Last week, Mike and Carissa left at 3:45 AM on Monday to go to the border to meet Jon, Andrea, and Paul Crocker to drive back in with them. What a whirlwind trip! The Lord protected us as we came upon a horrible accident with two tractor trailers. We followed a path made by another truck over rugged terrain to go off the road and around the accident. All of this was an hour and a half delay with another hour delay at the border. We don't have AC in our van since it is not needed at 10,000 feet. The AC has a leak, and we never bothered to fix it. That was a mistake. The official temperature in Texas---99 degrees. :-) On Monday night, Carissa and I were able to buy almost everything that we needed and then took a much needed dip in the pool around 11 PM before going to bed. On Tuesday, we finished our shopping early, cleaned the van, packed, and headed over the border with the Crockers. We arrived at fellow GFA missionaries, the Zartmans in Monterrey about 9:30 PM. The next day we traveled all day to get to Mexico City by 9:00 pm. Usually there is terrible traffic getting into the city. We have waited 3 hours before, but the traffic never stopped and we made it home in an hour! That was such a wonderful blessing after a long, hard trip.
The Crockers are getting situated in the cabin and it is a real joy to be able to share that with people.
Friday and Saturday were occupied in a conference on evangelism, organized by another missionary here in Mexico City. It was an excellent conference; and I was able to take Jon Crocker, Morgan, and Humberto both days. Memo attended with us on Saturday. What an excellent reminder and challenge of what our evangelistic content and faithfulness should include.
We were missing about 30 people on Sunday who are regular attenders. Pray that the Lord would work in different hearts and meet specific needs. There are some who need to make things right between each other in the church. I don't believe that it is an accident that our SS lesson the last two weeks from Hebrews 13 has dealt with: "Let brotherly love continue." Pray that the Lord would work in all of our hearts and produce in us brotherly love for each in our church.
Sunday was an excellent opportunity for Faith to help Nico and Liliana with their little boy and discipline during her Sunday school class in the nursery. Even though that has been a subject of preaching and teaching, sometimes plain examples (using our own little cherubs) have to be demonstrated. There is so much history of abuse in people's pasts that it is extremely hard for them to discipline without thinking that they are abusing. Please pray for the Lord enable them to understand the difference and to truly discipline in love.
Abigail, Erasmo and Matilde's daughter, had left home several weeks ago but returned several days later. She left again this past Thursday and has not come back. Please pray for the Lord to save her and for wisdom for Erasmo and Matilde. Martha has not been for several MONTHS now, not weeks. She will not answer my phone calls. She answered one of Morgan's calls, so please pray that he will have wisdom in trying to talk with her again. She is living in sin and needs to leave a relationship with a man who is not her husband.
Please pray for Faith and two of our children who will be finishing school this week. Summer activities are right around the corner, so we need prayer for them to be able to finish. We need desire, patience and ability.
We are very happy to have the Crockers with us, and we were very surprised at their Spanish abilities. Jon is going to be incorporated into preaching some Wednesday nights. Morgan will be taking over the Teen meetings once a month as well as starting a teen Sunday school class. Jon and Andrea will be starting a Young Couples meeting one time per month. So our Saturdays will be something like this:
- 1st Sat.--Men's meeting
- 2nd --Women's meeting
- 3rd--Teen's meeting
- 4th--Young couple's meeting
June 13---22 we will be having the BJU Spanish team. There is much to be done between now and then. We are planning on having three nights of special evangelistic services. Please pray that the Lord would guide us to people whose hearts He is preparing. There is one particular couple, Rene and Elvira, who attended the three special services last year with the team. They never returned. Please pray that they would come back again this year.
We thank you for your continued prayers, encouragement and financial support.
In Christ,
Mike for all the Goldfii
