Interesting Day

Today at 12:30 PM, Mark and Bekah Perry had to leave to go back to Ohio. Earlier this morning, Mark said he would accompany me down to order water, to be brought up in a water truck. We got a taxi from a taxi base right at the end of our street and the man said he would charge us 60 pesos to get there. (That's about 6 dollars.)

We got there, paid for our taxi, gathered together our other belongings and said goodbye. About 50 yards from the taxi, alas, I didn't have my wallet. It had two credit cards, my debit card (the only way that we can get money here in Mexico), my water card which is the only way we can get water, a phone card and $80 dollars (US.) We looked around thinking that the man may have found the wallet and come back, but no. Very despairingly, there was nothing else to do but get another taxi (with Mark's money) as I had no more, and make the trek back up the hill to our house. We held out hope that the man would go back to his taxi base without picking up any other passengers. If another passenger sees anything left in a taxi when they get in, ADIOS whatever it was.

We made it back up the hill in about 35 minutes and went straight to the taxi base. The man was not there. We waited about 10 minutes and he didn't appear. We walked home and told the bad news to everyone. We all prayed as a family. We didn't know whether to cancel the credit cards immediately or wait. After about an hour and a half, I walked back down to the base and no, he had not come. Sigh.

Morgan, a taxi driver in our church, came to get Mark and Bekah at 12:15 PM. My neighbor told me that you don't have to have a water card if you have a previous receipt. So, i thought I would find an old water receipt and hitch a ride down again with Morgan, Mark and Bekah (with three big suitcases, all in a little VW beetle (not the new ones).)

Anyway, I couldn't find an old receipt, so I just told them to go ahead. Mark, when leaving said, "Mike, is there anything I can do for you?" I mournfully said, "Just pray." They were pulling out of the driveway and our door was open and at the top of the drive was our morning taxi. I ran up and asked him if he had found my wallet and, Praise the Lord, he had it. He never even opened it and everything was there. What a blessing today. What a praise. I asked the man if he would take me back down the mountain to the water truck place and he said yes. I asked him to wait for a minute and I ran in the house with the great news. We all prayed and thanked the Lord together and then I took off.

I had a very profitable afternoon being able to get a double water truck load (now they say it will only take between 1 and 5 days to deliver it, but that's another story), visit Marcos and Rut (pictured with Rut's daughter) who would like to be married in August, visit the two older ladies, Sra. Gloria and Sra. Maria, visit our friend Pedro, get some fresh squeezed orange juice, visit with another family who doesn't attend our church, and then get a taxi ride home. Praise the Lord for His goodness and mercy to us in this way and today. We could have really been up a creek right now without a paddle. Praise the Lord for His common grace that makes people do the right thing even though many of them are not saved. (I'm not sure what to think about the ones who sabotaged our pipes though, but again, that's another story.) Thank you so much for praying.

We were wondering last night if Carissa had apendicitis. She seems to be doing much much better today with some new medicine. We pray that that continues. If she does take a turn for the worse again, we will have to take her to the hospital. We keep on appreciating your prayers.

God is Good (always),
Mike

Goldfuss Update (February 26)

Dear praying friends,

Well, we are back in the swing of things, but sometimes it seems like we are scraping the ground on the way back and forth. We really thank you for your prayers and continue to need them greatly.

As we reported last time, some of our church folks came up and cleaned up the dust and fixed the tile where we had fixed the leaks over the bathroom. That was such a blessing. However, since we got home, we had to unload a seeming thousand boxes that had been in storage for almost three years. That has brought in a lot more dust. We have been able to get the two closets put in for the children and that has helped us get their clothes mostly organized, but it has also added a whole lot more dust. On top of that, we are in an extremely dry and dusty time here right now. The pollution has been very strong these past two weeks also. Cherith, Matthew, Cristiana, Faith and Mike all have had pretty bad sinus and cold problems. On top of that, this week Faith was diagnosed with a double kidney infection and Carissa has had a very serious stomach problem since Tuesday. Both of them were not able to attend church today. Please pray that the Lord would give us all some relief from all of these physical afflictions. It has been very difficult to get things unpacked with these difficulties.

Faith had a doctor’s appointment on Tuesday and the doctor said that things look good for baby delivery around April 8. I don’t think that time will get here fast enough.

This week Ruben left for Indianapolis on Tuesday. The people here really really miss him and Heidi. They are seeking the Lord’s will about several options for service, one of those being returning to serve again here in Mexico City. Please pray for Heidi’s health as she has been suffering some pretty serious complications in different areas. We greatly appreciate the labor of love that they have done here in Mexico City this year.

