, the Sovereign Word became flesh, and not only so, but he was conceived in the womb of a virgin, born as a human baby boy and upon him was done what was done to every baby Jewish boy in Israel – upon the eighth day he was circumcised.

How can words ever hope to capture the incredible truth of the Incarnation!

No wonder Paul had to break out in doxology in Romans 11:33 where he shouts “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out”!

So yes, the birth of our Savior and Lord, Jesus the Christ, Yeshua Hamashiach, the occasion for which we celebrate Christmas, did take place within the pressures and burdens of daily life 2000 years ago, and we might feel pressed down today. But this diminishes nothing of its majesty, nor does it detract from the one event which has changed all of human history forever: God became man in the incarnation and dwelt among us.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth”. John 1: 1-14

Because of the mystery of Jesus’ incarnation the Gospel is true; which simply stated is:

The reality is that from the moment of our birth we all have a deadly, terminal condition – life. Unless Jesus returns first, we will all die ONCE in physical death.

However, we do not have to face the SECOND death – spiritual separation from God in hell because Jesus, the Son of God, who, while being totally God, also became a man. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, (Jesus) that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life”.  (John 3:16)

Jesus came to earth because of the fact that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. If we agree with what God says in the Bible: that we are sinners, and that there is only one solution to that sin, and that is to place our hope and trust in Jesus Christ who left the glories of Heaven to come to earth where he clothed himself with humanity for the very purpose of doing what no one else could do – to pay the price for our sins by dying on the cross at Calvary, and then offering forgiveness to anyone who admits that they are a sinner, and repents of that sin and places their trust in Jesus as their Savior – then they will be saved.

That is the essence of the Gospel.

Praise be to God!

I want to now take this opportunity to bring you three accounts that Javier has recently sent to me. They were not originally sent to me in any way thinking about Christmas. However, as I was translating them I began to realize that they are very relevant to the season. I will comment no further, and rather will let you draw your own conclusions:

_____________________________________________________________

There are times in our lives when we become burdened under the pressures of life and ministry and when it is good to look back at “stones of remembrance” as in the account of the Children of Israel in Joshua 4 where they crossed the Jordan River into Canaan at Gilgal, on the eastern border of Jericho. Joshua used these stones as a memorial to remind God’s people of His goodness and faithfulness to them.

I proclaim with certainly that God is, and has been with me as well, and I am grateful that he has also allowed me the privilege of being able to have my own memorial stones along my walk in the ministry.

I would like to share a few of these stones of remembrance with you now.

I go back in my memories to the year 2002 when my wife and I and a friend went to visit a family in a place called Arroyo Seco in the arid state of Querétaro. While our companion Jorge was driving we met a very old man of over one hundred years old along the road. To be more exact, he told us that he was 103 years old.

When we met him he was carrying a very large bundle of firewood on his back and my wife said “Why don’t we help that old man with his load”? We stopped to help, and the old man dropped his bundle of firewood beside the road. Although we were both much younger men almost twenty years ago, between the two of us brother Jorge and I we could not lift the bundle of wood up into back of the pickup truck without dividing the load. We are talking about an old man, who while being extremely old, was almost carrying a load which would burden a full-grown donkey.

When we finally got his load of firewood into the pickup truck we asked the old man where he lived, and he directed us to a very luxurious residence and said that he lived there. This surprised us greatly, almost as much as everything else about the whole encounter because it did not seem to agree with anything that we had seen about him. We helped him take his firewood to his house but we did not see any family at all.

There still remain many questions surrounding this strange encounter: how is it possible for someone of his greatly advanced age to carry so much firewood on his back? – we are talking about 200 to 250 kilograms which he was carrying easily on his back. Also, how was it that his house was not a humble hovel as one would have expected from his personal appearance, but as we saw, it was an elegant dwelling? It simply is not possible for someone to have so much strength at his age.

Another experience that happened to us was when we went on our second missionary trip to the Pame village of Tanlu in the Sierra Madre Mountains to the west of Cd. Valles. On the way back we met a man along the way who was in a cornfield. I got out of the pickup truck and asked him if he would sell me some ears of his corn. He said “Of course. Take what you want”.

