Goldfuss update (1/3/2012)

Dear Prayer Partners,

Happy 2012!!! We are so thankful for your support during this last year, and we are praying that the Lord will enable all of us to put as our first priority—knowing Him intimately. In 2011, the Lord allowed us to finish our new church building in five months. The Lord also allowed some serious difficulties and trials for many of the men in the church this past year. This has been a cause of much heartache and sadness, but also, much maturity for some. Please pray for them for daily wisdom.

During this past year, Mike preached about the Christian warfare, forgiveness, the Lord’s prayer, victory over sin, and glorifying God—thinking correctly about God and helping others to think correctly about God. This involves both soul-winning and discipleship of others. Lourdes, a lady in our church, showed us wonderful slides from her trip to Israel. This was such a blessing to all as we could clearly see the places referenced in the Bible.

As we begin the new year, we would like to share with you some of our goals for the church during 2012.

1.    To preach through 1 Corinthians which deals with our sin vs. what we are called to be as saints in Christ.

2.    In Sunday school, we will be doing a class on Christian doctrine and collectively forming our own church doctrinal statement.

3.    In the men’s meeting, we will be focusing on preaching and sermon preparation.

4.    The ladies will be combining fellowship with service by beautifying the church as well as having devotional times combined with special prayer for the needs of our people.

5.    We will continue to teach the children systematically through the Bible while training teacher’s assistants who are between the ages of 10–18. We are hoping to add our sixth Sunday school teacher who rotates teaching the children’s class. There are eight teacher’s assistants who are both helping while learning how to be teachers.

6.    Beginning two more Bible studies.

We have been encouraged by the willingness of our people to see needs and then do the work.

1.    One young man, Beto, has volunteered to do the church calendars. He also volunteered to lead the song services. His willingness led to many of the men being put into a rotation to lead the services.

2.    Another young couple, Jorge and Cecilia, have decided that they would arrive early on Sunday mornings to invite people who were passing by the church. They have been able to give out a great number of tracts this way. This has been a great encouragement to us.

3.    Jason and Danielle Boyle, a former intern, just yesterday began services in their home (about 30 minutes away) with 11 in attendance! We are greatly encouraged by this new church plant. We are happy that they will still be able to be with us during our mid-week service.

Some prayer requests for the church:

1.    Individual finances of our people. Most have made less money this year, but have seen the Lord provide and do more with less money. Their faith has been challenged, but we can see how these families have put the Lord first—and he has provided! While this is a praise, we would ask you to continue to pray for stable work for our men.

2.    Salvation of family members. Lala, Lourdes, Teresa, Silvia, Vanessa, and Nico all are the only ones in their homes that are saved. Pray for the Lord to encourage their hearts and for their testimonies and boldness.

3.    Two families who will be leaving. The LaBelles have been with us for 2½ years. Victor, the father, is a former MK from Cuernavaca. During their time with us, Victor has played the piano and held training classes for all of the Sunday school teachers and the assistants. Shelley has been such a blessing supplying the Sunday school teachers with craft supplies as well as baking treats for our break in between our services.

4.    Jorge and Cecilia Vergara are returning to Peru for six months of classes. Jorge has been working on his doctorate here for 1½ years. They are now returning to Peru and then coming back with us for another year of studies.

5.    Three couples in our little church who would love to be able to have children.

6.    Two new couples. Lenin and Mariana have been relocated to Mexico City by his company. They have been waiting several months for their things to be relocated from the States. Please pray as they settle in. They have a desire to serve. Sr. Alberto, who visited just last Sunday, is interested in coming with his wife and child. He seems to have a clear testimony. He was drawn by our new sign out front. They have been attending a church in the north of the city where he grew up. That church is three hours away.

7.    Salvation

·      Fernando has been faithful attending for the last three months. He has come to our church in years past, but his main problem is not believing a fundamental doctrine—that Jesus is God. The Lord seems to be working in his heart.

·      Luis: Carina’s brother who has been faithful for six months. Along with reading his Bible, he has been reading The Christ-Centered Life and a book about humility.

·      Pedro: One of the very first people who we met here in Mexico has begun coming to church and has been faithful in just prayer meeting for about six months. This is truly the Lord’s working. Pedro understands many things—pray for his genuine conversion.

