Goldfuss Update (January 22)

We would like to thank you all for praying for us. It's been pretty hectic the last few weeks, but the Lord is always good to us.

Mike went to Mexico this past week with a friend, Jon Davis, to work on the sabotaged plumbing pipes in the house. We had to break through the tile, through cement and concrete, find the leaks, take out the old pipes, put in some new pieces, re-solder them and then wait to see if we did the job right. We found several pipes (which you can see on Jon's blog which were hammered with picks and chisels. It was another opportunity to pray for those who despitefully use us. There were several times where maintaining sanctification was pretty difficult. My study is down below the two bathrooms and there were four places where water was coming through the ceiling. Two of the places had no pipes above them, so we didn't break the floor up there. There was an awful lot of water that flowed out through the broken pipes into that area so we are hoping that the water that is still leaking through is just the water finding the lowest spot and pooling there. The water to the house is now turned off. Once the water stops leaking through the ceiling, Ruben will turn the water back on and see if any more leaks through the ceiling appear. If not, it appears that we will have been successful and then the concrete and tile can be replaced. If there are more leaks, we will have to break up more of the floor. Please pray that the Lord would be gracious in allowing us to have found all of the leaks. It was a very frustrating job.

The other job that we were able to accomplish was putting the laminated wood floor down in the living room. We were able to finish that after one evening of frustration with the panels not wanting to lock. The problem was a very uneven floor. When we got up Saturday morning to do the other half, we seemed to get to a more even part of the floor and it was much faster and easier. We finished in time for Jon to leave for the airport by noon. He was a real blessing to have.

Yesterday was a very good Lord's Day. Without a car, Ruben and I took a public transportation bus to church. With my tie and sweater I felt like a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness. Ruben and I decided that I would preach the SS hour (instead of their regular lesson) and then he would preach the morning service and administer the Lord's Table. It felt very very weird to be back in the pulpit there again. There are about 10-12 people that are new that I had never met before. There were about 60 total people I would guess. Ruben told me of several people that were there who have been very sporadic this year. I'm sure that some of them came just because they heard that I was going to be there.

Being in church on Wednesday night and yesterday was a real blessing. Ruben and Heidi have done an excellent job this year and the people have grown in the Lord. He has an excellent pastor's heart and I do not believe our church could have been in any better hands. I am thankful to the Lord for Ruben, for the church people and their faithfulness, and ultimately to the Lord Himself for His faithfulness to His church.

Many of you may not know this but Heidi had to fly home last Tuesday to Indianapolis due to very poor health. Please pray for her to be able to recuperate. Ruben and Heidi both have loved being in Mexico this year and would like to stay and serve the Lord there somewhere if He would allow that. Please pray for the Lord's grace and healing of Heidi's body if that is His will and for His very clear direction and guidance to them.

If you would pray for something that may not be a big deal to you but will be to our children we will appreciate it. Our German Shepherd dog Zack was either stolen or run over recently. He often leaves our property to explore short distances but has always come back. He left about a week before I arrived in Mexico last week and never came back. That will be pretty hard on the kids as he's been a very good dog and protector.

We are planning on leaving this coming Saturday morning, going west to Chicago and then heading south. We plan on visiting Faith's sister Jan in Florida and a cousin in Mississippi. We have a lot to pack this week, and a lot of miles to drive. We appreciate your prayers in this very hectic time.

The Lord is our help and strength, a very present help in trouble. We aren't in much trouble right now, but life is very hectic. The Lord is our help and strength in the midst of hecticness.

Thank you again for your prayers,
In Christ's service and love,
Mike, Faith, Mikey, Cristiana, Carissa, Matthew, Cherith and ?

Prayer Letter (December 2006)

December is here and we have almost finished our visiting of churches for this year of furlough. We have visited 31 so far this year and have one more to go. The Lord has kept us safe on all the many miles we have traveled and we thank Him for that constantly. We have only had one problem with the van this whole year (a tee that joins several radiator hoses broke in NY out in the middle of nowhere) and we only had a couple of hours delay. Thank you also to the many of you who prayed for our youth missions' trip to Puerto Rico. The students enjoyed the week and learned a lot.

