Goldfuss update (July 27)

Dear Prayer Partners,

You might be shocked, but we are freezing down here!!!! We have had to light the woodstove three times this week. In Mexico????? Well, we live in Mexico City where we are just about 10,000 feet--almost twice that of Denver. The rains have been very cold and the sun hadn't come out before today for about 6 days. We praise the Lord for a cozy home where we can take refuge from the downpours.

Praise:

We had a very good teacher training sesson last Saturday where 5 teachers received positive constructive criticism on their presentations by Victor Labelle and the rest of the listeners. We appreciate Victor's hard work helping our teachers develop their abilities. We are scheduling more training sessions so that the other 15 teachers and assistants can give their presentations and benefit from all of the feedback.

Prayer requests:

1. Wisdom in dealing with two difficult church situations.
2. Teresa--who is very discouraged. Her husband Alberto has a very serious lung condition. Teresa has been doing everything for him. He is very depressed and will not speak to her. He is also refusing to take his medicine. Pray for the Lord to give Teresa endurance as it is hard for her to sleep at night with his care giving. Pray also for her as she struggles because she so wants the Lord to save her huband. And lastly, please pray for Alberto's salvation. They are only in their late 50's. Alberto's brother died about 2 months ago from the same rare lung condition.
3. Jason and Danielle Boyle--as they are looking for a permanent home in the city. Right now they are staying with us above our garage. Their goal is to begin language school this fall. (In the meantime we are putting them to work in VBS!)
4. Reme and Juana as they have to move again. This will again be a temporary situation. Pray for permanent housing.
5. Jon and Andrea Crocker---(Our missionary co-workers that live in our cabin) They will be leaving tomorrow for about two weeks, travelling to California for Andrea's sister's wedding. Pray for Mike as he has additional preaching responsibilities. **Also, another church just called and needs a preacher for Sunday---so Mike will be going over there on Sunday evening. Please pray for endurance and wisdom in helping this church as they have had problems in the past.
6. Two of our teens who are helping in VBS---that the Lord would develop a love for teaching and serving Him.

Coming dates:

• July 31: VBS final preparation meeting from 2–4 p.m. We will also be giving out invitations in the neighborhood.
• August 2–5: VBS
• August 9: the Crockers come back
• August 11–17: Visit from the Batorys-our GFA director
• August 23: school starts
• September 4: teacher presentations

Family news: We are trying to be able to download some of Cristi's textbooks to be able to listen to audibly. She is reading well, but the amount that she now needs to do with entering junior high will be exhausting and give her a headache. Pray that we will be able to figure out exactly what she needs to study well on her own. We thank the Lord that BJU press is helping us in this process.

Thank you again for your prayers. We depend upon them.

In Christ,

Mike, Faith, Mikey, Cristiana, Carissa, Matthew, Cherith, and Caralyn Goldfuss

Goldfuss update (July 22)

Dear Praying Friends,

This has been a very busy time.

We were privileged to have good friends of ours, Dave and Marie Wickman, from our home church, visit us for an entire week. They were a great encouragement and a huge blessing in helping get some projects done and also just talking. Praise the Lord for great friends.

Please pray for a number of people who are discouraged about debt problems that they are having. Because of this, it is affecting other areas of their lives, including their worship and walk with the Lord. Please pray for encouragement and wisdom for them and for us.

Thank you for praying for the church discipline issue a couple weeks ago. The Lord worked in that situation and both parties appear to be seeking to do what God wants them to do in the situation. Keep praying.

Our Vacation Bible School is coming up quickly--it will be August 2-5. Please keep this spiritual endeavor in your prayers. Pray for visitors, and for God's Word to work in the hearts of our own church children who are able to attend.

You may have heard about recent violence here in Mexico. Mostly, Mexico City has stayed free of the drug violence that has been rocking much of the country (that is apart from all the normal everyday violence that is characteristic of a big city). :-)

1. However last week, Teresa, from our church, told us about the federal police agents/SWAT agents in front of her house. They told her to stay inside while they arrested her next door neighbor who has been involved in some kind of drug activity. She just thought he was a normal next door neighbor.
2. Just this morning as Mikey was on his way with Morgan to basketball practice, they were detained about ten minutes as three police trucks passed their taxi, stopped a man in a car, pulled him out, threw him down and stomped on him. Mikey said it was right before him. He came home talking non-stop about what they had seen.
3. Monday, Mike and Cristi made a border trip (735 miles) to McAllen, TX to pick up Jason and Danielle Boyle. Jason was our first intern about 10 years ago. They now have all their support and are coming down to live permanently now. We made it up Monday evening. Jason and Danielle came on Tuesday and we left McAllen for Mexico City yesterday (Wed.) morning about 6:30 AM. The Mexican border city with McAllen is Reynosa, Mexico where there has been a lot of drug violence in the past year. We praise the Lord that He kept us safe and that we made it home here last night about 9:30 PM. We got to stop in Monterrey to have breakfast with our wonderful friends the Zartmans. This morning Mrs. Zartman wrote with the news headlines from yesterday morning. I'll just give you the translation:

Three Die in Shootout in Reynosa
A heavy shootout between two groups of organized crime members left a total of at least 3 people dead and also paralyzed traffic on the Reynosa-Monterrey Highway around kilometer 21.
According to witnesses, the shootout happened about 8:00 AM and lasted about 45 minutes . . . dozens of people who were going to Monterrey or Gustavo Diaz Ordas were direct witnesses to the confrontation between the two armed groups.

