Goldfuss Update (March 25)

Dear Praying friends,

We had a wonderful Sunday today. Our room was very full and it's pretty obvious that we need more space. Morgan and Alejandro have been trying to meet with a man about possibly renting or buying another piece of property. Please pray for the Lord to guide and direct those steps as that would be a big step for our church. In the preaching service today, we looked at Christ's upbraiding of three Jewish cities, not because of any blatant persecution of Christ, but only because of their seeing so many miracles done by Him and refusing to repent. They were indifferent to Christ and His Work.

Sra. Gloria and her mother, Sra. Maria were both not able to be there again with their health problems. Please pray that the Lord would enable them to come to either the Sunday School hour (actually about 1 hour and 45 minutes) or the worship service hour (actually about two hours). :-) Elsa has also not been able to be there for about a month and it has been extremely difficult to get in touch with her.

Ruben and Heidi made it back this week. The people in the church are thrilled to see them again. As we are about 10,000 feet above sea level where we now live, Ruben and Heidi would like to find a place farther down the mountain nearer to the church at a lower elevation to see if that would alleviate any of Heidi's physical problems. Pray for the Lord to provide just such a place if He would see fit to do that. Right now they are staying in the cabin and it's nice to have them close by.

Heidi's sister Holly came on Saturday. Praise the Lord for a safe trip. She helped by playing the piano in our services today. She is staying in the room over the garage and will be here for a week.

Family news:

• We praise the Lord that all the rooms are set up except finishing the school room and our own bedroom.
• The leak and the stench are still with us. Mike is hoping to tackle the leak with a vengeance tomorrow (Monday).
• Faith is hanging on. We went to the doctor's on Thursday. The baby seems to have dropped making Faith's breathing easier for now. The baby is due on Easter Sunday. Pray for her not to be too uncomfortable in these last couple of weeks. The doctor said that the cord is wrapped around the neck twice, but he doesn't seem to be too concerned.
• The kids are doing well.
  

Thank you for your prayers, support and encouragement;

We love you all very much,

In Christ,

Mike for all the Goldfi

Goldfuss update

Dear Praying friends,

We praise the Lord that we had full services today.  We had very good services with a very good spirit.  I preached about the biblical way of dealing with sin in the church.  People really listened well and we pray that they will not just deal with sin in the correct way but with a correct spirit.  We dealt with Matthew 18, Luke 17:3 and Galatians 6:1. 

 

Almost every normal attendee was there today.  However, please continue to pray for the two elderly ladies—Sra. Gloria and Sra. Maria who still have not been able to come due to Sra. Maria's poor health.

 

Also please continue to pray for Elsa.  She has not come in 3 weeks and we have not been able to contact her.

 

Everyone is excited for Ruben and Heidi Zartman's return on Tuesday.  Pray for Heidi to be able to experience good health while she is here.

 

We had a good first week of home school.  Faith taught this week from bed.  The kids had good attitudes and even made Mom breakfast in bed a few times.  Faith's kidney infection is doing much better.  We are thankful that most everyone is doing better healthwise.  That is a big blessing.  Pray for Faith for the last few weeks of her pregnancy.  It's really hard for her to get around right now.

 

As far as the problems with the house go, we were able to get the wood stove working better this week on a couple of colder nights.  That was encouraging.  We still have a big leak from somewhere in the plumbing to or from the washing machine.  I hope to be able to find that and fix it tomorrow.  The worst problem remains a bad sewer smell.  We aren't sure what all that will entail yet, but we need to get that fixed. 

 

Thank you for praying.  Please continue to pray for increased attendance at prayer meeting which is the source of our spiritual power. 

 

Thank you for your prayers, support and encouragement;
We love you all very much,

In Christ,

Mike for all the Goldfi

Goldfuss Update (March 12)

Dear Praying friends,

• Please pray for Teresa and Silvia as their aunt died earlier this week. Pray for them to have continued opportunities with their unsaved family.
• Teresa called for prayer for her unsaved husband Alberto who is very sick. Many have horrible colds and infections from the very dry dusty weather.
• The two elderly ladies—Maria and Gloria---again could not attend. I was able to visit them and the mother, Sra. Maria, is doing better. She has an appointment this week with a specialist to evaluate her condition. Please pray for some help with all of the swelling in her legs and left arm.
• The services today were very well attended.
• Pray for Cristian and Jose as they have spiritual needs.
• We invited Guille and Alejandro up to the house today and it is so encouraging to see the growth in their lives. Memo, their son, and Carina, his wife, came up also with their two sons. It is wonderful to see this family-- who before wanted NOTHING to do with the Lord-- being so faithful. There are still some salvation needs in the family, but we are so thankful that they are attending to the preaching of God’s Word. Please pray for Carina whose pregnancy is having some complications. Guille has been having some problems with depression. Please pray for her. She suffers with fibromyalgia. We believe that Satan is also attacking her because she has really become such a witness with her family. Faith suggested calling others in the church who suffer with chronic pain so that they can mutually encourage each other in the Lord and pray together. She really responded well to this idea.
• Juana and Fidel have officially lost their land dispute. We did not know that each face 3 ½ years in prison. They are appealing. Please pray for the Lord’s will to be done. Juana did feel like the Lord wanted her to begin a ladies prison ministry, but I’m sure she did not think that it would be by her being one of the prisoners. She just wants the Lord’s will to be done. They are in an appeals process right now, but things don’t look good.

