Goldfuss update (April 21)

Dear Praying Friends,

We have appreciated your prayers the last two weeks. Thank you so much.

Throughout the years many of you have prayed faithfully for several of our ladies who have difficult situations with their husbands. We ask the same from you again for four of our ladies, Martha, Guille, Tere and Juana. Martha's father died this past Friday night and she had to go to where they are from for the funeral. She has been very weak this year from an undiagnosed illness and her husband (Bruno) has been very unsupportive and even abusive to her. When she arrived at her father's home for the funeral on Saturday, she had been coughing up blood, perhaps due to the stress. Please keep Martha in your prayers. Guille's husband Alejandro said that he didn't want her coming to church anymore--this right after he came with her two weeks ago. On Monday he had a fight with his boss, was fired, and then was able to get his job back again the very next day. It was a total surprise to see him bring Guille to church and to stay with her yesterday. Please pray that our God would do a mighty work in Alejandro and save him for His glory to make him a trophy of His grace. Pray for Guille and the strength that she needs day by day to face her husband and pray for him in a very difficult situation. (Guille just called me this evening saying that her mother is also in very serious condition due to a wrong medicine she was given. Her mother says that "Guille is dead for all she cares," since Guille was saved serveral years ago. Please add this request to your prayers for Guille.) Teresa's husband Alberto is apparently having an affair. He makes Tere's life miserable in their home and told her recently that he would prefer it if she would just swear at him instead of being nice. Juana has been faithfully trying to live a Godly life before her husband (Fidel) and has had some very interesting conversations with him about eternal security--he believes that you can lose your salvation. Humanly speaking, the more Christlike these women try to be to their husbands, the more they are despised and mistreated, and in many ways that is to be expected from following in Christ's footsteps, (1 Peter 2.) Please pray for these ladies to continue to rely on Christ day by day, for their faithful testimonies in the face of persecution, and for each of their unsaved husbands who desperately need Christ.

Two weeks ago Mexico City was in the throes of pollution and heat. One night three of the children were very very sick. The ozone levels were so high that they put into place their contingency plan which made us not able to drive not only on Friday but also on Wednesday. Our rainy season does not normally start until the end of May but we had a wonderful blessing. Last Saturday it rained and really cleaned a lot of the pollution out of the air. It rained 5 of the 7 days this past week which has greened things up already and cleaned our air tremendously. What a blessing for our family and the whole city. It is a blessing that the Lord causes it to rain on both the just and the unjust---even if the first two rains of the year are acid rains.

Last Sunday we had our combined service at another church here in Mexico City that was ordaining their first deacon. There were three different preached messages and it was of great interest to several of our men as we have been studying about elders and deacons in our men's meetings. We were blessed to be able to take over 60 people to the service. It was so encouraging to see our people trying to help serve with the people from the other church. It was a very good day for all of us.

Cristi and Carissa have two new friends from their sports program that they invited to stay over this past Saturday night and to attend church with us yesterday. It was really encouraging to see the girls concern for their friends' spiritual condition. Please pray for Cherry and Atenea's salvation. Their mom Veronica is a very good friend of Faith's and they are a very catholic family.

The subject of hospitality has come up several times recently in our SS and preaching services. Yesterday Juana and Reme invited the WHOLE CHURCH to their house for traditional Mexican chicken and hominy soup--called Pozole (sounds like Po-so-lay.) It was such a blessing to see people really enjoying themselves with each other and really talking about spiritual issues and helping each other. For many years, when we would invite people to our church, they would come and they had a friendship with us, but to see them interacting with each other and truly being part of Christ's body and united in Him is a wonderful blessing. To God be the glory.

We would ask you to continue to pray for some final resolution to Juana and Reme's home and property situation. Many of you know that we have prayed about this for more than 6 years with it appearing that they were very close to losing the case and all their property and at other times hearing rumors that they will win. We haven't heard any news recently and ask for the Lord to bring about resolution to this situation.

Marcos and Ruth (Marcos is Juana's oldest son and they were married last year) have been advised that they will need to leave the house that they have been living in for about 6 months rent free. They have been thinking about moving to Cuernavaca (A city about 1 1/2 hours from here) because housing would be cheaper, but he has work here. Please pray that the will be concerned first and foremost with where they will feed their souls with preaching and the fellowship of God's people before they make any decisions based only on finances.

Nico our neighbor has an opportunity as well to buy the house that they have been the caretakers of for about 8 years. It really is above their financial means even if the owner drops the price in half as she has promised. Please pray again for the Lord's perfect will for Nico and Liliana.

Have you ever heard of bulimia in first graders? Well, it seems to be the trend right now in the school here up on the mountain. And unfortunately, little Adrianita, Nico and Lilliana's six year old, is involved in that because she thinks she is too fat. We have been helping the parents. Please pray for wisdom.

Last Saturday at our young people's meetings, we went to a "tree maze" down the road. The trees or shrubs are about 2 feet taller than I am and they have been trimmed every year for about 12 years. I am enclosing a few pictures of what it looks like from a tree above. We had a good time getting lost in it and trying to find our way out. Our Bible study was on temptation from James 1. Even though there are a great number of temptations in the world's largest city, if we were in the world's smallest place there would also be temptations from our own evil sinful hearts and our lusts. Please pray that each of us would take advantage of the power that we have in Christ to defeat the temptations that come our way constantly.

