Goldfuss update (October 20)

Dear Praying Friends,

In our last update, we mentioned that Faith's cousin, Cyndi Grover was going to be visiting. She is also a GFA missionary, currently on deputation to Zambia. Our church really really enjoyed her presentation during our SS hour. Jon Crocker did an excellent job, spending about 10 hours to subtitle her DVD video presentation. We watched it twice during the hour and 15 minutes that we had for Sunday School. Once before her verbal presentation and then again after the congregation was able to ask questions. That really was a first for our church here, and the people really enjoyed it and asked some very good questions as well. What would you think if you just had seen your FIRST missionary presentation? I have probably seen several hundred during my lifetime. The believers here were very challenged toward missions. One young lady even said to a family member, "I'd like to go with her."

Morgan continues to be a blessing to the Garwoods in Uruguay. We have all missed him here, but have had tremendous reports from South America about his ministry there and the great needs that they are facing. He returns to Mexico on November 6.

Friday we will be officially 1/4 of the way through the school year. Pray for Faith, Bekah, Jon and Andrea as they are all involved in some of the teaching. The Lord has been so good to give us Bekah to help in school this year as well as Jon and Andrea for not only school but also many other ministries. They have been a tremendous encouragement. We are still looking for someone to come during second semester to help in school as the Lord directs.

This coming Sunday, we will be having a baptismal service. Memo and Karina as well as Vanessa are all planning on being baptized. Pray for a Christ-honoring time of testimony and fellowship.

Please continue to pray for Martha. She is the nurse whose husband has another woman and is abusive to Martha, she works at a very low paying job, and also seeks to provide for her two children, Frida (15) and Diego (10). Another man has shown her much affection and this has affected her. This past week she was again in the hospital with no platelets at all showing in her blood. She had three straight days of transfusions. Please pray for her and ask our God to preserve her in His paths for His glory and to increase her (and also our) love for Christ.

Humberto and Sarai are officially engaged. There is so much that both have seen growing up that has not been healthy in their own families. Please pray for wisdom in talking to them and seeking to prepare them as well as possible to glorify the Lord in their engagement, wedding, and married lives. Mike is meeting with them each Thursday evening. They are planning a June wedding.

Last week a young man that we know attempted suicide two times. The Lord enabled Mike to go and speak with him about Christ and the gospel 3 different times and each time was very very encouraging. Please pray for this young man and his family. The father is also unsaved and we had some very good opportunites to present the gospel again to him as well.

This past Sunday we finished our very detailed indepth study of Hebrews--almost two years. It has been an incredible learning experience to see how great, awesome, matchless, and superior is our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ to everything and everyone else in this universe. We had several testimonies at the end of our class on Sunday morning and several people mentioned how much of a blessing it has been to study Hebrews and to really realize that when God the Father looks at us, He does not see sinners but Christ. What an amazing God!!!!!!!!! What an amazing Savior!!!!!!!! What amazing thoughts!!!!!!

Please pray that the Lord would open our understanding to see the glories and riches that we have in Jesus Christ.

Please keep Faith's mom in your prayers. She spent a couple days in the hospital last week as she was dizzy and had high blood pressure. Pray for the doctors to have wisdom to be able to find and treat the problem.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support. We'll include again Morgan's latest prayer update from Uruguay below.

In Christ,
Mike for all the Goldfii

Update from Pando, Uruguay
October 19, 2009

Three weeks have gone by since the first update on my stay here in Uruguay. The longer I am here, the more worrisome it is to see how kids, teenagers and young people are being lost because of sin in different forms. It also worries me to see how indifferent the adults are towards the younger generation, and I see that there is also a great need to continue ministering actively to the adults.

Many of these young people live with step-parents, or with a single parent: most of them live in very precarious situations, and they receive only a very limited education. For the older ones, work is very scarce. and so many of them are just on the street wasting time, stealing, doing drugs. Drugs, like everywhere else in the world, have come to be a very severe problem, and have come here to this city in force. There's a lot of violence and theft, but according to the older people and even the news media, that only began a couple of years ago.