Ana, Armando and Alicia’s young daughter also got out of the truck and came into the corn row to pick the ears of corn, and the man picked as well. Together we picked about 12 ears of corn which he gave to us, while all the time we were talking with him. He told me that his name was Ciro Apolinar and that he lived in a nearby community called El Coco. “I live there” he told me, “and if you can, please come and visit me”. He was a very poor, simple man in appearance.

A month after we had encountered him we went to look for Ciro in that community. We immediately found Ciro’s family but we did not find him. We continued looking for him for three months every time we returned to the region on a missionary trip. What we learned about him over that time was that he was a drunk who did not come home for long periods of time, and that he had left his family without food and without any means of maintenance. Despite this we continually held him up in prayer asking that God would change his path, believing that God would break through the darkness in his life.

Three months after we began praying for Ciro’s condition I finally found Ciro. But I was in for a very big surprise because the Ciro from whom I had received the ears of corn and who had invited me to his community was not Ciro. The person who had invited me to that community and who told me “I live in El Coco” was another man, unknown to anyone from the village. However, it was through this encounter and the resultant search for Ciro and the ongoing contacts with his family that the doors to the village of El Coco were opened to us and to the gospel, making it possible for a mission church to be planted there.

Another one of these unusual experiences occurred just last week:  I left Cd. Valles and travelled into the mountainous region to the west of the city on a mission outreach into the various Pame villages in which we minister. On Sunday I ministered in Santa Catarina. The next day, Monday, I left from there in order to minister at the mission church at El Coco. I finished the service in El Coco at 12:30.

I had taken the pickup truck and it was the first time that I had gone alone on one of these missionary outreaches because I always try to take a ministry team with me. However this time it had not worked out to do so. When I was driving on the road leaving El Coco I encountered an old woman who was standing beside the roadway and was asking for a ride. She was carrying a very large bundle of brooms made from branches. What seemed strange to me was not meeting an old woman who was carrying branch brooms, no doubt on her way to some market to sell her wares, but rather that the bundle of brooms was huge and she hefted it into the back of the truck without any problem. She then got into the passenger seat of the truck without any difficulty. Another unusual thing is that she never raised her face.

I started a conversation with her and asked her where she was going. She told me that she was on her way to El Salto, a village along the way where she was going to sell her brooms. I asked her how much she gets for the brooms and she told me that she sells them for $45 pesos. I told her that I would like to buy one, and we continued talking.

I asked her where she was coming from and she told me that she was coming from the town of Tanlu but that she had no actual home, and that she was from here and there, and that she had just been to a place called Los Puercos. I asked her what her name was and she told me that it was Joaquina Fernandez de la Cruz.

Upon reaching El Salto she took down her brooms and spread them on the ground and told me to choose the broom that I wanted. I take one of them and put it into the back of the truck. I then got into the driver’s seat of the truck to start the motor and looked into the rear view mirror in order to see where the old lady was.

To my great surprise she was no longer there. I opened the door to see where she was, but she was nowhere to be seen. At the time I did not reflect deeply or question what had happened, rather I simply felt a sense of peace and security.

When I arrived at Agua Nueva for the service there some of the sisters from Milpas Viejas were sharing and were talking about the visit of the angels to Sodom and were commenting on how no one recognized them as angels or realized who they were. It was then that I understood that the old woman who had accompanied me was an angelic being.

I began analyzing the meaning of her name that she had told me twice, emphasizing each time, saying: “my name is Joaquina Fernandez De la Cruz”.

Joaquina – “Jehovah will establish”,

Fernandez – “protector”,

 De la Cruz – “from the cross” – My assurance of salvation.

Thank you God for your appearance. Courage. And my gift of salvation.

That is the meaning of the old woman’s name. Thank you Lord!

