Dear Friends in Christ,
“Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” James 5:8
Happy New Year!! We trust that all of you had a wonderful Christmas! We’re excited to see what wonderful things the Lord has in store for this New Year! The Lord could come for us in 2009!
Anáhuac: The “Precious Seed Baptist Church” had a special Christmas program to celebrate Christ’s incarnation, to save us from our sin. The teens had a special drama, contrasting the world’s view with the Bible perspective of Christmas and the joy & happiness that only Christ can give. The ladies fixed a great dinner as always, and we had special goodie bags for the kids.
Please pray for the success of the Faith Promise Mission Conference we will have in January.
The church is looking forward to God’s blessings in this New Year. Please pray with us that during this year we can have the pastor in place who will lead this church on to greater success.
Construction: The church hired some Christian men to put the sheet rock up in the new auditorium, and they have completed the outside walls. They will put the dividing walls in as soon as we get the ceramic tile on the floor. We challenged the church to give a Christmas offering for the ceramic tile, but because of the crisis, they have only given a small part of the $2,000 dollars needed.
Survey Trip: We made a survey trip to see with our own eyes the need in other areas.
We went to the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico, and saw a city of 450,000 people with only one Independent Baptist mission, with less than one year in existence. There were a few works in some areas, but still a lot of cities with no works. There is a lot of need in several areas of Oaxaca.
We also went through the western states of Sonora and Sinaloa, and had the privilege of preaching in some churches there. There are a few missionaries and Mexican pastors in most of the large cities, but only one church for every 150,000 to 400,000 population, so obviously tens of thousands are still unevangelized. There are also a number of works in some small cities, but we saw cities with populations of 50,000 to 250,000 with no known independent Baptist church. We also visited a couple of cities in Chihuahua state with very little being done.
To be honest, we were surprised at the need for good Bible preaching, soul winning churches that still exists in the areas that we went, not to mention other parts of Mexico.
Please pray for Mexico, and for the Lord’s direction in our lives.
Family: Our son Andrew and his family visited us for Christmas, and brought Bethany with them. We had a great time – especially with our grandchildren! Amen!
Prayer: Pastor for the church in Anáhuac; Souls saved; Mission Conference; Construction – funds; Compassion for the lost; Power of God; Direction in our lives; FM-2 Work Visas
Praise: Blessings of 2008; Safety in our travels; Progress on the construction
In His Service,