Girls are getting pregnant from the time they're twelve years old. This place is in itself a whole world full of problems. There are some adults, but there are mostly teenagers, young people, and kids, and so that is the main field for labor, at least in this town of Pando.

The pastor and his wife have done a gigantic work drawing so many young people to the church, but as the pastor said to one of them this week: "Are you coming to church? I can't play with you guys because I'm old, but he can" - speaking about me.

The church is mostly made up of women. They face a lot of things alone, with sickness and the economy, since a lot of them are single mothers or their husbands don't work. There's a lot of sickness as well, I suppose because of ignorance in conjunction with the extreme poverty in which many of them live. A little while ago a mother lost her daughter who had just been born; a three-year old boy has leukemia; another girl, also three years old, lost part of a lung through illness; a boy was sexually abused by his own dad; a 14-year old lives with his grandmother because his mother and stepfather hate him.... Notwithstanding, many of these women and children remain faithful. But men are needed for the work to advance. I hope someone knows of an individual or a couple who can come here to this place to work, because the need is great. And so I ask that you would please pray earnestly for the work here in Uruguay, that God would save His people, sending someone or raising someone up in this place for the church to grow.

As I said, Pastor Garwood and his wife have done an enormous work here. But Pastor Garwood is up in years, and he himself told me, that like every Christian he wants to see God, but if God permits wants to stay here in this world until he can leave someone here in the church to teach good doctrine so that the church would continue to grow. It is hard for him as well, as continuing to preach is a difficult task. And so as he says, there is need for a young person to take his place and carry on the work. Last Saturday, the pastor had an accident while we were at the house: he tripped on the computer chair, fell, and banged his left ear against the closet door, so his ear split and he bled heavily. We went to the hospital right away and he had to receive stitches. Thank the Lord that everything came out OK, but it is very important that someone come to minister in this church.
Please

Goldfuss update (October 1)

Dear Praying Friends,

Our big blessing of the past week was seeing Morgan off from the airport on Thursday morning for his missionary trip to Uruguay. He arrived safe and sound and very tired. There was a 3 1/2 hour flight to Panama, with only 20 minutes to get his next plane. How long would you guess a flight from Panama to Uruguay takes? 9:45 minutes. Check out a map to see how far away it really is. That was a surprise to me too. We'll include his first update below. The church family gave him a wonderful send off on Wednesday night. We all miss him.

We had two firstime visitors on Sunday, both the direct result of a tract or a direct witness/invite from someone in the church. It was very encouraging. The family of Sr. Pedro and Sra. Leticia has been coming sporadically throughout the summer. Their son in law, Luis, was one that received a tract this past week---so he joined the family! It was wonderful to see the Lord's working. We praise Him for seeing fruit from labors. Please pray for Luis and Eduardo to be saved.

Victor and Shelley Labelle have been down here since January. Victor grew up as a MK in Cuernavaca and now is working in Mexico City for at least two years for his bank in the USA. Sarah Grace Labelle made her arrival on Friday evening! Both Shelley and Sarah are doing well. Needless to say, the other 3 children are very excited. The people in the church got together a very nice basket full of things for the new baby. It is great to see our church people's concern for their family.

Faith's cousin, Cyndi Grover, is coming for a week beginning today!. She is also a GFA missionary, is going on deputation to Zambia, and we are looking forward to seeing a missionary presentation in SS this Sunday. This will be a wonderful opportunity for our church people as they have never before seen a missionary presentation.

Saturday we are having another one of our COLD creek walks with the church family and then a nice dinner at our home afterward. We are also planning a baptismal service for October 11. Please pray for the Lord to work out all of the details for a Christ honoring service.