Javier Santos Hernandez

_______________________________________________________________

I trust that this has been a blessing to you. May the joy of Jesus fill your heart and life as you reflect anew upon Jehovah our King and our protector, and upon the gift of eternal salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord whose birth we celebrate.

Merry Christmas.

Your fellow laborers in Jesus Christ,

Steven and Theresa

“This is what the LORD says — Israel’s King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty:

‘I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God. Who then is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and lay out before me what has happened since I established my ancient people, and what is yet to come — yes, let them foretell what will come.

Do not tremble, do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago?

You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me?

No, there is no other Rock; I know not one.’”   (Isaiah 44:6-8)

In these troubling and turbulent times how wonderful it is to know that we have a Sovereign Redeemer, the Holy one of Israel, the LORD of Hosts. How wonderful to be able to rest in him knowing that he is in sovereign control of everything and that he is not wringing his hands wondering what is going on around him.

I love the second Psalm where David under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit writes in this messianic Psalm:

“Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the LORD and against his anointed, saying,“Let us break their chains and throw off their shackles.”

The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. He rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath, saying,“I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain.”

I will proclaim the LORD’s decree:

He said to me, “You are my son; today I have become your father. Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. You will break them with a rod of iron; you will dash them to pieces like pottery.”  (Psalms 2:1-9)

We serve a King – The KING; The LORD of Lords, The SOVEREIGN ONE, The ANCIENT OF DAYS!

Despite the meltdown and shifting sands around us we serve the unchanging one — Israel’s King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty. May God be praised!

I don’t have too much new news to bring you concerning the ministry in Mexico; however I do want to bring several prayer requests to you so that you can be praying more intelligently for the work there. To better let you hear Javier’s heart I will also include a letter which I recently received from him.

In talking to him (as you can also sense from his letter), it is evident that he has been discouraged of late. Covid continues to take its toll on Mexico and to grind down the spirits of everyone. Whereas there was relative freedom for renewed ministry only several weeks ago, once again the country is in lock down and government-imposed restrictions. This has also meant that churches have once again been forced to go into a severely limited mode, and that all ministry has again been hampered at all levels.

The missionary outreaches up into the mountainous Pame region to the west has recently also been restricted because of Covid. Whereas previously there was little evidence of any symptoms of the virus in the mountain villages and the people remained open to visitors from outside of the region, now with increased symptoms locally these villagers are no longer receptive to Javier and his ministry team out of fear of the virus. Javier told me that they are still able to minister and meet with the Christian brothers and sisters there; however, doors are no longer open to them among the general population within the communities. This is a heavy burden for Javier.

Also, please pray for clarity of direction for the new board and directorate of Casa del Obrero (the Training Center Farm) as well as of OUpC, the nonprofit which covers all of the various aspects of the ministry including the Bible Schools. As you probably remember, Javier has stepped down from being the president of the nonprofit although he continues to be the administrator of the Farm Center. However, with the change in directorship also has come a change in direction of vision, intensified now by Covid. Please remember this work in prayer.

However, I think that one of the biggest things which is burdening Javier and Cristina at present is an increasingly noticeable decline in Javier’s health and a feeling of depression because of his inability to minister as fully as he would like to due to health issues and the restrictions enforced upon him due to Covid. Please hold both Javier and Cristina up in prayer. Both of them face potentially serious health issues. Covid has placed considerable and unrelenting pressures on them in regards to ministry, and I have little doubt that at least some of their symptoms are stress related, or at a minimum are being made worse by it. However, Javier confided to me recently that he has not been doing very well physically, and that Cristina also is struggling with symptoms of diabetes and heart issues.

The enemy would love nothing better than to destroy their physical health so that they would no longer be able to serve the Lord fully. They are pouring their lives out for Him daily. Please lift them up and be their prayer support.

With these prayer needs in mind I will proceed into Javier’s letter:

__________________________________________

May the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ bless you my beloved brothers and sisters. It is a great pleasure for me to write to you again and to be able to greet you even in the midst of these difficult times that we are experiencing due to the Covid pandemic and the trying circumstances that we are experiencing due to it. 

