Prepare New Church Building!

We have rented our current church room for only ten months- and love the location, space and even price.  However, it has one major flaw: it is just one room!  This flaw is most obvious on Sunday mornings when we cannot offer children’s classes, or even nursery care, during worship service in the one room.  We have witnessed multiple times in the past months that families visit and desire to join the church, but are limited without Sunday

class opportunities for their children (as the adults cannot focus their attention on the worship service and Bible message themselves as they are caring for their young children).  Seeing this need, we started to pray…

The Lord answered our prayers and directed our attention to an unfinished house for rent- just a block away!  The living/dining room will be the main sanctuary, and the two bedrooms will

serve as children’s classrooms.  The house does not yet have a bathroom, but the owner will let our congregation use the bathroom in the adjacent house.  What an answer to prayer!

The house needs lots of work- patio, fence, windows and frames, doors, paint, bathroom, electricity… Paco, along with the help of others in the congregation when they have time, has started leveling the patio and installing

the fence.  He also got a first coat of paint on the walls.  Another believer is making and installing the windows. We still have a long way to go, but we are excited to start services at this new location on January 1^st!

We believe that the Lord who provided this new space will be the One to fill it with people who desire to know and glorify Him!

Distribute Shoebox Gifts

Once the “Operation Christmas Child” materials have been unloaded from the trucks into our storage area, they must then be distributed to all the participating churches in our region which will use them in Christmas events to share the Gospel with children.

Days of loading almost 20,000 shoebox gifts and Gospel booklets, along with 10,000 student workbooks and New Testaments into the cars of waiting churches is exhausting work!  However, it is also very joyful!  The pastors and believers who pick up the materials marvel at such an amazing, complete resource being placed in their hands without cost!  One pastor even had tears in

his eyes as he received it.  These low-income churches now have resources to minister, evangelize and disciple children in their areas; they are equipped for the work the Lord has called them to do.   

Our children loved helping this year!  Little 4-month-old, Asher, smiled at each believer who came to pick up materials, and was happily passed from hug to hug. Two-year-old, Jemina, “counted” (or at least tried to count) shoeboxes in each cardboard box, and pulled her own little dolly of shoeboxes out to the cars.  She would even unload them into the hands of the church members, and say “that’s all, brother” when they

had finished.  I love that Jemina and Asher, from such a young age, can experience serving others for the glory of God.

Unload OCC Freight Trucks

This year, both of our TWO huge freight trucks of “Operation Christmas Child” shoebox gifts and literature arrived on a Saturday afternoon/evening within four hours of each other.  It was time to jump into action! (We wait on call the whole month of December for the trailers to arrive, because we never know the date or hour, but have to be ready to drop everything to unload them immediately).

Now, how would we recruit volunteers for heavy-lifting at 8pm on a Saturday night?  To our surprise, upon calling churches to inform them of the trucks arrival, almost 60 people joined for the long, exhausting unloading process- which lasted until 2am in the morning!!

Somehow, the Lord multiplied our space, and both freight truckloads of materials fit into our storage area!  Seeing the rows and rows of shoebox gifts, Gospel booklets, New Testament,

discipleship manuals and more, all to minister to Mexican children, filled our hearts with praise to our Great God!

First-Fruits Festival of Thanksgiving

So many reasons to give thanks!

Though Mexico does not celebrate the American Thanksgiving holiday, our church sets aside a day, around the same time of year, to thank God for His faithful and abundant provision all year long, as the Israelites of the Old Testament were called to do with their First-fruits festival.

Each family brings an thank-offering to the Lord of the “first-fruits of their harvest”- which, in our day, is a box of groceries (which are then distributed to families in need around the church).  Then, during our worship service, each family stands and publically thanks God for specific blessings over their lives the past year.

I never keep a dry eye during the first-fruits testimonies.  This year, I was especially impacted by three youth, Lalo, Erick, and Marion, who had previously been very apathetic toward God in past years, who now publically announced that they really had witnessed and were thankful for God working in their lives.  Wow.

During the big potluck meal after the service, a lady approached me to share

some very difficult situations currently in her life. But, she confessed that the festival had reminded her that even in the darkness she had so many reasons to be thankful and choose to be joyful through Jesus Christ. 

Of course, our Lopez Family had many reasons to thank our God and praise His faithfulness and power- this was our first festival as a family of four, with our son, Asher Obed, in

arms, alongside our daughter, Jemina Mercy.  Words and groceries and song are all inadequate to appropriately thank all our Great God has done and does for us! Praise His Name!

