House Hunting HGTV Style

Number one did actually pique our interest because it is a private dwelling, has its own well, structures ready for the necessary facilities, and good ocean breezes. It is a concrete house with a tiled roof over a porch. The rooms would be sealed off from bugs easily entering in the night. The bathroom was a good walk from the house so it would never present any odorous problems nearby, just a watchful eye along the path for scorpions and spiders, especially those huge, hairy tarantulas. It has an open, concrete holding tank for water so you could dip all you needed for showers or flushing the toilet. The kitchen sink is in another place a little closer to the house. It has the same open concrete holding tank with about a 20 gallon water capacity, and a separate countertop space to the side that would hold dishes or laundry items while washing them. The well has its own bucket or a small pump could be purchased to bring it up a little quicker. A little paint to brighten it all up and some grass seed on the clean dirt would make it a sweet home. Everything looks possible but would take a larger amount of money to prepare than we want to invest. We can invest in housing, or we can invest in language school.

Number two is a painted set of two separate rooms, each having their own front doors but equally sharing a nice front porch. It sits high enough above the road to get good breezes. It even has the tiled roofing that insulates from the heat. Surviving the heat is a must. The ceiling would need to be supplemented with netting to keep the bugs out but netting is readily available. There are a few rustic, used pieces of furniture that could be rented cheaply and would be most helpful until we could replace them, yesterday. The yard is full of flowers, turkeys, a wormy pup and cat, and enough extra space for John to park his truck. There is no bathroom or kitchen except the ones available in another house just down the hill at the Andersons. But hey!, they would probably share.

Number three is the ONE! It is modern, with indoor facilities, two patios, two bedrooms and two bathrooms, a fenced yard. You can rent the large stove in the kitchen for a wee bit extra and there are real cabinets in it. Wow! It is well painted, bright orange/red, inside and out and looks very clean. But, another family is living there till Nov 15th and then the owner may want to move back in. Who knows how long it would be available because the owners might come back from the States (quite unexpectedly) and need to live there. Hm! Can we take that risk? It is really nice in comparison to everything else in this little fishing village.

That leaves number four. Let's see. There is an American family of four plus one (that makes five, but not all are American) living there until they possibly leave the end of February. The house is almost finished and almost modernized. The main part of the house has an eat-in kitchen room, a living room, and a large bedroom with attached bathroom. In all the rooms, there are very nice sliding glass windows with screens, topped with arching round windows. The metal doors and windows both have tinted glass that detract the sun. The kitchen is the least finished with a rough, newly-made cement countertop held up by mortared bricks. It has no cabinets or shelves. The floors are all beautifully tiled in large terra cotta tiles. Attached, but with separate entrances are another bedroom, a toilet room, and a shower room. That belongs to the two young men of the family and their live-in buddy. Gabi. The family are in Spanish language school and Gabi works in the guest house at the Base. That looks a little too full, doesn't it? We will only be here till March, one month longer than them.

So, which one did we choose?



The boys moved into the front room, the front room furniture was moved into the parent's bedroom, and we moved into the boy's room that had the outside, separate entrance. We'll use the attached shower and toilet room, both with their separate outside doors, and share them with the boys as necessary. That makes our choice Number four! We'll share in using their kitchen and washing machine. The stove is sitting outside so looks that will be no problem to use as needed too. We will definitely worm the tiny pup and kitten and shoo away stray turkeys or chickens as needed. They will enjoy our big truck to haul groceries and whatever up that rough, steep hill. Oh, I forgot to tell you about the road up to the house? It will jar your teeth right out of your head so hang on tight and come see us.....after the other family move out and we have all four rooms!

Life on the mission field,

John & Joyce

Graduation, Students, & Post Graduates

Every Tribe and Tongue of Oaxaca




Roca Blanca hosted a pastor and women’s conference simultaneously, Wednesday through Friday. Jill Stafford, director of Victory Bible Institute International, and Pastor Pam, of Indiana shared together about walking in the authority and power of Jesus Christ. It was a tremendous encouragement to many of the ladies. Joyce overheard Jill talking through Linda, the Roca Blanca Bible school director, to the various pastors present and was especially exhilarated by their conversation. Jill was telling them that she and her husband had studied results that showed one year of spiritual training/discipleship in a Bible school was equal to twenty years of learning gained while attending Sunday church meetings. It propels people forward in their walk with Christ in a dramatic manner. This stirred the attending pastors to share testimonies of what they had seen in their first attempts to hold Bible schools in their local church bodies. Wow! One told of two girls who had received Christ the same day. One attended Bible school, one didn’t and the difference in their spiritual walk with Christ was astounding. Another told of how their students were mostly young people and after they had finished their one year of training, they immediately went out, evangelized, and gathered others into their church so that their youth group was exploding to double and triple its size. Others told of students who following their graduation went out and actually began new churches in neighboring villages, sharing the lessons that they had been taught. They were glorious testimonies that touched every heart that was listening. God’s Word is SO powerful and active. Makes you wonder why every church doesn’t have its own Bible school program. Most of these churches are beginning with video classes four hours each Saturday with a goal of two years to complete them. This is a new project that will put the Light of Jesus Christ in more places, more quickly than ever before. Praise God and let the Bible schools be multiplied every year until all the tongues and tribes of Oaxaca have heard the Good News!

