goldfuss update

If you can't read the pasted text below, you can read the pdf attached.
mike

Thank you so much for praying!!!
1. The graduation went so well. Many unsaved as well as church
people came. The gospel was given by both the graduate and the
principal (Mike). An overwhelming blessing was that all of the
church people brought most of the food for the graduation. They
wanted to do that for Mikey.
2. The baptisms were a huge blessing!
Dinora gave testimony how she was deep into drugs and
alcohol and then tried to kill herself. The Lord did not let
her die. Her cousin Bris invited her to church a year ago, and
she was saved. She asked for continued prayer about her
cigarette addiction. Her sweet testimony left some in tears.
Coni told how she thought that her then boyfriend was
crazy when he told her about the gospel. She was saved at a
Christian retreat several years back, but she did not understand
many things. The Lord brought them to our church about a year
ago also, and she began to understand more. She said that she
had not been taught how to live the Christian life. Please pray
for her continued growth.
Mikey told how he made a profession in first grade, but
now he realizes that it was just mainly because he was afraid of
hell. As he grew he really thought that he was a really good
kid because he knew so much about the Bible. In Junior high The
Lord began showing him how sinful he really was, and he turned
from his sin to the Lord. He has really enjoyed his Bible
reading and study in high school.
The baptisms were such a blessing to all!
Now we have a huge prayer request: The VAN SITUATION.
We have been dealing with this all year. First of all, the
Mexican government wanted anyone who had been here for a long
period of time to become Mexican residents. When all of that
finally came to be (much paperwork), one of the stipulations was
that we needed a Mexican vehicle or to have our old van
nationalized.
Mike began looking into nationalizing our vehicle. He visited
the government places and called on the phone. When he asked
how to process, he always got different answers. (Literally 5
or 6 different answers). Sensing that we might get into trouble
no matter what we did and then have to pay thousands of dollars
to legalize the van, we decided to buy a used Mexican vehicle.
The Lord provided very generous help from one kind family for
our vehicle situation.
We first purchased a new small economical car for when just a couple of
people in the family need to be somewhere to save gas. That small car
has been such a super blessing! No problems whatsoever. Mike can use it
for visiting, and I use it when I only have to take some of the kids
somewhere. It has dropped our gas consumption to where we are paying
less than ½ of the huge cost of before. Such a blessing.
But we do need a van for Sundays, Wednesdays, and furlough. Also, we
need the van whenever we need to take our whole family somewhere.
#1. So Mike purchased a used van that seemed to fit our needs. We took a
mechanic with us who gave his approval. We knew it needed some work but
had enough money to fix it up a little. (Now we say "a little, haha.)
#2. We paid to rebuild the engine and the transmission—it took them 2
months. After a couple weeks, it was not better; so we had to take it
back. The other shop where the head mechanic worked told us that the
mechanic who had "fixed our van" didn't do anything to it but that they
would fix it. They had it for 2 ½ more months—now the engine is good,
but the transmission is still broken and he says he's "done."
#3. So, we have had to send it to a different mechanic for the 3rd time.
He says the transmission is still not the right one for our van. He's
working on it now but saying, "We have to charge you more because blah
blah blah." You can sue someone here, but we've heard it takes sometimes
years. And then there's no guarantee that you'll get your money back.
All of these people were recommended to us by friends.
I forgot to say that we had to pay $500 to get our papers for the car.
You need to go to a man that does this. The man, a friend of a friend,
took the money and never got the papers. (Maybe he used it for something
else, but he did not get the papers.) Now he has paid about $100 back,
but still owes the $400 and will not answer his phone. A second man did
do the papers correctly.
Everyone was recommended by people who were trying to help us, and these
people feel terrible. But this is how it is here. This is also why
people (including us), want to buy cars in the States. But this is what
we needed to be to be able to stay in Mexico.
We are not asking you for more funds, but we REALLY NEED YOUR PRAYERS.
We were hoping to leave for the US today or tomorrow. The van won't be
ready until tomorrow at the earliest and then we'll need a day to get a
few more small things done on it. When the van gets fixed, we will head
up to the States. We won't be able to visit a lot of churches but we do
want to visit some.
Please pray for Jon Crocker and for the men of the church who will be
helping to fill in while we are gone—mainly, Memo, Alberto and Humberto.
We will drop off Mikey for college, Lord-willing, in late August and
then head back down to Mexico. We haven't been able to schedule a lot of
meetings yet because of the uncertainty with the van situation. In other
words, we do not know what we are doing.
However, we are not just twiddling our thumbs waiting. We are finishing
school with the little ones. We are also trying to leave the house ready
for the next school year as we will be 3 weeks behind once we get back
from the States. Mike is also doing more visiting and counseling which
will be surprising to our people because we already said goodbye to
everyone on Sunday---with many hugs and tears shed for Mikey.
Mikey said this morning, "We can't go to church again on Wednesday
because we already said goodbye." It really was difficult.
We are also trying to have godly responses to all of these frauds. The
Lord continues to mold us more into Christ's image and it is painful
many times. May we continue to be submissive to what He has for us.
Thank you so much for your prayers!
Mike and Faith for all the Goldfii