The Laguna Torch

Greetings!

God's rich blessings on each of you!

As usual, time has gotten away from us, so once again we have an incredible amount of news to share! There's no way we can share it all, because we've kept a list of special things we wanted to share, and even just the list is two pages long! :) But we'll share some of the new and some of the old and we'll see if we have a chance to update you more soon! :)

Three Year Anniversary

Did we mention in our last update that it has already been 3 years since God sent us to the Laguna? Wow! It really reminds us of how many things we need to praise Him for! He's helped us grow so much - in our ministry skills, in our knowledge of the culture of Mexico, in our ability to speak Spanish, in our marriage, just to mention a few areas off the top of our heads! And He's done so many wonderful things - transforming Jose Luis's family, growing Daniel as a pastor, healing many people, construction of a new church building, and so much more! And with God we know that there's only more and better things to come! :)

Ready to Roll!!

We want to express a huge "THANK YOU!!!" to the people who helped provide new tires for the van (the need we shared in our last short message). Daniel is no longer worried about the safety of his family every time he drives! It's also great timing, because the van is now ready to take another load of people from the church to a conference in Fresnillo. This conference gathers pastors and leaders from the different Vineyards in Mexico for a time of training and ministry to each other, which is always a great blessing. We wouldn't have been able to go without the new tires because the van wasn't safe to drive on the highway. Praise God for His perfect provision and for His servants who contributed to this need! :)

New Home Group

A big change for us over the past couple of months has been that we stopped working with the home group with Jose-Luis's family. As we shared in our last newsletter, that was difficult because we felt so close to them and were blessed so much personally by the group. But we were asked to leave their home group in order to dedicate our time to something different. We're glad to say that though Jose-Luis and Lourdes stopped the group for a while, they have now started it again. Please pray that God would bless their group, and that they would continue growing!

We were asked to begin ministering in a neighborhood called "Catorce de Noviembre" (the "14th of November," which we'll refer to as "Catorce" from here on - pronounced "kah-tor-say"), with a couple named "Beto" and "Meche" (more about them soon). The church had been ministering in Catorce in the past, but decided to stop about 2 years ago because the leaders were over extended. At the end of August, after a time of meeting with Beto and Meche to seek God's will, we started a home group in Beto and Meche's house.

Testimonies

God has moved in that home group in incredible ways! We couldn't begin to tell you all the wonderful things He's done, but we do want to share a few examples! For one thing, we were expecting to start the group mainly with people who had been involved in the past, but God had different plans. For one reason or another, the people previously involved haven't been able to come, but the wonderful thing is that God has brought totally new people into the group. Many of them had no previous experience with Christianity. In fact, several of them are from Beto and Meche's families, and in the past they had made fun of Beto and Meche for their crazy ideas about "religion." Now they are singing worship songs to God with a deep love, hungrily studying His Word, and praying for one another! It's such a privilege to see God drawing His lost children unto Himself! :)

In the group we are encouraging everyone to ask God to work in their lives and to give Him the glory when He responds. We wish we could share multiple testimonies that have come out as a result of that because they're all so encouraging, but we've chosen just one that really stands out. Beto's sister, Sara, started coming to the group shortly after we got started with it, and it was obvious that God was really touching her. On Saturday about a month ago, there was a horrible accident in her family - her two nephews, a 4 year old and an older child, were run over. The whole family was really upset, because it was obvious that the 4 year old had a very serious head injury, and when they got to the hospital the doctors painted a very grim picture, saying that if the child was going to recover it would take several months, but even worse, that it was very possible he wouldn't recover at all. But Sara started praying that God would heal the little boy, and Beto and Meche arrived and prayed with her. Within 24 hours, instead of putting in feeding tubes, the little boy was asking for food and the doctors were calling him "milagritos", the "little miracle boy!"

But amazingly, as though miraculously healing a little child wasn't enough, God had another side to the story. You see, just that morning on the day of the accident, Sara's sister-in-law had threatened she wouldn't have anything to do with her if she kept doing this "Christian stuff." This really would have created problems because the two families live together in the same house. But when this woman saw her son tragically wounded, and then saw God respond in a miraculous way to Sara's prayers, her heart was changed. She was now full of gratitude to the real and living God! So God was working in this whole incident, not only to save a little boy's life, and not only to build Sara's faith, but to demonstrate His power and His love to a family that was rejecting Him in a way they couldn't resist. The comment from Sara's sister-in-law was actually only one example of numerous conflicts in a family that was mostly splintered. Since the miracle, there has been a new atmosphere of harmony! Praise be to God!

We really should share one other testimony from the home group. Beto's prayer request has been that His family would come to Christ. You already know how God is answering that prayer in his sister Sara's life, but that's not all. His mother and two of his sisters-in-law have been coming regularly to the group. Two weeks ago, we really felt that we should offer a chance for people to receive Christ, because it was obvious that God was working in their lives, but they hadn't made a clear commitment to live for Him. When we did that, all three of his family members accepted Christ, along with four other friends and family! And there are also signs that God is working on Beto's brothers and his dad, so there's great hope of his prayer request being completely fulfilled in the near future! :)

Please pray for the home group and each of the people attending. We believe that all that we've seen so far, wonderful though it is, is only just the beginning of the great work He has in store for the "Catorce" neighborhood.

Coming Soon ...

We're planning to start an additional ministry in the Catorce neighborhood - a weekly children's ministry including providing a healthy meal and activities (games, songs, and teaching). Please pray with us for God's direction on when to start that and for His provision of time, energy, and people to help.