We are now finding ourselves again in a serious health crisis in our city due to the Covid pandemic. Hospitals are overfilled, and healthcare has collapsed. There are many deaths again due to Covid, even among those who have been vaccinated. Now even young people and children are dying from the virus.

We are also about to be forced to close our churches again as we are at a level orange alert, with the probability that we will be moving into level red restrictions at any time.

Although the government is doing its best to vaccinate young people so that they will be able to return to school classes in person, only God has all things in his hands, and only He is sovereign and in control.

May God save us in this pilgrimage of ours on this earth.

Despite everything that is taking place we continue to shepherd the local congregation and to minister to the needs of our brothers and sisters here in the Cd. Valles region.

We also continue to serve and pastor our brothers and sisters in the mountains surrounding Santa Catarina to the west. it is a continual blessing to be able to visit and minister to our Christian Pame brothers and sisters in the mountain villages of Agua Nueva, Milpas Viejas, Tanlacut, El Coco, and Santa Catarina, as well as the surrounding areas. This is truly a privilege that God has given to us; to be able to bring the Word of God to these dear brothers and sisters. To Jesus Christ be the glory.

Although I have been in rather poor health of late we have been working and preparing the land to replant sugarcane. This is especially important now since we have not been able to harvest anything significant for the past two years due to the drought. We have finally had some rainfall and must plant while the soil is damp enough to allow germination. We do not know what this year’s weather will be and if the drought will go on longer or not, but we will continue to believe that our God will sustain us, and that we will receive a harvest this year which will make the expenses of planting that we are now incurring worthwhile.

I always thank God for you in my prayers my dear brothers and sisters, and I ask God that he will keep you in his blessing. May God bless you today and always. I thank God for your lives.

Your brother and fellow servant in Jesus Christ,

Javier

______________________________________________

Thank you for your ongoing care and love for the ministry in Mexico. It has not been easy for those who are faithfully carrying the burden of the labor. But God is, and has been faithful – always!

Remember, “There is no other Rock; I know not one.”

Your brother and sister in Christ,

Steven and Theresa

I greet you my dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, members together in the same Body in our Lord, and awaiting the same soon return of our King. As the world around us accelerates into a meltdown how wonderful it is to have the glorious hope of our salvation and the imminent return of our Lord!

It is also a constant joy for me to be able to be a part, albeit vicariously of the missionary work that is so faithfully going forward in Mexico through our brothers and sisters. My hope is that through these blog posts I can keep you more up to date on the ministry, and in this way also keep you rejoicing in what God is doing there, and through them.

I recently came across a paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13 that I believe makes this passage “pop”. I apologize because I don’t know exactly who to attribute it to because I got it from a John MacArthur message where he didn’t give the name of the author of the paraphrase except that it came from a group, I’m guessing of missionaries, in South Africa. However, it reminds me of the work of Javier and Cristina and all of the others who are so faithfully laboring for the Lord, pouring out their lives and energy for him:

“If I have the language perfectly and speak like a native and have not His love for them, I’m nothing.  If I have diplomas and degrees and know all the up-to-date methods and have not His touch of understanding love, I’m nothing.  If I am able to argue successfully against the religions of the people and make fools of them and have not His wooing note, I am nothing.  If I have all faith and great ideals and magnificent plans and not His love that sweats and bleeds and weeps and prays and pleads, I’m nothing.  If I give my clothes and money to them and have not His love for them, I’m nothing.  If I surrender all prospects, leave home and friends, make the sacrifices of a missionary career and turn sour and selfish amid the daily annoyances and slights of a missionary life and have not the love that yields its rights, its leisures, its pet plans, I am nothing.  Virtue has ceased to go out of me.  If I can heal all manner of sickness and disease but wound hearts and hurt feelings for want of His love that is kind, I am nothing.  If I can write articles or publish books that win applause but fail to transcribe the Word of the cross into the language of His love, I am nothing.” 