We have thoroughly enjoyed revisiting all of our supporting churches this year and also meeting a few new ones. What a blessing it is to have the churches that make up our prayer, financial and emotional support team. Your prayers, financial support and encouraging words this year have been very appreciated. We thank the Lord for each one of you. Some churches have even asked about people from our prayer letters that we didn't even mention in our slide presentation. You don't know how encouraging that is. Thank you.

This fall Mike has stayed busy teaching Bible in Mentor Christian School. He was able to help out on several painting projects around the church as well as several other jobs. Faith has had her hands full with watching Matthew and Cherith during the days. She hasn't felt very well for the past several months. The reason is because she is expecting our seventh child. Her sciatic nerve has given her a good deal of discomfort during these beginning months. That is not a good sign for the more difficult later months to come. Please pray for her. We have both stayed very busy also getting Cristiana to and from her therapies for her dyslexia. We finally found someone who could deal with the reading problem and we started in October. There has been some small progress so we ask your prayers for some big breakthroughs.

Faith's mom went through a bout with pneumonia in October and then had some congestive heart failure in November. On November 30 she had a heart catheterization and the doctors could not find any blockages. Praise the Lord for that. We were able to spend Thanksgiving week with Faith's mom and dad and are planning on going back for Christmas. We have been able to spend a lot of time with Mike's mom as we have been living in her house this year. We are thankful to her for a place to stay right in our home base.

Our original plans were to leave to return to Mexico around December 21 when the kids' school vacation starts. However, we feel the need to wait one more month or so to give Cristiana another month of her therapy. Mike is planning on going back to Mexico for a week to ten days in January to get the vandalized plumbing fixed and ready for us to live there. We will probably leave near the end of January to drive back to Mexico City. (Think five days at least in the van with all the kids and Faith's legs hurting. Then after you get done thinking, pray for us.)

We continue to get good reports from Ruben and Heidi in Mexico. They have experienced many of the trials of the people that we have experienced and have also seen God work in great and wonderful ways in their hearts. Please pray for Heidi as her health has not been good. Pray that God would heal her in His perfect will or give her the grace to continually deal with the providential problems that He allows her to experience.

We wish all of a you a very Christ-centered Christmas and thank each one of you for your faithful prayers and support.

In Christ,

Mike for all the Goldfusses

Friday report

Friday morning we ate the French toast that we made on Thursday. It was sort of eggy. (But, I, Mike, think it was excellent and have ordered it again for Sunday morning.)

For work on Friday, the boys straightened up the upstairs of the school room that we have painted all week. Then, all of a sudden, they heard a scream downstairs. It was the girls cleaning the kitchen. Alyssa and Natalie had found the first . . . cockroach. They darted to the door—both the cockroaches and the girls. Joy cautiously approached one of the cabinets and slowly pulled out the tupperware until she found the cockroach. She picked up the first hard object near her and slew the five-inch long beast (Mike here again, it was about 1 1/2 inches if the truth be known). We continued to get out the tupperware pieces until we found two more big ones. The guys finally came to our rescue and Randall was the hero of the day. He helped us and when cleaning out another cabinet down below, he found a gigantic spider (Mike here again—they are not lying. I think it was the biggest spider that I have ever seen—that one may have had a five-inch diameter.) It had an egg sack that broke but fortunately by that time we had gotten it into a garbage can with about five inches of bleach water.

We were interrupted from our cleaning duties by lunch, American tacos. Alyssa and Natalie volunteered to make tacos in the other kitchen to get away from the cockroach kitchen. After lunch, Mr. Schmidt, the other missionary that the Pfaunmillers know here in Puerto Rico, came and made us a second round of Pina Coladas (without alcohol). They were made with pineapple juice, coconuts from his own trees and ice. They are very good. John Wiser used a machete to get the shell of the coconut down to the husk and then opened it to drink the milk and eat the meat.