This coming week, Faith’s two nieces leave on Wednesday. We are really going to miss their help. We still aren’t settled in. We have to have our closet installed and the school room is an absolute mess. Pray that Monday and Tuesday Faith would be well enough to organize things so that much of these things can get unpacked and we can get most of the dust out of the house.

We had a very good attendance in our church today. There were several people missing though. Sra. Maria (88 years old) and her daughter Sra. Gloria (62 years old) missed for the fourth straight Sunday. Sra. Maria has had very swollen legs and now a swollen right arm. The doctor says he won’t be able to see her until March 15??????? That’s a long way away. Pray for the Lord to intervene in her life according to His will. It seemed very very foreign to preach and teach again in Spanish today. It was difficult and I was searching for words quite a bit. Pray that the Lord will enable lots of good time to study in this coming week.

We thank you for your prayers in this physically difficult time. Pray that the Lord would sustain us with His grace and that we would honor and glorify him in spite of the difficulties.

In Christ,

Mike for all the Goldfi

Update from Ruben Zartman

Hello Everyone,

I am back in Indiana and very happy to be reunited with Heidi. The passport process has passed from my hands, so now we must await the good graces of the government. Another project for while we are here is to get our taxes taken care of, hopefully with a ministerial exemption releasing us from social security.

I spoke with Juanita this week: they have lost the property lawsuit (which was immediately appealed). So there will presumably be another year of the legal battle and it seems quite likely that at the end of this time they will lose their property. Please pray for God's provision in all of this. Additionally, Juanita has been told that she has fungus growing on her appendix which may require another surgery....

I thought I would take this opportunity to quickly lay out our own situation and ask for your prayers for God's provision and direction. At the present time we seem to have three options.

1. Go to Panama for roughly 3 months this summer in order to help a missionary there who must return to the US on deputation. I need to be able to tell this missionary yes or no by Wednesday. Right now that hinges on coming up with $1300.00 for the airfare. We are currently at $0.00 in the Panama fund, and so it doesn't seem likely that this will work out, although God is a God of surprises. We are not disappointed, however.

2. We could stay in Mexico working with the people we have come to love over this past year. The hurdle for this is primarily Heidi's health. If it is the altitude of Mexico City perhaps a simple move down the mountain would be enough; but perhaps the whole city is too high up for her. A secondary hurdle is financial: moving down the mountain would up our cost of living to some degree. Many times the country is cheaper, so from motives of health and finances we may be looking at moving out of Mexico City, although out preferences would not be for that.

3. Another missionary couple has asked us to consider working with them. They are also located in Mexico City, so if the health/finances do not permit us to stay in Ajusco, then this alternative would also be ruled out.

We do ask your prayers in this matter: that God would make His choice perfectly plain to us, and also that we would truly prefer His will above all things. Our hearts cling to all the people where we have been working this past year. There is not one of them who is not very dear, in their own way, to us and it is a great mercy that God has shown that this bond is by no means one-sided. I was both gladdened and solemnized by the affection that has been poured out upon us from the people there.

Whatever happens in the future, I can honestly say that this last year was the best year of my life, and from the bottom of my heart I would like to thank all of you who under God made it possible. Without your prayers and your generosity it would not have been possible for to even have arrived in Mexico City, much less to have continued there so long and been enabled to do even a little bit for the people there. I trust God will make all of you as happy in His chosen area of service for you as Heidi and I have been in Mexico City.

Ruben

Greetings from Mexico City (February 10)

Praise the Lord we made it— BUT IT SURE WAS A GRUELING DAY.

On Tuesday morning in Texas, Mike changed the title, plates and registration on the new van from Ohio to Texas. He made it a point to ask for a license plate that ended in a 0 or a 1. That may not seem important to you, but all cars in Mexico City are required to rest one day and that day depends on the last number of your license plate. Since our previous van ended in a 1, we have developed our schedule here planning on not driving on Thursdays. Hence that request was made and granted with a 0 on our license plate.

We made it to Monterrey, Mexico on Wednesday evening (February 7). We had a very nice time with the Zartmans and then planned on leaving late on Thursday morning to get us into Mexico City after 10:00 PM. (On the day that you are not allowed to drive, the affected hours are from 5:30 AM until 10:00 PM.) We left Monterrey about 11:15 AM. There are quite a few mountains between Mexico City and Monterrey. With the loaded van and trailer, we had a lot of weight to pull up the mountains and lots of weight pushing us down the mountains. We made a couple of stops for gas and food. Finally at 10:13 PM, we arrived at the Mexico City toll booth.