·      Lilliana: Nico’s wife.

·      Erasmo and Matilde: who after many years still want to work for their salvation.

8.    Jon and Andrea Crocker who are on deputation to come back to Mexico City and plant a church in the center of the city. 

Requests from the homefront:

1.    Homeschooling: Thanks to Lauren and Bethany, we finished half of the school year already! This is a first! They are both returning tomorrow to begin second semester. A special prayer request is that we are planning an art/Bible Club for the children in our neighborhood for Fridays. First semester Lauren gave an art class to our children and the children in our church. Now we are opening the class up to the children in the neighborhood with Bethany teaching the Bible class. Please also pray for Cristi’s continued progress with schoolwork regarding her dyslexia. The prayer request is for endurance. Cristi is reading well, but just gets tired after five or six pages. We think that teaching typing early to her might continue to help with her spelling which is much improved. Praise the Lord that learning the material, taking tests, and applying the knowledge are not a problem.

2.    Homesteading: We have been having problems in three areas: electricity, water, and garbage. The electricity has been so low that we have had trouble doing household chores. Our generator sometimes helps, but at other times is not sufficient and is very expensive to run continually. Three loads of laundry has become an all day task. Also, the water trucks are way behind schedule. The government is running out of money to subsidize the water trucks. We have had to buy extra loads at over $100 per truck. The Lord has graciously provided the money, but please pray that this problem will be resolved before we will have to buy the five trucks that we normally need per month. (All shower and washing machine water are used for several different things.) Also, we just read that the “largest garbage dump in the world” has been closed. One problem. They have not opened another one. Apparently most people still have service, but others have had garbage piling up. With thirty plus million in the metropolitan area of Mexico City, these situations can become very serious in a hurry.
We still love living here, and even enjoy trying to ration and figure out how to improvise our situations. For example, the boys are trying to figure out how to catch the rain water from the roof, to filter it, and to be able to use it for laundry and for showers. All of this is an excellent education for the children, and we praise the Lord for it.

We end with the Lord’s wonderful mercy upon us. One day when we were not at home, a fire started in the dryer in the back of the cabin where Lauren and Bethany stay. We had been using that dryer because there was not enough electricity in the house. Reme saw the fire and then heard a big swoooosh. She thought the gas was going to blow up the cabin, yet she bravely turned off the gas! Then quickly the fire was mostly out. Reme was able to finish putting out the fire with several buckets of water. The swoosh ended up being water spraying everywhere from a burnt through water hose from the washing machine! The water put out the large fire under the cabin! Really, God put out the fire! We are reminded that our lives and belongings are always in his hands.

Thank you again for your loving prayers and support!

With much love,

The Goldfusses: Mike, Faith, Mikey, Cristi, Carissa, Matthew, Cherith, and Caralyn—Lauren and Bethany too.

P.S. Pray for Mike as he will be preaching at the Ohio Bible Fellowship Winter Conference and will be gone from January 12–16. Faith will be manning the homefront. Your prayers are appreciated for both.

Goldfuss prayer update (11/3/2011)

Dear Praying Friends,

 We are sorry that we have been extremely lax in the last few months about writing. We went through about 2 months where our internet service was very bad. It would take hours to send a simple email. There have also been a number of discouragments, but the Lord has been showing Himself strong and faithful in spite of each difficult circumstance. The Lord has been using difficulties to strengthen the men in the church here and mold them into leaders. Just in the past several weeks, they have made some big spiritual decisions for the church and two of them, Nico and Gabriel, have preached for us. Pray for the Lord to continue to raise up men to lead His church here. A few interesting ministry opportunities have presented themselves recently.