As day to day living goes, it has been difficult. Mama (Faith) is basically out of commission. Although she went to church today and played the piano, it was very difficult. We still have about 25 boxes to unpack, but with mom not feeling well, the process is slow.

The three house conditions that have impeded unpacking are:

• Sewer gas coming up through the bathroom—making everyone feel nauseous.
• A water leak from the second floor to the first that has been difficult to repair.
• The cold from the wood stove not working properly.

We praise the Lord that Raul was able to finish the closets and that Alejandro gave some good ideas today in fixing some of the above problems that have slowed down our moving in process.

Without fail, we have to begin homeschooling tomorrow. The children have had a five-week break and are ready to begin. Pray for mom as she will be doing this from bed. Although all of this time off sounds horrible, it puts the kids at ending school in the beginning of July---which is right when all end school here in Mexico. So we should be alright.

One last thing. When mom was very sick with her double kidney infection, she was shaking. Matthew was so sweet that he brought down his favorite Micky mouse blanket to help to keep her warm. Then he went and got the space heater. Well, he put it very close to mommy on the couch. Soon she became very warm and turned it off. What she did not realize was that the heater had already burned a very large hole in the couch. If she had waited any time at all, mom soon would have become a “crispy critter”. We are trying to look at the big burnt mark as a sign of devoted love instead of just being a big ugly burnt mark.

One blessing that may seem small to you—it has drizzled on and off for the past three days. That may not sound like much, but with all the dust and pollution, it is a welcome relief if only for a few days.

As we serve the Lord here, we have to remember that the things that we deal with are life and death. We were reminded of that today as on our way home we saw a motorcycle that had crashed into a truck. The man on the motorcycle was lying under the truck, obviously dead. What was surprising to us after not being here for a year was that the Mexicans who were in our van were not shocked by the gruesomeness of the sight at all, whereas in the USA we are very sheltered from seeing such things on a daily basis. In this city of millions of people, pray that the Lord would enable us to give the gospel faithfully and that He would open people’s hearts to the truth and save them for His glory.

Thank you for praying for us. We covet your prayers.

In Christ,

Mike for all the Goldfi

Goldfuss Update (March 4)

Dear Praying friends,

Services today were very good although 2 key families were missing. The Lopez family was missing as Erasmo had to have another surgery on his hand. A work accident caused him to lose parts of several fingers. This is the last of three surgeries. Please pray for Erasmo and Matilde as they try to support their family of 5 children in these difficult times. Please pray for the company to pay for the damages.

Guille and Alejandro were not there due to Guille's pain from her fibramyalga. We are thankful for the great growth that we have seen in them since we've been back. The Lord has really changed them. Continue to pray for the Lord's grace to her even in this time of suffering. Their wayward son Eric is a source of grief to them too.

We were able to spend all afternoon with Marcos who is going to get married to Rut. She has been saved this year and has grown immensely. She has a 3 year old daughter Jimena, but has many attributes of a godly lady even though she has been saved less than a year. Today was our first pre-marital counseling session. Please pray for wisdom for us and ability for them to put Christ first in their lives. Their testimonies today indicate that they want to glorify Christ.

Juana and Reme are an encouragement as always. After the horrible death of the father (he was run over by one public transportation bus that was racing another) in December, they have shining testimonies to the rest of the church. Reme gave a tremendous testimony today of what the Lord has done in them in this year of much trial. We found out last week that they have lost the court case about their property. Many of you have prayed for them not to lose their property to an unjust man, but they have lost the case. They are now in an appeals process. Pray that the Lord would intervene mightily (that is the only thing that can help them) and allow them to win their appeal.

There is a new family (to us at least) Gabriel, Lliana, and their three sons (I'm not sure of all their names yet, but they all begin with Yol. . . We call them the yolos. They are a homeschooling family and have been a blessing.

Jose and America, another new couple to us, have showed some growth and are realizing their need to be married (they have been living together unmarried for a number of years.)

There is much work that needs to be done here. Pray for the Lord to graciously work in and through His church here.

A lady in the church visited us this week and asked for some counsel on how to deal with another person in the church who has been unkind. She realized through her prayers her need to go and graciously confront the unkind lady in a Christlike way. We are so thankful that the Lord is teaching them to go and deal with problems in a biblical way.

As far as our family goes, we have been reeling. Some of the kids have been sick as well as Faith. In addition to her double kidney infection, she also has anemia. Pray for her to have enough strength to get the house in order and for me, (Mike) to be able to get some things done around the house that are not working normally.

We appreciate your prayers for us. We are very tired as the last two weeks have been a daily struggle, but we are thankful for the privilege of serving our blessed Lord and Savior in this country. Please pray for these dear ones in our church who are struggling with extensive and severe trials.

In Christ,

Mike for all the Goldfi