Now, we just had to get through the traffic and avoid the corrupt policemen and we were home free. But alas, five minutes into Mexico City, we were stopped by a crooked cop. He was surprised that we spoke Spanish. He said that a new law had just been made that states that all trailers have to have a permission to haul cargo. Of course, no such law has been enacted (I asked at the border,) and I pretty emphatically told the policeman that. He took my car papers and told me to get out of the car. The kids, Faith, and Riah and Amara (the two nieces), were all pretty upset in the car. I tried to take the papers back from the cop but he wouldn't give them to me. He used all sorts of language that you wouldn't want your children to hear. He said he had called a tow truck and that they would be there to take away the van and trailer and keep it overnight and that we would have to pay a fine. I asked him if he had no heart. He cussed me out some more and then said, "Get out of here." I, being totally taken aback said, "Why?" He said, "Because. Get out of here." I realized my error of trying to argue further to stay with the man so I jumped in the van, we pulled back onto the freeway and went as fast as we could until we were detoured (all we needed at 11:15 PM). The long day and added stress at the end of the trip gave Faith a good number of contractions. She is doing better today (Friday) though.

When we arrived home, we went into the house with the kids expecting to find dirt and dust and just the mess that I had left three weeks ago when I came back to work with Jon Davis for a week. What we found were the rooms all vaccumed and the mattresses on the bunk beds ready for the kids. No more leaks were found in the plumbing so Nicholas and Alejandro had put all the cement back and fixed the tile work. We were all able to take hot showers last night. Reme and Juana had swept and gotten all the dust out of the house. The kids were so excited to see their rooms and sleep in their beds. Faith and I were excited that all that work had been done. We finally got to bed about 2:30 and Cherith woke us up at 5:30.

We delivered a suitcase to Erasmo and Matilde today (Friday) from their son who lives in Minnesota. Then we were on our way to pick up our dining room table and chairs and hutch that had been stored for two years. Guess what happened? We got pulled over by another policeman. :-( We hadn't even been back for fourteen hours and I've already been pulled over twice!

Of all the things, they pulled me over for driving on the wrong day. It seems that I messed up and 1 and 2 cannot drive on Thursday and 9 and 0 cannot drive on FRIDAY. So I had to pay for my crime. We had lunch and then tried to get home as fast as possible before seeing another policeman. Sigh. After a nap this afternoon, we all are feeling better. Cherith and Cristiana have very very bad colds and Amara, Faith's niece has a pretty good one as well.

We have so much to do, but we thank the Lord for getting us here safely and not having to go on a trip anymore. It's been a long one.

Thank you so much for all of your prayers.

We appreciate them very much.
In Christ,
Mike for all of us

Goldfuss Update (February 7)

Dear ones,

Two Saturdays ago (January 27), we drove to Chicago and saw the live radio production of “Unshackled!” and picked up Faith’s two nieces in Chicago who were visiting friends. Then we drove one more hour to Faith’s cousin’s house.

Sunday (January 28) we drove to Indianapolis to thank Ruben and Heidi Zartman’s church for totally supporting them to be our furlough replacements. We hit an ice storm and saw two cars spin out in front of us. So we went slower and arrived late for the service. They still had Mike give a testimony.

Monday (January 29) we drove to Birmingham, AL.

Tuesday (January 30) we drove to Pensacola, FL to visit Faith’s sister.

Friday (February 2) we drove to McComb, MS to visit Faith’s cousin. On the way we had a blowout on the trailer and were stranded in a very dangerous place on the road. We waited 2½ hours for help. The Lord brought two men to help!

Monday (February 5) we arrived at the border (McAllen, TX) to stay with friends.

Wednesday morning (February 7) we crossed the border and stayed with the Tom and Jean Zartman in Monterrey. Praise the Lord! Because of all of your prayers, we went through two checkpoints and got the green light on both of them! It only took Mike forty minutes to get the car papers and Riah and Amara (Faith’s nieces). This was such a praise as they could have had us unpack everything! We would have been there for hours!

Tomorrow (Thursday, February 8) we plan to drive the last long leg of 10–12 hours to our home in Mexico City. Thank you for your prayers along the way! All have battled illness, but the Lord has kept us moving! Much of Mike’s time in Mississippi and at the border was running around getting the trailer fixed, getting needed car insurance, and getting things for the van.

We praise the Lord for providing a new to us van from a church that supports us. Ours is being sold and it will cover the cost of the new van. Our Lord always does “above and beyond what we ask or think” (Eph 3:20).

In Christ,

Mike, Faith, Mikey, Cristi, Carissa, Matthew, Cherith, and ?
AND RIAH and AMARA (our nieces, ages 19 and 18, who have been such a help)