• Mike had the chance to preach at an Alcoholics Anonymous anniversary group several weeks ago. There were 200 people in attendance. During Mike's message, probably around 1/3 of the people just kept on talking and laughing at their tables, totally disregarding what was being said. There was a lot of noise as well from kids running around. Praise the Lord though that the gospel was given--three folks from our church handed out tracts to everyone as soon as the message was done. Pray for the Lord to bring an increase from this sowing of the seed of His Word. Last night at our midweek service, we had a lady visit for the first time due directly to the fact that she was at that meeting. Please pray for Jessica and many spiritual needs.
• The past several days in Mexico have been the "days of the dead." There are altars set up in many homes, schools, streets and cemeteries to honor the dead. Food and drink are placed at these different altars. Supposedly on these nights, the souls of the dead people come back to eat of the food that is offered to them. Just on Monday alone, we had the opportunity to speak to three people about why death exists and to use that as a springboard into giving the precious gospel of Christ who came that He might deliver those who through fear of death, have all their lifetime been subject to bondage (Hebrews 2:14,15).
• Faith takes the kids down the mountain for their different activities normally 4 afternoons per week. She has recently begun English studies with a good number of ladies and has had several good opportunities with some of them. Please pray that in all of our family's activities our highest goal would be to think correctly about Christ and to have other people think correctly about Him as well through our words and actions.
• The following little letter was written by Carissa and given to the Hearts and Hands ladies at our home church, Bible Community in Ohio. These ladies wanted to hear/read about the ministry through the eyes of one of our children. We really enjoyed the letter, and we think that it would be a good primer on our family and ministry here in Mexico City, so we would like to share her letter with you also. 

"I want to thank all of you for praying for us as we serve Christ here in Mexico. I, Carissa Goldfuss, on behalf of my family write to inform you about our ministry. Mikey is 15, Cristi is 13, I'm 12, Matthew is 8, Cherith is 7, Caralyn is 4, and as for my parents, they would rather I not say. The church is in an area called Padierna. We have a total of about eighty people. The church is growing spiritually, even through the some serious trials that God has sent. A few weeks ago, a man in the church that my dad has trained, preached for him while he spoke at a different meeting of unbelievers. It's amazing how God is opening doors for us to minister to the people. We live about a half hour from the church next to a mountain (still in the city) that is called "El Pico del Aguila," which means, the beak of the eagle. It is called that because it looks like an eagle with it's wings spread out, flying. Because we are basically on the mountain, it gets about 10° C cooler than down in the city. In the winter, sometimes it gets cold enough to get a small amount snow on the top of the mountain. But even then, in the city in the summer, it can get to the into the high 70's or even 80's. When it gets like that, the weather is beautiful for us because we are up in the mountains. Most of the people are very open to the gospel and are friendly. Sometimes the people think that they are lower than Americans because they are darker and for that reason, they hesitate to look you in the eye and give short answers and act as if they are unworthy to speak to you. We are accepted by them because we talk to them and they feel happy that we want to talk to them. My favorite things about being a missionary are being able to speak and understand Spanish. Being able to speak the language allows me to tell others about Christ and what he has done for us by sending us his Son to die for our sins on the cross. I have been 12 years on the mission field, and our church is 15 years old. One of the challenges that we face is the traffic. On Wednesday's, we go from our sports to church. It's only about ten minutes away, but with traffic, it can be up to a half hour or more! I have lots of favorite verses, but my favorite one is 1Peter 5:7, "Casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you." It is my favorite one because we don't have to worry because God has everything under control and He cares for us. If you would, please pray for the church, that it would truly grow spiritually and in number. As well, please pray for the men, that they would continue to take more leadership. As well, pray for more Bible studies to be established. Also, pray that God would supply a godly man to take control of the church so we can move on and start a new one. And finally, please pray for a man that was in our church and was a leader, that he would come to repentance, and may God let him see his sin. I want to thank all of you for praying for us as missionaries in Mexico and that God would keep using us to plant the seeds of the Gospel and we will wait and pray for the Lord to send the rain and fruit. Thank you all for your support and prayers,

Love, The Goldfuss Family (Carissa)

Prayer update (8/15)

Dear Praying Friends,

It has been quite a full and busy summer. We praise the Lord for His safety, blessing and guidance throughout each activity, blessing and trial that He has brought our way.

We were very blessed to have Mike's mom visit in May. The whole family enjoyed her visit as it's been about 3 years since she got down to our neck of the woods. :-)

Also in May, a single girl in our church, Vanessa, was able to leave to go to a Christian university in Monterrey for 3 months. She just arrived back 2 weeks ago. We greatly missed her and her ministry to our church for those three months, but trust that the Lord has taught her many things that she will be able to use the rest of her life in our Lord's service.