Donations for Ixcamilpa villages

A large part of Paco´s trip to the Ixcamilpa villages was dedicated to distributing donations to this area of great need, to in this way show God´s love and open opportunities to reiterate the Gospel message.  Many people were impacted!

-Don Sabas (blind from diabetes)- literally cried in gratitude upon receiving the 10 boxes of home dialysis treatment Paco had found on

sale, saying he had just been given another month of life!

-Doña Reyna- had been asking around the village for clothes for her grandchildren in need just this last month.  When Paco heard, he left the bags of donated clothing with her- and she excited separated children´s outfits for school, home, cold weather… and well as clothes for her whole family. She also promised to distribute the

remaining articles to other families in need in the village.

-Oliva, a nurse in the village, was especially thankful for the donations of medicines, saying her sick father desperately needed analgesics.  She even gave Paco homemade cookies in thanks!  She also promised to distribute the other medications to others with specific needs in the area

-Paco visited the village elementary school (1 teacher for 27 students in one classroom with 6 grade levels!) to deliver a bag of grains to each child to take to his home.  While there, he talked

with the teacher about needs for the school, and hopes to bring the white board markers, big academic posters (multiplication tables, alphabet, etc.), and a pressure cooker that the school currently needs on his next trip.

-On his way out of the region, Paco stopped by the county seat of Ixcamilpa to visit Pastor Domingo and his wife Liovi, of the only church in the county.  He left groceries and

grains for the church brothers, as well as donations of Bibles and children´s Gospel booklets.  There were brothers in their tiny congregation who have never had a Bible!  And the tiny church does not have a children´s ministry for lack of materials.  Pastor Domingo and his wife were so thankful!  Domingo already has someone in mind to give a Bible: a town drunk has been seeking him out to hear about God, and he wanted a

Bible to give to him.

Return to Ixcamilpa!

After his long absence from the Mixteca region of Puebla (due to our son, Asher´s, birth and our daughter, Jemina´s, serious illness), Paco once again experienced the Lord´s presence and power on his trip to Ixcamilpa.

The night before the trip, the two brothers who had committed to join him at 5am the following morning, cancelled- at 9:30pm! Paco did not have anyone to join him into the

isolated, no-cell-phone service, no medical-care area!  He started calling brothers from the church.  When he called Toño to invite him, Toño immediately accepted: saying that with the recent “Day of the Dead” celebrations in Mexico he was missing his deceased wife more than usual, and needed a distraction.  The trip was a tremendous blessing for this fairly-new believer! Toño marveled to witness multiple families who, even in

their poverty, continued to pray, read their Bibles and trust in God.  Toño commented in amazement: “They really believe God hears them when they pray!”  He returned challenged in his own faith. Obviously, the Lord had good reasons for Paco´s other companions to cancel just hours before the trip!

The villagers were excited to see Paco arrive after his long absence, waving

at him as he drove into town (after first peering suspiciously at our new car, as the villages have had recent drug sellers filtering in).  Paco and Toño visited many homes to not only deliver donated groceries and grains but to also pray for the people and encourage them in their faith.  Each family insisted they stay for a “meal” of tortillas and salsa, in their gratitude. 

Paco was especially pleased to visit Don Chava (blind) and his wife Selerina- who continue to listen to their audio Bible daily (Chava has lost count of how many times he has heard the New Testament!).  Chava commented that in the past months he has woken a night a few times claiming to have heard Paco´s voice calling him. Obviously, Paco wasn’t there, but he took it as a sign and reminder to turn on his Bible.

They visited the elderly María´s home, where he had coordinated and paid for the placement of a cement floor in her poor home. She and her adult son were so, so thankful for the floor! They could not understand why someone without political agenda would want to help them! Paco had the chance again to share the Gospel of grace of Jesus Christ.

At the afternoon Bible study in the village auditorium, two teenagers and 2 children arrived for the first time (having just arrived to live at the village a month ago- too late to join the school year).  They were attentive the entire study. When Paco offered them Bibles of their own,

they excitedly received them, saying they had never heard the Bible before and wanted to read it.

Instead of staying to sleep in the village auditorium as usual after Bible study, they instead slept under a tree in Don Miguel´s patio in Cuatlaxtecoma (heeding the advice of the locals to avoid the public areas at night with the recent drug trafficking in the area).  However, they were woken at all hours

of the night by chicken flapping in the branches above them and rooster crows!