We were without electricity since this past Saturday night until Wednesday afternoon. We want to thank the Lord for those of you who helped us purchase our generator last year. What an incredible blessing! The generator saved all of our food in the freezer---and without it, our poor children would not have been able to do their school videos! They are so grateful! (HA HA). Really, we could basically go on as usual with our daily routine because of your kindness. (Only poor Mike has been running around trying to keep everything running.) Thank you so much. You can only imagine the scene these last few days: (we have 4 extension cords to hook up different items) "Mike, can I do a load of laundry?" "Mommy, I need to do history now, but Mikey has the cord." "Mom, I'm done, should I haul the big electric cord into Matthew's room so that he can do his Phonics?" "There's no water. Let's unplug the kitchen cord so that we can plug in the pump to pump the water up to the roof." "If you do that, then when you are done let Bekah know so that she can do History with Cristi." It has been a mental challenge to keep the family running well, but an adventure. The lights came back on yesterday, but we are not so sure if the problem is completely fixed. Because of a problem with the electric company, we were prepared for being without electricity for a very long time. The wonderful blessing was that we have met several more of our neighbors through all of this.

Bekah Buccio has been such a tremendous help. We knew at the beginning of the year that she was only able to stay for first semester. If there is a young person (or old person ;) who would be interested in dedicating second semester to the Lord to help with homeschooling, please contact us. Every day is an interesting adventure and the Lord will teach you many things as he stretches you! (Just an added commercial)

I know that Morgan's letter is long also. Sorry for that, but it is such a joy to see how he is learning and growing through this experience. We want to share that with you.

Thank you for your prayers,

In Christ,

Mike and Faith for all the Goldfii

Update from Uruguay
Monday, September 28, 2009

The time difference from Mexico to Uruguay is 2 hours, so while in Mexico it it 3:00 PM in Uruguay it is 5:00 PM. The plane trip was very long and tiring. Before this trip I wanted to fly on a plane, but now I dread the return to Mexico! Thursday I arrived in the Montevideo airport, which is very small compared to the Mexico City airport, but larger than the Panama City airport. Uruguay has a very cold climate; they say we are coming out of winter into spring. In Panama the heat was terrible. At the Montevideo airport, Pastor Garwood and his wife, Pat, were there to meet me. Finding them was easy and they are very friendly and hospitable. Pastor Garwood looks like he's about 70-75 years old, and his wife in between 50-60, but I'm not really sure. They work very hard to give out the Gospel and to bring people to church, even though they somewhat elderly and it's difficult for them to be doing so much, nonetheless their love for the souls of people overcomes their aches and pains and age.

So then Friday I officially got to work. We went to visit church people. First of all was Señor Efraín, his wife Ana, and his grandsons Gonzalo and Sebastián. After I was introduced and we spent some time talking Pastor Garwood gave a short devotional. The grandson's mother does not go to church with the rest of them. Then we went to see Julia, who is between 40 and 50 years old. She has two children, Pablo (18) and Leila (21), her husband is named Gustavo, and only Julia is a believer. Sometimes her husband mistreats her, not hitting her or anything like that, but using harsh words. He had an operation recently for tumors in his head, but was left with some side effects and symptoms. Her children also mistreat her, not a lot, but enough. Julia had a son, steopson to Gustavo, who died: it appears he committed suicide, and it looks like it was Gustavo's fault, since he called him "illegitimate" and similar things, so the boy became depressed and maybe that was why he kiled himself. The words of Christ that the world will hate us were very applicable. After that we went downtown to do some shopping for household items, and went back to eat. In the afternoon we went out again to visit more people, one of whom was Susana, who is a single mother, about 40 years old, and she is now living with a man who is not at all Christian. The pastor says she attended very faithfully, but now she doesn't want to go anymore, since she doesn't want to leave the man she's living with who draws her away from church. After that we went to see some more people, but they were not at home.