We have an immense privilege to be a part of this ministry through our prayers and financial support. The missionary team is pushing ever deeper into the mountains reaching the Pame people group. Churches are being planted and leaders established in these fledgling churches. 

Javier confided in me a couple of weeks ago that they often face sever spiritual opposition on these biweekly missionary outreaches into the Pame communities, and that they desperately need our prayers. The mountains where they minister are the center of deep demonic activity where witchcraft and brujería are deeply engrained into the tribal culture and ancient religion of the Pame people. Here brujos (sorcerers or warlocks) are very real and practice their dark magic through the power of the demonic. Javier told me that the team sometimes faces extreme and abnormal tiredness while there, and that at these times they can barely function due to strange weariness and exhaustion. At other times they have faced sudden and unusual sickness upon arrival into the region.

There is also something that he told me of again which I have heard often during my years in Mexico; something which seems like it must come from a horror novel, but which I have heard too often from very reputable Christians to disbelieve: the demonic power of these brujos to change form – the power to become “shapeshifters”. This is deep and very black demonic magic that they tap into in order to take on the shape of a bird or animal and to move around at will in order to control and wield power over others – even killing those who are not covered with protection of Jesus Christ.

I know that this whole concept is offensive to the sensibilities of our Western “scientific” minds, but this is the reality of the spiritual battle that these brothers and sisters are engaged in daily. This is not child’s play or fantasy but real warfare in the spiritual realm: “For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12

So, please remember to pray for them that they will be covered by the authority and protection of the precious, powerful blood of Jesus Christ as they enter into these enemy regions. Pray that the Kingdom will continue to advance against the darkness. And pray that many will be added to the Body of Christ in these last days before the return of our Lord and King, Jesus Christ.

Yes, we must continue to give financially so that vehicles can have gasoline and that they will be mechanically sound in order that this mission work can continue. Yes, finances are needed to cover the expenses of food for the missionary teams, and so that buildings and facilities can be developed for these fledgling churches to meet in. But the real issue is spiritual. May we never forget that our role is primarily to be that of spiritual covering and prayer for these men and women in the trenches of spiritual warfare.

Below is a letter from Javier that I received today. They are currently up in the mountains ministering. Please hold them up in your prayers.

May this report bless you.

______________________________________________

My dear brothers and sisters,

I bring you greetings from Cd. Valles. May God bless each of you richly.

We continue to be very busy in the work of the ministry, for which I thank God. On Saturdays I spend almost the entire day with the students at the two Bible Institutes where I teach. Presently we have three students in the Casa del Obrero Training Center at the farm, and six students in the Juan Ramírez Bible Institute where I also teach classes.

Besides this there are the local missions of which I am responsible spiritually, the bi-weekly mission outreaches to the fledgling Pame churches in the mountains to the west of us, the children’s ministry in Buenos Aires, not to mention the local church where I pastor and care spiritually for the flock. I thank God for the ability that he has given us to serve him.

Today I write to you not with elaborate words, but rather with the thoughts and feelings of my heart. God has spoken to me recently from Micah 6.8: “Oh man, he has declared to you what is good and what Jehovah asks of you, only to do justice, and to love mercy and to humble yourself before your God”.

We are already halfway through the year. The only thing that does not forgive us is time. Our body is wearing thin. Every day our encounter with God is getting closer and our hope then will come true: “I do not want you to be ignorant brothers as those who have no hope.” We are those who have hope; the hope of his great coming and of the resurrection of the dead! Let us then walk in that holy way of living as worthy children ready to meet our father when the time comes of the sounding of the trumpet, full of joy because our reward is great in the Lord.

As I look around I find that everyone has needs. Some need understanding from their parents. I see grown men who act like children, couples who need direction for their lives, orphans, childless couples who long for children, widows who starve for companionship and sick people who need health. I see some who live in spiritual chaos, others who live in opulence but with empty hearts. The sad reality is that some poor live richly while others who are rich in worldly goods live poorly and in poverty of spirit.