Panixtluaca graduation

November 7th, we had the privilege to attend the first Bible School graduation at the church in Panixtluaca. They had a growing church of four hundred and for this first graduation ceremony, the house was packed. We started out at 4am to reach there by the opening at 7am. Yes, they actually start church services here as early as 6 or 7am, finishing before the morning breakfast at 10am. It was a cold morning, in the low 60’s, and we wound around and around going up the mountains then down the mountains in the dark. Sections of road were missing off the sides after the monsoon rains had washed them away but usually boulders or signs marked their absence. One stretch remains unpaved so we crawled along for about thirty minutes at 10-20 mph. We arrived with ample time. They took us inside and blessed us with a hot drink and dry bread. The hot drink was Atole, a national favorite, which consists of water, cornstarch, and sugar. It was a wonderful service celebrating these first fifteen students. Sister Linda shared a word from Joshua 1:1-9 with them then invited us to pray over each student. That is always a great joy for us and we accepted quickly and gratefully. Then, we were asked to join her on stage to pass out the certificates. That felt rather awkward but perhaps we’ll get enough practice to become more comfortable with that. it’s a great honor to bless each student as they walk through that line receiving acknowledgment of their achievements.

After the service, there followed a breakfast meal of BBQ’ed beef, salsa verde, spaghetti noodles (they really like pasta around here), and Big homemade tortillas that most every attending lady brought with her from home. It was a delicious meal that satisfied every hunger pain we ever thought we had. It made the trip home a rather sleep invoked one but we were so thankful for how the Lord had prospered them to give in this manner. And we continue in thanksgiving for the churches that are blessed to celebrate new disciples, trained to “go into all the world and make new disciples”. That makes Ephesians 4:12 come alive. “for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ”

Speakers/Teachers/Trainers
It must be the season for speakers/trainers because they are overlapping right now. We have a couple here training pastors that have previously graduated from Bible school, to be pastor/leader trainers. They have been giving two weeks of intense training to these people. They travel all around the world training leadership in every area of their lives, both personal and ministry oriented. We are excited about the incredible work going on here at every level of need.



There is a retired surgeon here with Laura to do simple surgeries at the clinic. We haven’t checked back with him yet to see what all is happening but he was telling us this is his third trip here and upon arriving in town, one man he didn’t remember, simply grinned at him and lifted his shirt, exposing his scars from a surgery. In that was greeting and connection.



So teachers are coming and going, overlapping some according to their area of specialty. Some are teaching the graduates, some are teaching the students. A speaker that is currently working with the students is Iva Mae, Duane’s sister. She has a helper, Anna, and two trainees with her. Their ministry is on inner healing and they are teaching in the mornings and then doing prayer and counseling till late evenings. Please lift them in prayer as this is a very needful ministry but a very tiring one as well.



We praise God for the advancement of His kingdom in Oaxaca. We are thrilled with every little part we can be involved in. Soon, we hope to begin Spanish classes so we can participate more fluently and effectively…in their own language. Those classes are $275 each/monthly so we ask your prayers for the additional finances to accomplish that. It is a great privilege to be here in God’s grace and timing. Thank you for your loving support that makes it possible.

The Duenos-Landlord

Landlord’s dog....Paloma (little dove).   We call him Peanut (Cacajuate).


We told you when we chose the fourth place and moved into our house (room), we would be worming the dog. You need to see a “before” picture or you will never believe the “after”. Of course, you will need to wait some time for the after. This pup’s name is Paloma (meaning, Dove) and although he looks totally pathetic, he thinks he is something pretty big. He races out to the dusty road and puts up his biggest squeak until they disdainfully pass on by. Then, he trots back to his house with a cocky jaunt and twitch of his tail. There are three cats that live there and they are now being wormed as well. We’ll skip on worming the chickens and turkeys but we are thankful for them since they effectively keep the bug population down. We have the really big ones here, you know. There was a baby tarantula a the door the other night. Scorpions are more normal than rare. Roaches, monster beetles, mosquitos, you name it, they have it in Mexico! So, we appreciate the bird population around our place and the good care the landlord’s take of not allowing them on our doorsteps.



Landlord couple

We have the sweetest landlord couple. They are proud parents of twelve children, some of which visit from time to time. They are very helpful and resourceful. There is plenty to be learned from them. The uncle climbs to the roof every morning to check the amount of water then hooks up the portable pump to whichever tank (tinaco) that needs to be filled. The aunty makes yummy tamales and brings to all of us…that is five at the Anderson house and two at ours. The best tamales were corn and they were a bit sweetened. The outside shell is ground corn but they were also filled with corn. Hm! Good. We are introducing them to all the American sweeties we bake and sometime, it will be interesting to introduce them to Indian food. Now, that’s a thought for sure.

All her food is still made over an open fire. Recently, during our Halloween, they celebrated the Day of the Dead (good name, huh?). Aunty and a daughter or two baked an enormous amount of little bread loaves, some shaped like people or animals. They were all baked in the huge bee-hive , stone oven. Wonder how some pizzas would taste baked in it too?


We took their gas cylinder into town to be filled. That is why they weren’t using their little gas stove. Now, she is proud that John has worked the rust and crude off it and it is firing up nicely. Can you please fix our truck too, John? Grin Thankfully it just seems to need a recharge on the battery so it should be running soon. Some things are easy. Some are not.