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The Laguna Torch
| May 2006 | Recording the spread of God's fire in the "Laguna" | Volume 4, Issue 3 |
Greetings!
God's grace and peace to you! We're actually writing again because so many things have happened recently that we couldn't resist sharing them! Rejoice with us in God's abundant goodness!
Please don't groan and immediately reach for the delete key! This is not going to be a ten page thesis on evangelism in the Laguna, but instead an attempt to write shorter but more frequent newsletters. Do we hear a sigh of relief, anyone?
God Keeps Moving in the "Catorce" Neighborhood
A "Divine Healing" Conference
In our last letter we shared some of the many wonderful things God is doing in the "Catorce" neighborhood, including the fact that He had provided some property for us to start working with. Well, we were planning to allow a little time to clean the property up and make it really usable, because the previous owners had left it in horrible shape. But Daniel, the pastor, more or less on the spur of the moment, decided that we should do a mini-conference on "Divine Healing" in the new property, which we did on May 4-6 (Thur, Fri, and Sat evenings). He wanted to train the new people in the home groups (which means everybody except Beto and Meche, because everyone else has become a Christian just since we started the home groups in August of last year) about what the Bible teaches on how to pray for the sick and other needs that people have.
More New People Getting Involved
We also wanted to begin to reach out to the neighborhood in general. Unfortunately, because there was very little time to prepare and a lot of cleanup that had to be done, we weren't able to do any real promotion outside of the home groups, but even so God brought several totally new people to the conference! Usually when new people come they have some connection with people in the church. But this time we even had somebody attend who had no connection with anybody! Her name is Juanita and she's a divorced woman living with her grown son. She just stopped outside the door to listen and was attracted by what she heard. Since her son's work keeps him on the road almost all the time, she's been really lonely and was really glad to find a group of people where she could find love and support.
The other new people had some connections, but hadn't been participating in the
church at all.
Fili (in blue) talking with Berna and his wife and kids after the meeting ended
"Soledad" is one example. She lives near Beto's parents
and is friends with various members of their family, and came at their invitation.
She has been showing incredible enthusiasm since the conference - she has found
a new purpose and meaning in her life! "Berna" and "Isadoro"
are cousins of Beto, and they both attended the conference with their wife and
kids. It's beginning to look like it is not just Beto and Meche's immediate
families that have a special call from God - their extended families are getting
it too! :)
We praise God for the wonderful way in which He's extending His Kingdom! Please pray for God's guidance of every step as we go forward, because we definitely need Him to be in control. Please pray that everyone involved would surrender more and more to God so that we will not fall short of His plan for us. There are so many hurting families, struggling marriages, and suffering kids right in the "Catorce" and surrounding neighborhoods, and we really feel that the fields are "white unto harvest."
Major Outreach Planned for June
With that in mind, please pray for a bigger outreach that we are planning for June 4-10. We're inviting some teams to come from other Vineyards in Mexico to do some powerful outreach, so that the entire neighborhood will become aware of our presence. Our prayer is that we would become known as a place where everyone can come to experience God's presence and be healed and made new.
Various Ministry Needs
We just wanted to share a few of the current needs in the ministry. There's no pressure here, these are just opportunities to be a part of what God's doing.
Bibles
We could really use some more Bibles. The supply that we had has been steadily running out as we've given them away to the new people getting involved. We could use more now, because we never have enough to go around in the home groups, and we'd really like to have a supply available for the new people that are going to get involved in the upcoming outreach! We find that the NVI (Nueva Version Internacional - equivelent to the NIV) is the best translation for beginners, and you can order a case of 24 complete Bibles for about $70. Click here to see more details on our website.
Nationalizing the Van
A very practical need right now has to do with the van. The Mexican government is temporarily relaxing its very strict rules about importing vehicles, so for a short period of time we have the opportunity to nationalize the van. This means that rather than having the van here with a temporary permit linked to our visas, the van would be registered as a Mexican vehicle in the name of the church. This will make paperwork and insurance simpler and cheaper, and also avoids potential problems with the police. The process costs about $700, so if you'd like to help with that, let us know.
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