Our new building has been a blessing. We have had several new visitors for which we praise the Lord. A wonderful blessing is that Pedro and Veronica have been attending almost every Wednesday night since we moved in. Pedro helped Mike when we first arrived in Mexico by correcting all of the grammar in his sermons. Please pray that the Lord would graciously save them.

For the first time, thanks to Rachel and Jessica, everyone was able to finish school in May. We were wondering if it would be a possibility to go to Houston, Texas to visit with Faith's mom and dad. Due to their schedule and ours, there was only about a 1 week window where it would work out for both of us. We were waiting for our Mexican residency papers to be renewed and were not sure if we would get them in time for that one week window. The Lord worked everything out and we were able to all meet in Houston (Faith's parents live in PA.) We were able to spend a very nice week with them. Greenwood Village Baptist Church in Houston has an apartment that they loaned to us for the whole week. It was wonderful and they were very kind to us. The weather was over 100 degrees each day, and the air conditioned apartment was perfect.

On our trip back down to Mexico City, we stopped in Monterrey and were able to visit Vanessa. That was a blessing for us and hopefully for her as well. As many of you know, the situation in Mexico with the drug lords and violence is very dangerous. The Lord allowed us to pass 6 army caravans all headed north as we drove up to the border and we were thankful for the added protection. On our way back down, we had an equally uneventful trip. We are truly thankful to the Lord for His protection.

Many of you may remember that we had major plumbing problems back in February. We were waiting to get the funds and helpful workers for a number of months to try to get that fixed. As soon as we arrived back home from Houston, we found out that the construction worker had been able to come. He had torn out the whole floor in our bathroom and about 1/2 the floor in the kids bathroom. One of the copper pipes had a fairly good sized hole in it--hence the gallons and gallons of water that poured through down into Mike's study for several MONTHS. After about 3 or 4 weeks, we were finally able to get the pipes fixed, the concrete repoured and new tile laid again. Thank the Lord that we are back to being able to use those two bathrooms upstairs after almost 6 months of them being out of commission.

On July 7, a team of teens from our home church visited for 1 week, lead by the Wickmans. They were a big help with some projects around the house, with putting labels on tracts, passing out tracts and just being friends with our kids. It was challenging because our two bathrooms upstairs were out of order. Then one of the other bathrooms had a breakdown as well. But we all managed, without complaining, and the Lord helped us to get many things done that He wanted us to get done.

On July 14, our three oldest, Mikey, Cristiana, and Carissa accompanied the team back to Mentor, Ohio for camp at Peniel Bible Camp. They were not able to attend last year, so they were very excited for camp this year and for the chance to see friends that they have made there throughout the years. It is great to have them back home again though.

Two weeks ago we had our VBS. We started on Monday with 22, Tuesday with 35, Wednesday with 37 and ended on Thursday with 43. It was great to be able to proclaim the gospel to our church children as well as a good number of children who had never heard it before. Please pray as we seek to follow up on the new families.

The last two Lord's days brought us a good bit of unwanted excitement. Last Sunday, during our Sunday school hour (and a half), a taxi backed right up to our van (out of sight of the church) and stole our full size extra spare tire--right out from under the van. Mikey and Elias walked out right as they had loaded the tire in their taxi and when they got down to look under the van, the taxi drove off with the tire. That's when they realized it was ours. This morning we arrived at church to find our offering box outside, broken into and ruined. Someone late yesterday afternoon or last night broke into the church and was obviously looking for money. There were a number of things strewn about but praise the Lord the microwave and our small sound system were still there. The thief or thieves made off with only about 20 dollars and the electric keyboard that the children's class uses. Please pray that the Lord would give us protection, wisdom in how to make things a bit more secure and faith and trust in Him. These situations have been very unifying for the church. I wish you could have heard Nico's prayer this morning as he prayed for the thieves and for ourselves to not become bitter. Mike also made us realize that we still have our salvation---and that, no one can steal away from us!

We praise the Lord for two school teachers again to help Faith this year. Lauren and Bethany have arrived and are all ready to begin the new school year with Faith tomorrow. I think most of the kids are even ready. :-) Pray for a good beginning to the school year and for our children to learn and be prepared for whatever our great God has for them to do.

We greatly appreciate and depend on your prayers.