Life is a fleeting dream. It seems like only yesterday that my children were born. Now I see that they are already young men with their own dreams. Twenty years have passed since God gave me my wife as my companion in life. Now there are five of us; three young men with dreams. Jasub, the eldest, dreams of being an engineer to take care of the environment. Our middle son dreams of being a lawyer or an industrial engineer, while our youngest is just beginning to dream.

Our oldest son has already finished his second semester of engineering, the middle one is going to university to fulfill his dream of being a lawyer, while the youngest is in high school. In this month of June their semesters will end and a new semester of school will begin, running from July through December. For this reason I place my hope in God that this time of Covid pandemic will end and that God will provide for the expenses of the boys for their university careers.  My God will supply according to his riches in glory!

Regarding the mission work among the Pame: I have now established local leaders in each of the communities where new mission churches have been planted – in Milpas Viejas, Sister Jerónima; in Tanlacut, Sister Mariana; in Santa Catarina, brother Tomas; and in El Coco, Sister Juanita. God will bless their lives according to their riches in glory.

Even though my body feels a little tired I know that God will strengthen me to continue forward. The harvest is great and the laborers few; pray to the Lord of the harvest to send laborers.

This week we are going out to the mountains again to baptize some Pame sisters who wish to be baptized in water. We will be having a family day for the celebration of the baptisms. Joy fills our hearts for this.

May God be with you my beloved brothers and sisters.

Your fellow laborer in Jesus Christ,

Javier Santos

______________________________________________

I trust that this will encourage you to continue to hold our dear brothers and sisters up in prayer. They are truly on the forefront of spiritual warfare – as we all are in reality. Only, sometimes we lose sight of the real nature of the battle because it is more masked here and less in-your-face than it is in the tribal mountains where Javier and Cristina and the team serve.

You can see from Javier’s very personal touches in his letter that he is growing weary in body, but that he remains strong in his spirit. He is no longer a young man, and age is creeping up on him as it is upon us all. As he said: “The only thing that does not forgive us is time. Our body is wearing thin. Every day our encounter with God is getting closer and our hope then will come true.” He is facing some physical issues that have been troublesome to him over the past years. Also Cristina has some rather severe physical issues that she is battling with including worsening diabetes and heart issues that would keep many others crippled and focused upon themselves. Cristina’s mother died from severe diabetes at a relatively young age after years of very severe health issues related to it.

Please pray for these dear servants of the Lord as they continue to pour out their lives “like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service” coming from the faith of these whom they so faithfully serve! (Philippians 2:17).

Blessings to each of you,

Steven and Theresa

I am so blessed to be able to present another update of the work in Mexico. In preparing it (translating correspondence from Javier from over the past weeks and looking at the photos again) I have been moved to tears of emotion. I was reminded anew that although one can get too familiar with something and thereby have it lose its power and significance, the ministry thrust into the mountains to reach the Pame tribes is nothing short of cutting-edge missionary work. These reports from Javier are as missional as any that you will read in any missionary book, and indeed come close to the level of the encounters in the Book of Acts.

So, like me, remind yourself that you dare not yawn and become blasé because you have read Frey’s blogs before, or because you know Javier too well.

Secondly, and on a different note, I am attaching a sermon below that I very much encourage you to listen to. It is a message called God’s Call to Young Men given by Paul Washer which he presented on April 21^st.

https://www.gracechurch.org/sermons/17525

Although it is addressed specifically to young men it is a message that we all must hear and by which we must be moved to action. 

Please listen to it and let his challenge bring you closer to the Lord in your commitment to him.

The format of this blog is similar to the last ones that I have done in which I used Javier’s own correspondence and reports of the work in Mexico to present the advancement of the ministry through his own words and his own eyes.

Be blessed.

__________________________________________________

April 16, 2021

God bless you my brother, and a very good afternoon to you.

Over the past several days I have been working on our personal parcel of land. This small acreage was my wife’s inheritance when her mother passed away, and on a good year it allows us to grow several acres of sugarcane. This is where I have been working over the past several days collecting whatever sugarcane could be harvested in order for it to be delivered to the Plan de Ayala sugar mill here in Cd. Valles.

