Mario’s Baby Boy

Mario’s latest edition, a baby boy born just weeks ago,
in the arms of his mother, Carmen. Unfortunately, Mario’s baby has never seen or met his father.

Hello friends and family,

We just wanted to take a moment to write another brief update for you.

First of all, thanks so much again to all of you who donated towards our “new” van.  We enjoyed getting to visit our families in the states while we were getting some of the repairs done on it.

We also wanted to share with you some breaking news on Mario and on the situation here in the area where we’re working, since we know that most of the information we’ve sent this year has been a bit frightening, to say the least.

To begin, we have to admit that we did have a few difficult moments during our visit to the U.S., which caused us to reflect on the value and direction of our ministry.

As many of you may have imagined, a number of our family members took full advantage of our time with them to beg us, with tears, to come home.  Matters actually came to a head at Kim’s house, when, towards the middle of our stay there, the area where we’re living made the headlines of the Houston paper, due to another tragic ‘mass’ shooting which occurred, wounding 17, and killing a total of 18 apparently innocent people.  After reading about the incident, Kim’s father set the paper down in front of her at the breakfast table.  He waited only a few minutes before he informed her that this was the moment he’d been waiting for to ask her “formally” to come home.

And in addition to all of our family issues, we were also having trouble with the ‘new’ van — in that Larry found himself stranded on the side of the road, just fifteen minutes (and $1200!) after picking it up from its “final” repairs in the shop…  And the really low moment came when, after towing it back to the mechanic, we got a call informing us that they didn’t know if the latest problem was fixable, and at what price…  Yikes.

So… since we were unable to answer our families (or the mechanic), we decided to start praying for some clear signs about whether or not we should actually continue our ministry in Mexico…  On faith, Kim kept on writing thank-you notes to the supporters who gave towards the van, telling them that we had done the repairs on it – since it was technically true, and she wasn’t sure quite what else to tell them…  But it’s important to note that she was also praying (“Lord we need this van…”) with every stroke of her pen.

…And then, thankfully, God began to confirm that His hand was still with us.  Within just a few days, some signs of His will for us started coming.

The mechanic called us.  He was willing to donate the labor on the van (in addition to our supporter who offered us the van giving something), in order to get it finally working.

More importantly, the area of Torreón (where we live) came out again on the front page of the Houston paper… Only this time there was a big exposé there, which reported a major bust of the drug ring which was behind all of the mass shootings here, and the arrest of several of the key people involved.

… Now that’s a pretty clear sign.

And not only that, but now that we’ve returned to Mexico, we’ve noticed that everyone is still talking about the exposé – In fact not only are they talking, but we can literally see that things have changed a bit…  At least in the neighborhood where we work a lot of people are actually going out on the streets again!  It seems that while we were gone the gunmen from the drug trafficking movements actually moved their focus out of our neighborhood.

Wow… Thank you, Lord.

And not only that, but when we visited Mario’s family (they have gone to another city), we actually found them still strong in their faith – even though Mario has not been released yet. And though it is difficult for them to attend church services because of their situation, they are definitely still reading their Bible…  What’s more, they are now able to begin witnessing to their entire family in the place where they are staying… And of course we also got a chance to be sharing the Lord with them as we visited…!

So…

Praise God.

Truly, we can find no better words than these…  And so it’s  from the bottom of our hearts that we give thanks to Him for the miracles He´s done as a sign of His love for us, and of His faithfulness towards our ministry.

• Pray for the van– We left it happily in the states to be worked on for another month in our trusty mechanic’s free time…  Pray for the mechanic, that God would bless him… Pray for the gracious supporter who donated not only her vehicle to us, but also some of the funds to finally get it working.
• On a more serious note, pray for the people who’ve been wounded in the various mass shootings…  Even though things seem to have calmed down here since the exposé after the last incident, there are still many families who are forced to live with the aftermath of what happened… including young men and women in their 20’s and 30’s who have been left unable to walk due to the bullets that have rendered them paraplegic.
• Pray for Mario, who’s still in captivity… We wish we were able to say more about him, but unfortunately since his baby was born we’ve heard very little news of him…  We would like to think that this is because the higher-ups in the ring where he’s working realized that the presence of his new child would be a distraction to him, and a temptation for him to try to escape and see his family…  So for that reason we hope that the lack of word we have received on him reflects only some kind of decision on the cartel’s part to simply move him to another area… But we can’t be sure.  The only thing we do know is that after the baby was born the sightings of him went markedly down – from two or three times a week… to zero.  We are still praising God, however, since we can see His hand in the situation, and trust that He is continuing to move… especially for the sake of the safety of Mario’s child and family.
• Pray for Mexico, and particularly for our metropolis – Though most people agree that the violence has calmed down somewhat, we do not want to trick you into thinking that everything is totally o.k. in our area.  Of course the good news is that the gunmen from the dominant cartel do seem to have changed their circling routes out of our neighborhood. This is hugely significant, since it is the first time in years that we have not seen them circling.  The bad news, however, is that the other day two more young men were kidnapped out of an adjoining neighborhood, just blocks away…  In fact we think the only explanation for why our youth are not being kidnapped is probably due to your prayers…

  And so we ask you to please continue praying for the young people in all of Mexico.

Thank you.