From our calculations, we only missed that by 5-10 minutes—we went right through there. If you were praying for us on Wednesday, thank you very much. The Lord is good. When we get to heaven, it will be very interesting to see how many times He spared our lives here on earth because He was not yet done conforming us to Christ's image.

There continues to be a heavy amount of violence in Mexico. Please continue to pray for the Lord's protection and that we would be faithful witnesses of our Lord Jesus.

Please pray for Esteban, a tremendous contact that Faith and I had an opportunity to witness to in a taxi last week for about two and a half hours. Also pray for Olivia, a friend who execises with Faith. She had opportunity to witness to her today for about two hours as well. May the Lord find us faithful.

In Christ,

Mike for all the Goldfii

Goldfuss update (June 24)

Dear Praying Friends,

The team left early on Monday morning. We have enclosed some pictures from our church get together with them on Saturday. We had a good number of visitors on Saturday and Sunday at church. Pray for the visitors to return.

Please pray also as Friday night several men in the church will be following the second step of Matthew 18 in church discipline for the family who has been loaning money with interest. Please pray for repentance for the family, for the truth to come out, for the church to see the seriousness of sin, and for all of us to grow through this situation.

In Christ,

Mike for all the Goldfii

Goldfuss update (June 19)

Dear praying friends,

Thank you again for all of your prayers.

Please pray for the many new people that have been coming. All are in need of salvation.

• Luis----a friend of the Gabriel and Lilliana. He has come out of that sect "the perfects." 
• Betty and Yolanda cousins of Lilliana --they both want to bring their families. 
• Silvia---friend of Eric and Delilah
• Miguel and Ester---friends of Marta (who has had trouble with her health)
• Ivan and Claudia and family---friends of Juana and Reme

Others who are not so new, but still in need of salvation

• Eric and Delilah---Morgan's brother and sister-in-law
• Cristian---Morgan's brother
• Marbella and family
• Ester, Lydia-- and families
• Sr. Juan and Sra. Angelica

Two families who need encouragement right now.

• Nico and Lilliana--They have not been faithful in church. *****(After I wrote this, Nico was almost in an accident where there were 3 tractor trailers involved. He said that literally it was either hit the semi or go off of the cliff. Somehow the car stayed on the road. He said it was literally like the Lord held his vehicle on the road. Because of this, Nico came to talk with Mike and was at the special services that we had on Wednesday night. Pray that this is not just a passing emotion but truly the Lord's work in him.)
• Marcos and Ruth--Ruth has gone back to work to help with the family's needs. Now Marcos has been able to quit his nighttime taxi job--which means that they get to see him in the evenings. Pray as Ruth's working is still a big strain on the family, and Juana (the grandmother) is taking care of the girls during the daytime.

We have a serious problem that we would like you to bring before the Lord. There is a family that has been coming to our church for a very long time. They have been "helping" people from the church who have financial needs by connecting them with two rich ladies who then give them loans. The loans are at 10% interest per MONTH and basically strap the people because they don't realize what that implies. Then the church people can barely pay the monthly interest. We have asked this family to stop being the middle people between the church people and the ladies, but they will not. We asked to go and talk with the ladies who loaned the money with one who received the money, but they would not take us to meet them. The one who borrowed the money has never met these ladies. They eventually had Mike meet 8 hours later with 2 ladies who we later found out were really their neighbors instead of the ladies that they originally said lived in a very rich section of Mexico City. There have been so many lies. The situation is very sad and confusing because of all of the lies. Please pray. It appears that there are no ladies and that this church family is loaning other believers money at a tremendous rate of interest.

There is much more information which gives reason to suspect them and also to suspect them as being the ones who took the offering last fall, possibly to loan to others, but we have no concrete proof. What makes the situation worse is that this family is going to other church people and turning them against the one who owes the money and against Mike. In this case, the person has already paid 3x what he owed and he still needs to pay more because of the ridiculous interest. This family knows that it is not biblical to charge a brother interest. The brother also realizes that he gave his word to pay. So it is a very difficult situation. We now believe that a family who left the church over 4 years ago may have left because they ended up paying 4x what they borrowed from the "ladies" that this family "helped" them find. We were not fully aware of that situation at the time. So as you can see, this is affecting the church.

The Lord helped us get through the situation about two months ago where the men were not wanting to help the new growing Christians. We are so much better as a church now even though that situation was very hard. We have all grown because of it, and the people are wanting to be patient and help all of the new people that are coming into the church. ---SO we know that the Lord can also use this situation for his honor and glory.

