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!