After lunch we quickly finished cleaning the cockroach kitchen and left. We then travelled to a nearby park. A main attraction of this park is that it has various and sundry types of animals, but mainly iguanas. John tried to feed several of them pieces of his coconut.

After returning home and resting for about an hour, we prepared for the evening youth activity at the church. The games tonight were basketball and volleyball with several different twists. Joy, Zack, Alyssa and Randall beat a team of Puerto Ricans where only the boys could shoot, but they had to stay in one spot the whole game. The girls had to rebound and pass to get the ball to an open guy.

Twelve extra large pizzas were the fare for the refreshment time. Tonight we had 67 people present for the young people's meeting. Mike preached on justification, but because it was in Spanish, I didn't understand it. You'll have to ask him about it. Our group sang our special spanish song, "Solo Hay Paz en el Nombre De Cristo. " After the service, the team and the Puerto Riqueños played volleyball for about an hour. At the end, we had to say goodbye to a lot of new-found friends.

Dictated by the girls on the team and written by Mike (Dad)

Thursday

We started out our day by eating eggs, toast, cereal, and ham. We then went to the church and had a devotional from Mr. Pfaunmiller. John, Randall, Nadine, Alyssa, Mikey, and Faith went around the streets passing out invitations to the youth activity. Everyone else stayed and breathed paint fumes while painting the kindergarten class room. The invitation passer-outers ran into a few that knew English. They even ran into some who didn't know Spanish. Lunch consisted of sub sandwiches. After lunch Christy, Carissa, and Mrs. Pfaunmiller joined in passing out invitations. After passing those out we all watched people cement the roof. We had Puerto Rican food. Some found it yummy some thought it otherwise. At the youth activity Mike gave a message on the Righteousness of God. Natalie and Joy played Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee. There were three girls that responded to the invitation and made professions of Faith. After the Youth activity the boys played basketball down the road from the Pfaunmillers with a few neighbors also playing on the court. One of the men had a massive afro. These guys knew English so it was fun. The girls went back and made over-night French toast for Friday morning. It was a great day of fun and activity. Pray for the girls that made professions that they would be genuine.
Given by Nadine

Day Three

hello everybody. We have completed the third day of our missions trip. We started the day off with half the team painting the floors of two of the Sunday school rooms in the church and the other half painting another school room. That took most of the morning. After lunch we cleaned up and passed out invitations for the youth rally this week. I went with Mike and Faith. We had a couple of good responses, but most of the people's children were already grown up. I got to go to the grocery store whith Mrs. Pfaunmiller. It was really exciting getting to see the differences between American and Puerto Rican grocery stores.

At 7:00 PM, we went to the church for a teen rally. There were about 45 people there tonight. We had a lot of neat experiences talking with the other young people. Many of them do not speak much English and most of us do not speak much Spanish, so we do lots of charades. It was fun to try to communicate with them and get to know them better. Mike gave a message on sin and we had snacks and played lots of neat games. One of the games we played tonight was having two teams and one person from each team was blindfolded. As they were blindfolded, there were two water guns that were hid on each half of the court. The teams had to call out to their person where to go to find the water gun. The first person to find it could take off the blindfold and go and shoot the other person. It was hard if the gun was placed close to the opposing line as the other team would shout out wrong directions and try to confuse the blindfoldee. It wasn't bad to be the one who got wet though.

Besides it being very warm, we are having an excellent time. We appreciate all your prayers. I love you, mom and dad.

Oh, by the way. Randall brought in a can today and it had a gigantic spider in it— the size of a tarantula. It almost gave Alyssa and me a heart attack. We almost gave the guys heart attacks when we screamed.

Ok, I'll close this epistle for tonight.

Love,
Natalie

P.S. from Alyssa— I love you mom, dad, Michael and Dave.