Saturday afternoon there was the young people's meeting, which is where the pastor and his wife really have a great ministry. The group is made up of kids from 3 up to young people about 20 years old. In all there are about 30 or more in this group. It is interesting to see that though most of their parents don't go, that notwithstanding they are mostly faithful in coming. It seems to be a part of the culture here that kids are very much left alone by their parents to make important decisions, without the parents taking much interest. Here young people and kids have a lot of protection from the government, and so since parents can't "abuse" them with discipline, the young people are more rebellious towards their parents, compared to Mexicans. Here there is no law to prevent that, and besides that, most of these kids and young people don't go to school, because 1.) the cultural mindset is that they don't go anymore, 2.) extreme poverty prevents many from going to school, and 3.), like everywhere, poverty and ignorance contribute to troubled youth. There are a lot of girls who at 19 or 20 already have two or more kids, and drugs are another big problem in these areas. But I have noticed that a lot of them are pretty grounded. Pastor Garwood has told me that a lot of the young people ask him and his wife for permission to do or not do things that they really should be asking their parents, and that when he has scolded them they have responded well, and aren't rebellious towards him. I think that's because they can tell that the pastor and his wife care about them, but they can't see that with their parents.

So then Saturday the pastor asked me to give a devotional for them. It was only 25 minutes, and it was fine. I played soccer with them, which is the favorite sport here. Everybody lives and dies by soccer, even the women are entranced. Then we went to drop everyone off at their houses. Mrs. Garwood has to go drop everyone off because the whole neighborhood, the whole town of Pando is very dangerous. As I said, because of poverty, drugs, and the lack of education. So a few years aho, when they didn't go for the young people but everyone came on their own, one of them was run over by a bus, because the roads are very narrow and big busses go by. So this young man died. They say it's dangerous to go out walking as well, because they would get mugged (even though they don't have much). So that's why the Garwoods drop them all off at their houses, because otherwise the parents wouldn't let them come (which is ironic, that this is the only thing the parents oppose strongly: one mother told Mrs. Garwood that going to church a lot atrophied your brain, and that's why her son goes on Saturdays and no other day). Saturday night after the young people's meeting we went to a family dinner with the pastor's son, Daniel, because they were having a party for his 12-year old daughter, Florencia. We were there for a long time and I got to meet a lot of very nice people. Don Mario is Daniel's father-in-law, he told me about their culture. I met Señora Docila and Julia, they go to another church here in Pando: that church and Pastor Garwood's church are the only churches in Pando with sound doctrine. There I also got to eat the best meat I'd ever had - the flavor of beef in Uruguay is supremely delicious: the meat here is real meat.

On Sunday the morning meeting, which is Sunday school, starts very early, at 9:30, and they sing a few songs for the young people. Then they have the classes, broken down by age. Mrs. Garwood, the pastor, and Daniel, the pastor's son, each one has a certain age range. He also asked me to give a devotional, and that was fast too, I wasn't prepared, but I said something about Samson, which was fine. We went back to the house, after dropping everyone off at home, we ate, and at 3:30 we had to go out again because the afternoon service starts at 4:30, but once again you have to go get everyone, young people and adults, from their houses one by one.

So we started the service, and it was very cold. Pando, like all Uruguay, is nothing but open plains, so the wind blows very hard and very cold. They said that the cold that day was unusual and surprising. It would seem that's why a few people, about 5 ot 6, didn't make it. We sang some hymns, and then the pastor asked me to give my testimony for about 15 or 20 minutes. So I did, and then he preached, we finished the meeting and all said good bye and went home. The people were very welcoming to me.

That's the most newsworthy stuff so far. There is a great need here: the people have a lot of problems and difficulties. A lot of bad things happen to people here. One lady told us that a little while ago they broke into her house and stole almost everything. A boy was raped by his dad. Gustavo has that mental problem because of the tumors and can't work well. Poverty attacks a lot of them very strongly, and many other things - I wouldn't know how to finish such a big list. Please pray for God to provide somebody, or a couple, so that the pastor can have help. The pastor and his wife, as I said, are of an advanced age, and at some point they're going to have to stop working. So the people here need someone with more energy to preach to them and evangelize and teach God's word. The pastor's son works, so he doesn't have time to do everything in this work.

God bless you all in Christ
Morgan Bernal