Goldfuss update (August 19)

Dear Praying Friends,

Thank you for praying for our men last week. This week most of the men were there. We seemed full even though six of our faithful ladies were all very ill. So now could you please pray for the ladies. :).

1. Teresa has been very tired, has a severe headache and needs some tests. The doctor says her blood pressure if very high.
2. Matilde has had another kidney infection this week and has kidney stones. She was in severe pain and crying when Faith visited her.
3. Juana was laid low today by a very bad migraine (as compared to a very good one). :-)
4. Liliana is in her last month of pregnancy and was not able to make it today.
5. Guille was not in church today and we weren't sure if it was due to illness or problems again with her husband Alejandro.
6. Rosy suffers greatly with kidney problems and was also unable to be there today. Please pray that the Lord would give these blessed saints of His grace to deal with the illnesses, difficult home situations with most of their husbands, and that the Lord would graciously save many or all of these ladies' husbands.
   

Thank you for praying for Mike. He had a headache pretty much since last Thursday until this Wednesday. He seems to be doing a good bit better, but still has been a little weak. Caralyn right now has a very very bad cough. Pray that some medicine will take care of that for her quickly if the Lord so allows.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we were able to have a nice visit from two other long-time missionaries to Mexico, Miss Norma Helle and Miss Diana Boss. They had come to Mexico City to renew their papers. It was nice to see them and spend two days with them. Here are a couple of pictures of them this week with Cherith and Caralyn.

A blessing during the last three weeks has been Irvin, Rosy's only son. He has always been a very very quiet boy. He has no father and comes often with his mom. He just started high school this past week. About three weeks ago after our communion service, during our last hymn, "Hallelujah, What a Saviour," I noticed Irvin crying. He's not a very easy young man to talk to, but he came today for the first time ever without his mom (Rosy was sick) and came with his cousin, Juan Carlos, who used to always attend with them. Juan Carlos has probably not been there in over 3 or 4 years. What a blessing. I wasn't able to see Irvin, but Reme said that it was very very apparent that he was singing from his heart. Please pray for the Lord to continue to work in Irvin. We have very fond memories of Irvin and Juan Carlos being the first Sunday school attendees ten years ago when the church began. These two with another cousin, Miguel Angel had Sunday school in our upstairs bedroom. It is such a praise to see the Lord working in them after ten years of seed planting.

Faith is starting a ladies' class this Saturday at 10:00 AM. There is a lot of interest on the part of the ladies to study. Pray that the Lord would help many of them grow and some to come to Christ for salvation during this study.

We will end with a funny story: (well, kind of sad). On Tuesday of this week, Mike heard a knock on the street door. Answering it, he found a representative from one of the two biggest TV stations here in Mexico City, TV Azteca. The man explained that they had been filming some TV programs in the neighborhood and that they were looking for another house to use to do taping. I asked what the name of the program was that they were going to be taping and how much they paid. He said that they paid $800 United States Dollars per day of taping. Wow. The name of the program: "Bellezas Indomables." I'd never heard of that program before (I've never heard of a lot of programs here though) and came back to the house to ask a friend of ours. She said that the program was a soap-opera and that it's not very good. I found out that the translation of that title means, "Untameable Beauties." Unfortunately, they aren't talking about horses. So, I grabbed a tract and went back to the door. I told the man that perhaps any other program would be able to be taped in our home, but not a soap-opera as our home should always be used for God's glory. I gave him the tract entitled, "Are you a good person, a SINNER or a saint?" The word sinner is pretty BIG like that. He gave a very sarcastic laugh.

Later that afternoon when the rest of the family was all together, I told them about that incident. The kids were of course amazed that we were offered so much money, but we explained to them why we couldn't allow our home to be used for that. (Our family devotions that morning were on the seventh commandment, "Thou shalt not commit adultery," and they were able to see the application.) It was encouraging to hear Mikey say, "Dad, I think the Lord was testing us." That was a test. (The neighbor man has been having taping done at his house and they have been there about five times in the last month.) Pray that we will be faithful testimonies to our community and our family.

We thank you for your continued prayer and support,
In Christ,
Mike for all the Goldfi