In Christ,
Mike for all the Goldfii

Goldfuss update 5/15

Praise the Lord we are in the new building!
After 4 1/2 months and work parties almost every Saturday, the Lord allowed us to have our first service in the new building. An excellent group worked from 9:30 AM until 7:30PM last night finishing and moving the church! The Lord gave us an incredible group, but we haven't had our official GRAND OPENING yet. We have a few more things to try to get finished, but we are in. We are going to have several weeks of rest on Saturdays hopefully, and then plan to spend a couple of Saturdays inviting people around the new building to our services. Then we will have a special GRAND OPENING THANKSGIVING service. This was an area where we previously lived, so we know so many of the people. Praise the Lord that all pitched in so much! We have included pictures. Thank you for supporting us with your prayers.
In Christ,
Mike for all the Goldfii

Goldfuss update (April 12)

Dear Prayer Partners,

The work on the new church building continues to progress. When all the work is with cement, brick and concrete, not to mention construction workers who don't show up, extreme makeover in one week is impossible. :-) We have been working now for over 4 months almost every Saturday and a good number of the church people have helped just about every possible time. This is a big drain on a lot of the people as of course it's their only day off for the week. Praise the Lord for the good attitudes of many helpers. The new place is right around the corner from where we first lived when we came to Mexico City 15 years ago. We still have a lot of contacts, friends and acquaintances from that area where the seed was sown for several years. Some have already told us to let them know when we move in to the building there. They said they would come and visit. Pray for the Lord to be preparing hearts and drawing more people to Him for His glory. Pray for this physical work to be useful for a spiritual harvest.

At the beginning of January, we moved out of the building we had been in for over 10 years. We moved into Sra. Gaby's good sized living and dining room. Due to many trials in her own family, they, and consequently we as a church, are going to have to move out of her house. We still have several weeks of work left in the new building before we can move everything over there. Pray that we will be able to finish up the work quickly.

The believers here have a saying that Satan does not just sit around with his arms crossed. This is true. We have been studying the Christian's War in this world and the armor that God has provided. This warfare has been raging in the church here. There are many problems in the church as well as much spiritual growth among the believers. We have really felt a sifting in the past several months. Some people did not receive our last prayer update in which we mentioned that Morgan and his family have left the church. It has been an extremely difficult time for several, including us. Pray that the Lord would grant them repentance to make things right. The intensity of the many problems has a two fold effect--it is refining those who are true believers, and it is also weeding out those who may have just a false profession of faith. Please pray for the Lord's protection and care for His flock here. We need your prayers so much.

On a postitive note, Vanessa is going to be going to a Christian university in Monterrey for 3 or 4 months. We are going to miss her greatly in the work here. Pray for her to grow and be a testimony of Christ's grace in her life as she is away from us. She will be leaving us on the night of Resurrection Sunday. Faith will be accompanying her for 2 or 3 days. I am going to fly them up due to the violence in that area---and also to get Faith back here sooner. :) Please pray for grace, strength and protection for both of them.

Over a month ago we had more leaking in my office ceiling. It got progressively worse throughout Sunday and Monday. Monday night I finally took a drill and drilled through about 5 inches of concrete and rebar to release all the water that was collecting up there. When I finally made it through that layer, water came out like a faucet had been turned on full force. We filled up a 5 gallon bucket in less than two minutes. We have had over 100 gallons of water come through the ceiling. The pipes to that section have been shut since the day after the drilling, but we continue to have constant drips (over 4 weeks later) due to so much water collecting there. To our horror, the leaking became worse when the toilets were used! So somehow the leak involves everything in both bathrooms! Having sewer water dripping around all of my wonderful books is not a real blessing. BUT the Lord is in control, and I have had some good salvation conversations with the worker that will be helping us try to deal with this problem. We are going to have to break up tile again and try to find out where the leak is coming from. Hopefully the worker will be able to come this Thursday and begin the task. (Please pray for his salvation--Jose Luis.) Pray that we won't have to break up both bathroom floors entirely to find the source of the problem--There is tile on top, several inches of concrete, then the pipes in some light stone/gravel, and underneath, the other level of concrete and rebar. We haven't been looking forward too much for what is next.

Thank you for your prayers. We covet and appreciate them.
In Christ,
Mike for all the Goldfii