GOOD NEWS: We had 20 different people come to the TEACHER'S TRAINING CONFERENCE that Victor LaBelle gave to our church people. The response was wonderful!!! And because of that, we are having another practice session in 5 weeks at the end of July where each teacher and assistant can teach for 5-10 minutes and Victor will give helpful feedback to help all who participate. To thank all who have been teaching and will be teaching, Faith, Mikey, Cristi, and Carissa held a small banquet. (Pictures are included). This also gave Faith a chance to teach our kids how to host an elegant occasion. Everyone had fun----even Mikey who kept running into the other room to check the score between England and the United States in the World Cup. Praise the Lord we had such a wonderful response----and for the desire to serve the Lord through teaching!

Happy and sad news: We have talked about Victor Ramirez Aguirre. He is a young man who began coming to our church around Thanksgiving and was saved, and grew like a weed. He was planning on living here, but a job fell through and then his parents asked him to go home to Spain because both of them are having health problems. Last Wednesday,Victor preached and then Carissa made 2 farewell cakes that we enjoyed with the church. We are sad to see him go, but he is excited to tell all of his friends and family what he has found in the Lord. He is now living in Logrono, Spain. If anyone knows of any missionaries that live near there, please write us. We are only familiar with missionaries that are in the Barcelona area.

NEED FOR A TEACHER: We are now beginning to advertize for a need for a teacher for SECOND semester. The Crockers are able to stay until Christmas before they need to go back to the States to raise full-time support. Although we are trying to figure out a way to keep them here, we want to cover the possibility that they will not be with us second semester. Our need is great. We need to cover 5 students (5 of our 6 children) for 40 classes. Each child will be taking 8 classes. Of course Faith will be teaching the students full-time along with the needed teacher.

Thank you again for upholding us before the throne of grace. We depend upon your prayers!

How could I have almost forgotten?????

We are in the middle of having the BJU team. I wrote most of this on Sunday evening right before they came, but our internet was not working---so we could not send this letter. We had a special service on Wednesday that was wonderful. The team has visited many sites in the city while passing out literally thousands of tracts. Pray for fruit from that endeavor. We will be having a Saturday afternoon cookout---at our home, and a full day on Sunday. The team will then be leaving next Monday. Please pray for the Lord's working in all of our lives.

In Christ,

The Goldfusses---Mike, Faith, Mikey, Cristi, Carissa, Matthew, Cherith, and Caralyn

  

    

  

  

    

Goldfuss update (June 8)

Dear Praying Friends,

1. The Wedding. Sarai and Humberto were married on Saturday. Thank you for your prayers. It was a very difficult week or two leading up to the wedding, but that was probably because we had some OUTSTANDING opportunities to give the gospel during the reception. Please pray for Isaac and Sylvia--not married and living together, a doctor and his wife, Liliana Olivares' 2 cousins, Bety and Yolanda, and Hilario and Sandra. It was an exhausting day but very very profitable. Praise the Lord that Yolanda came to church yesterday. She had said that she was not interested at all in a Christian church, but she wanted to see a wedding. After the wedding, she came to our services yesterday and said she really enjoyed being there. Please pray for the Lord to save each one of these people. (We are including some pictures from the wedding Saturday that Lourdes from our church took. The family one has a not so nice-looking green tarp over us all.)
2. This Saturday at 2 pm we are planning two teacher training sessions for our SS teachers and the young people who help them. It is also open for anyone else who would like to teach in the future. Faith and the girls are doing a sit-down lunch for all of them--about 25 people total are expected.
3. A week from this evening, the BJU Spanish team will be arriving. We have a lot to do to get ready for that this week.
4. Pray for one of the kids who is still finishing up school. Please pray for endurance to finish.
5. Andrea delivered Timothy Wesley Crocker a week ago this past Friday. Things were a bit hectic, and he came 3 weeks early, but praise the Lord that they are both doing well and back here in the cabin again.
6. As many of you might remember, we had an extended period of time in this past year where men were not showing any patience or love toward others. There is a new man who has been coming recently, Luis, who comes from a cult named "The Perfects." We have a few other people who have been attending for a few years who have come out of that group--they have joined us, "The Unperfects." :-) Anyway, in our SS class right now we are going through sanctification and the flesh. Morgan asked a question yesterday that he would not have asked if Luis had been there. The questions, answers and comments back and forth throughout the class were a tremendous blessing as no one was prideful or overbearing in their answers. It underscored God's grace to us in these last few months in seeing how He has brought some of the men along tremendously in their love, charity and humility in their answers to and treatment of others. To give you just an idea of the kind of discussion we had yesterday, Galatians 5:24 states: "And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." If Luis had been there, he would definitely have taken that verse to say that if someone is in Christ, they then don't sin because the passions and desires have been crucified. So we tried to honestly search out the verse and it's meaning and understand it in relation to other verses that talk about the fight in the believer. Liliana Olivares had a great statement yesterday. It even rhymes in English--"So before I was saved, sin was my delight; Now it's my fight." Praise the Lord for His work in teaching us through difficult times. Praise the Lord for the patience he is teaching each one of us with others, when He is and has been so patient with us.

We thank you for your prayers,
In Christ,
Mike for all the Goldfii