Yesterday morning at 11 AM, Uriel and Mildred became the new parents of a little boy. Please continue to pray that their repentance would be Godly repentance, that they will desire to rear their son in God's Word and way, and that they will both truly serve and love God.

I have been asked by Teresa's husband to give a "talk" this coming Saturday at their AA meeting. My talk will be preaching God's Word. Please pray that I will have the boldness and liberty to proclaim the true God and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent. There may be well over 100 people present.

We appreciate your faithful prayers and support. May you all have a great week in our risen Lord,

In Christ,
Mike for all the Goldfii

Goldfuss update (April 8)

Dear praying friends,

We missed getting our prayer update out last week. Thank you for praying anyway.

We have much for which to praise the Lord.

1. We had a men's meeting this past Saturday. Our main subject was on the necessity of male leadership from our book on elders. I really thought we would get through that chapter pretty quickly as that doesn't seem to be a problem. During our discussion, it was brought to my attention that each of the other six men present had been present in different churches when ladies preached. That started some very good and thoughtful discussion on their part. It also challenged them to be better leaders in the church and to realize that the men have to take the leadership. Some even mentioned that they should be more aware of what the ladies are teaching the children in SS. :-) The subject has come up of some of them even taking part in the teaching of the children's classes. Pray for the Lord to continue to work and prepare men to be future elders and deacons.
2. Erasmo was more attentive and alert than I have ever seen him before in our services on Sunday. That was a real blessing to see. He normally pretty much just occupies a chair. We were able to spend the afternoon and evening with them and had some very profitable spiritual conversation. Please keep Erasmo, Matilde, and their three girls who live at home with them--Abby, Vania and Uzi --all in your prayers. They are also praying about trying to sell their property so that they can buy land and a house which are cheaper up where we live. Their whole family presently lives in two rooms--one bedroom and one kitchen. They would like a bit more space to also possibly homeschool. Pray for the Lord to provide a government document that Erasmo needs to drive his taxi.
3. On Sunday I happened to look to one side and notice a miracle--Memo and Karina and their three children--David, Adriel and Alejandra--were all sitting still and listening intently to God's Word. They were there right on time to start. What a blessing and testimony to the grace of God as this family was an absolute disaster just a couple of years ago. Memo has been participating enthusiastically in the men's meeting, reading the required material and participating well in our SS. He helped serve the Lord's Supper this past Sunday too which was a blessing to see. Please pray for the Lord to continue to sanctify this family for His glory day by day.
4. Yesterday I took Jesus back to the hospital in the north of the city. His appointment was an hour later than the last one--11AM compared to 10 AM last time. Our last trip took about three hours and yesterday we made it in less than one. Our trip was a tremendous opportunity to speak with Jesus again about his soul and our conversation was very very gospel centered. Please pray for him to truly see his sin and his need of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is such a privilege to share the gospel and many times with just the daily things that need to be done here we forget about our most important job. Last week when I went to get a water truck, I took a huge stack of tracts just to hand out in my walking in the city. They were all gone by the time I had only completed half my journey. Please pray for the sowing of the Word to not return void.
5. On Saturday afternoon, Faith saw Nico in our pueblo of Santo Tomas. She asked if he needed a ride, but he declined. We found out later that he took a big bunch of tracts also and went out and handed them out. He said he had been afraid but said, "No Lord, I need to do this." He also is searching for people that he knows that used to attend a church up here but it has since disbanded due to many problems. He told people on Saturday that "A new church is going to be opening up here and this tract explains a little more what is going to be taught there." Praise the Lord for NIco's boldness and desire to serve his Saviour and Lord.
   

Prayer requests:

1. Vanessa and Janet--Mike was able to go visit them last Monday night at their home. Janet is struggling with some sin in her life. Pray that she will not let her feelings guide her, but be lead by Christ's clear commands from Scripture and His power and grace in her life to obey day by day.
2. Sra. Gloria and her mom Sra. Maria. Gloria has some type of virus on her back which burns and is very uncomfortable. They have not been able to be at our services for over five weeks now. I took their phone number to church on Sunday and shared it with the congregation to call them and encourage them. Mikey came home on Sunday night and said that he wanted to call the two Sras. He called and they said that they had already been called by five other people in the church that afternoon. :-) That was encouraging. It appears that it will be at least another month before they will be able to come back to our services
3. Erasmo and Matilde have mentioned a need of a former church of theirs in Toluca, about 1 1/2 hours to the west of Mexico City. They have asked that we find someone who can go and help some members of that church who are seeing problems in that the church is leaving Scripture for other things. There are about 20 people who are looking for good Bible teaching and preaching.
4. This coming Sunday we will be going as a church to two joint services with another church about 45 minutes from us. Most everybody is expecting to be able to attend so there will be a total of about 120-130 people. Part of one of the services in the other church is going to be the installation of their first deacon. Since we are doing some study on leadership in our men's meetings, it should be a good experience for us.
5. Saturday there is a ladies' meeting and the ladies of the church will be having a baby shower for Mildred. Mildred and Uriel you may remember were married about 2 months ago. Mildred has been coming and really listening in the services. Pray for God to save her by His grace.
   

We appreciate so much your prayers and support.

Love in Christ,
Mike for all the Goldfii