However, due to the extended drought over the past two years; again this year as last, there is almost no sugarcane at all to be harvested.

Today we delivered one truckload to the mill. Tomorrow, by God’s grace we will be finishing the harvest completely. I hope that we will be able to have at least one more complete load tomorrow, but because of the poor growth and the resulting small size of the actual sugarcane stock itself due to the extreme drought I’m not sure that we will actually be able to do so.

It has almost not been worth the labor of harvesting the sugarcane these past two years. However, it is extremely important that the mature sugarcane be cut off and that the land is cleared, or else there can be no possibility of any new growth if and when the rains ever return.

The land will now also need to be re-sown with new seed cane; however this is a futile effort and expense if we do not soon receive rain, and if this extended drought is not soon broken. Almost all of our rivers in the region have dried up, and there is no break in sight.

But we continue to place our hope and trust in God knowing that he is sovereignly in control of everything, and that he will continue to bless those who place their confidence in him.

Javier

April 19, 2021

May the almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ bless you today. It is always an honor to greet you and to wish you the best even in this time of pandemic.

But I thank God that little by little all this is also passing and that we are slowly beginning to return to a sense of normalcy in work, in church, in daily living where there continues to be a lot of unending demands on our time, and in the school life of our children.

In truth, for us work is never finished because when there is none we create it. But this has been very healthy, and it has been useful to remain busy. God has kept us at all times. Even through this period of the valley of the shadow of death God has been with us.

We have been busily working on the house as well. I put the door onto my office, one of the bedrooms, and onto the bathroom. We finished placing ceramic tile on the floors of the living room, the kitchen, the office, and two of the bedrooms. We also painted the living room and kitchen and one of the bedrooms. I still need to paint the office and our bedroom as well as complete the tiling of the floors of the two bathrooms and the boy’s bedroom. But we are taking it little by little, and bit by bit the house is finally getting finished.

I have now run out of funds for further work on the house, but what was accomplished so far was made possible from the last amount that was received from Voice in the Wilderness Ministries through the Newsong Church account. Thank you my brother for everything, and I thank God for using your hands and your life.

Every day it is getting more difficult here in Mexico due to scarcity, but this is how we have now learned to live. The cry of my heart is only that the work of God’s’ Kingdom will continue, and that it will advance even through these difficult times.

Javier

April 20, 2021

Tomorrow the missionary team and I will be going into the mountains again and I will not have any signal. I will communicate again when I am back in a place where there is phone service.

Javier

April 23, 2021

Good evening my brother. May the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

We have just arrived at the missionary base in Agua Nueva to begin our missionary work into the mountains of Santa Catarina. The Lord willing we will be ministering to the new believers in the communities of Agua Nueva, Milpas Viejas, Tanlacut, El Coco, Santa Catarina, and this time we also hope to be able to press on into the community of Santa María Acapulco, the very ethnic center of the Pame tribal region.

That is the agenda for this missionary trip.

Javier

April 27, 2021

God bless you my brother, and good morning. May my God, the God of Israel bless you today and always.

Thanks be to God; He has allowed us to reach places with the gospel where it is unimaginable how much need there is for Him – fertile fields, white for harvest, where the Word of God has not yet reached to conquer hearts and to establish the Kingdom of God through the Word and the love of God for the lost.

We were able to make some contact at Santa María Acapulco on this past trip into the mountains. Being able to go there was an answer to many prayers and has been my goal now for years; ever since the missionary work amongst the Pame ethnic group was begun.

It is a different world there. Many of them only speak their own Pame language, and if they speak Spanish at all they do so very hesitantly and imperfectly. Much of our ministry there will probably need to begin with the children who have a better grasp of Spanish than do the adults.

Further, the tribal people there in the deep mountains were very closed and suspicious of us. I think that the best strategy will probably be for us to see about acquiring a small place there which we can purchase in order to establish a base from which to operate, and through which we can begin to gain their confidence. They are extremely poor and suspicious of mestizos and outsiders, but because of their poverty this might also be a way that we can gain their confidence through the distribution of used clothing and shoes as God makes these available to us to take to them. This strategy has not worked well in other areas of the Pame region because they do not have the same dire needs, however it does appear that it might be a good way to open doors to the gospel here.