Daniel's Allergies Healed!!!

A need which we (shamefully) never actually published has already been taken care of! Daniel, the pastor of the church we're working with, has been having lots of problems this year with allergies. It has seriously affected him, because the allergies cause his throat to close, especially when he's using his voice a lot. Leading a service, including leading worship and preaching, was a serious strain for him. He had gone to many doctors, even specialists, to seek a solution, but their treatments didn't help. However, the church prayed for him about two months ago, and soon after that God led him to a doctor who provides very cheap medical service for people without insurance ($2 a visit!). By God's grace, that doctor's treatment has done wonders for Daniel's allergies, so that he can now lead worship and preach without his voice giving him any problems! Praise God for taking care of the needs of His servants so they can continue serving Him!

Missionary Vacation (?)

It seems like we've had this title to one of our articles from before, but since it is truly fitting to our vacations, we thought we'd use it again. (As we write this we're actually marveling that this is our first newsletter since summer, but since we did have an interesting vacation, we thought we'd make a few comments about it.) Our summer was interesting. We began with a semi-business, semi-leisure trip to Mazatlan, which was actually marked by a series of unintentional ministry sessions (on the seawall) to a couple of homeless guys. We feel like we learned a lot from this experience, and we were surprised at the level of interest these two men had in what we shared about the Lord. They actually even tried to attend a service at the local Mazatlan Vineyard, but it turns out we told them the wrong time! :) Please keep our friends Jesús the fire breather and his father in your prayers. We obviously haven't heard from them, but we did leave some information on them with an interested church leader in Mazatlan.

Probably the highlight of our summer was Mexico Mania where we met with the youth from Spring Vineyard (our beloved home church) in McAllen, Texas/Reynosa, Mexico. There we had the privilege as always of watching these young guys and gals minister in power, touching hearts for the Lord and even witnessing a few physical healings.

And finally, our summer was capped off by a short trip home to visit family and take care of odds and ends. The interesting thing about this trip was that while innocently driving down the highway towards one of our stop-off cities at night, we managed to HIT a young man wandering on the road with our car, going about 60 mph. Though he was a bit tipsy (to say the least), and admittedly had found his way into the MIDDLE of this major highway, the miraculous thing about this story is that, despite being thrown to the edge of the highway by our car, he didn't have even one broken bone after being examined by the doctors at the nearest hospital. We want to give God all the glory for this miracle, and for the opportunity that He gave us to minister to this young man (also named Jesús). We fully believe that God saved his life, since the only thing coming behind us on that highway late that night was a series of Mac trucks. We have since then enjoyed ministering to Jesús and his family, and can honestly say that though we were VERY startled (and detained for some hours on our trip, since the car did not come out as "scathe-free" as Jesús!), we can honestly say we give thanks to God for this "divine appointment." We share this to enable you to pray for Jesús, who accepted Christ in the hospital, and to assure those of you who are praying we will be "used" that God certainly hears you! (You might actually throw in a request for time to rest from time to time, especially on our vacations, but we figure, hey, God must know what He's doing...!) Please pray for complete healing of Jesús's arm, which did go through our windshield, and to our knowledge has not regained full mobility. Pray also for spiritual liberation from addictions and any other strongholds in Jesús's life.

Manuel & Angeles

Manuel & Angeles are a very special couple that has gotten involved with the Vineyard of the Laguna recently. We want to share a little bit about them both as an example of how God is providing people to do His work here and also so that you can pray for them.

Manuel & Angeles are both very special. What's interesting is that Angeles has been a Christian for a long time (through her mother's influence), but Manuel only recently came to Christ. The story of how that happened illustrates really well the type of person that he is. Manuel is a very analytical type of person, a computer programmer, and religion just never made much sense to him. Since he's also a professional rock musician, Manuel certainly seemed a rather unlikely candidate for the next church leader in Tierra Blanca! However, he came to a time where he lost his job, and since his wife was always telling him about God, he thought it wouldn't hurt to see if God would help him. He fasted and prayed and asked God to provide a job. Well, God did provide a job, and Manuel, conscientious type that he is, took that seriously and really began to seek Him. He started coming to the home group with Jose Luis and Lourdes, where he participated with real interest and asked some challenging questions. Soon it was clear that God had won his heart and he was a fully committed believer.

What's really special is the way that Manuel & Angeles have given so freely of themselves for the ministry. They are a real blessing that God has sent for the church in Tierra Blanca. They have deliberately chosen to commit themselves to help the church there, which is a sacrifice for them. There are other churches that they could have joined which are bigger and prettier, that have lots of kids programs and offer special conferences and other events. But at Manuel's insisting, they decided to help in a new work, a church that was still developing and growing.

And they have poured themselves out in that effort. Manuel, drawing on his musical experience, is helping with worship and is also teaching music classes to train up more people for the worship band. Angeles is teaching arts and crafts classes for the women of the church so they can produce and sell handicrafts. Manuel designed the web page for the church, which we announced in our last notice. They're both helping with the kids ministry on Saturdays in the church, feeding kids a healthy meal and teaching the kids God's Word. And they're also now helping lead the home group with Jose Luis and Lourdes!

We praise God for sending them to help in Tierra Blanca, because He's definitely the only One who can inspire such faithful service! :) Please pray for God's blessing on them, and that He would raise up more workers for the harvest!

To Be Continued

There's so much more to share! We'll have to write again very soon to let you know some of the other wonderful things God has been doing in the church here! :)