We also heard about a brother in the region who has been sent out by the Methodist Church whose work is Bible translation into the tribal language. We have yet to meet him, but this is an obvious link in the work as it will be very important that they can receive the Bible in their own language as many of them cannot read Spanish. My understanding is that he is currently working on the New Testament. We hope to connect with him soon.

Being aware of all the difficulties of this work I still am confident that God will open doors for us, and that in so doing he will open hearts quickly for the gospel. Where the Word of Life comes, God brings forth fruit through the power of His Spirit.

I hope to arrive back in Cd. Valles early this evening and be able to communicate with you tonight.

Blessings,

Javier

April 27, 2021

We just celebrated our fifteenth anniversary at The House of the Potter; the church in which we minister in the community of Solidaridad.

How many victories and experiences we have had over these fifteen years!

I thank my God, I thank you, and I thank the churches that have been sowing into this missionary work. May each of you be strengthened in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I wish to specifically send my thanks to Listowel Church in Canada, to Newsong Church in the United States, to you my dear brother and your wife for all of your years of work here in Mexico, and to the many others who have come to Cd. Valles or have given towards the work, and especially to those who have continually held the ministry up in prayer.

The work here in Cd. Valles and the advancement of the gospel through the mission outreaches has all been a joint work. We are fellow laborers, ministering together in the gospel of our Lord and Savior. Glory be to his name

We continue to press forward in order to reach more souls who have not yet known the Word of God.

I know that my remaining time in which to minister is short but I want to take advantage of all that I can that remains of my life, and to grasp what remains without wasting any of it in order that I can reach many and unite them to the heart of Christ and to fulfill the purpose of God while there is still breathe in me.

Lord God, establish your kingdom in me and in their hearts with your unchanging love. Thank my Lord.

May God bless you all.

Thank you,

Javier

___________________________________________________

I trust that this ministry update has been a blessing to you. Please do not hesitate to respond to me at my personal email address at: steve_frey_74@yahoo.com.

Sometimes I fear that I am simply sending these ministry reports into dead cyberspace. It is always nice to know that someone is reading them. Also, please do not forget to hold our brothers and sisters up in prayer. They are truly serving in the trenches and need our prayers. Also, please remember that the work of the ministry does take finances. Any dollar sent goes 100% to the field, and nothing is held back for administrative costs here in Canada or in the United States.

Blessings.

Your fellow servants in Jesus Christ,

Steven and Theresa Frey

On March 22, 2021 Javier Santos sent the following ministry report:

Good evening my dear brothers and sisters. Greetings

from Cd. Valles.

This past week we once again made a mission thrust into the Eastern Sierra Madre Mountains to visit the new Pame churches and to strengthen and encourage our brothers and sisters there.

We ministered in the communities of Agua Nueva,

Milpas Viejas, Tanlacut, El Coco, and ending up at the

municipal seat of Santa Catarina.

We were blessed to be able to minister to the new believers in each of these communities where God is opening doors to the gospel, and where there is a deep hunger for his Word.

We returned to Cd. Valles after a very busy ministry trip, joyful, knowing that God was with us and that the new Pame believers are growing in their faith.

God had provided us with some clothing and shoes which we were able to distribute to the children and adults in these needy communities. To God be the glory for his provision.

While in Tanlacut I preached to the group of believers as we sat on the banks of the dry river bed. Please continue to hold these communities up in your prayers. There is a desperate need for rain very soon or the devastation on the drought will be unthinkable.

We were very blessed to be with these precious new believers in each of these communities. God continues to make our way prosper.

In many ways the work is very difficult and there is so much to be accomplished. But I praise God for the work that He has entrusted to me. I desire more than anything to be found faithful.

Blessings to each of you.

Your brother in Jesus Christ,

Javier Santos