John & I are both taking Spanish classes four hours daily here on the base. We have some interesting people in our classes. There is a doctor and wife (an RN, herself); she is already in level three, he is just beginning. There is a Dutch couple in their fifties that spent two years in Sri Lanka and now live in Canada. They drove six days in their Toyota car to reach here. We have a young man, a high school graduate studying Spanish while taking a year break before college. We have a black man from Tulsa, a heart surgeon's assistant. We have another man, late 40's, from Hawaii....don't know much about him yet. We have the New Zealand couple that have already been here 6 months and will go to their post in March.

There is Jolynn, a single woman of 50 that is a nurse practitioner; another single lady, Cleo, who has already been living among some nationals but has come for a couple of months of classes. The Andersons, Coreen & Eric, whom we live with. In fourth level, there is a Korean young lady that they say is whizzing through and will be posted to work with missionary children in March. She has served in Albania before coming here. Then, the last I can remember, is James who we drove down here with. Quite an interesting variety. We have hours of homework every night so we probably won't have as much time for communications but we will do our best.

Three Church Sunday

January ….Sunday trip

Ever have someone come ask you for a favor with that look like…“I’m not sure what you are going to think about this.”, kind of look? Linda came with just such a look asking us if we would consider leaving at 4am, driving all day to attend three different churches, with the expectation of arriving home around 10pm….if all went well. We looked at each other with a grin and then at Linda and said, “Why not?” It was a great trip and we want to tell you about some of it.

Four in the morning is very early for going to church but when you have two and a half to three hours driving, sometimes on some pretty rough roads, you want a good start. We carried a thermos of coffee and set off arriving a little ahead of time. The church had a hot drink and bread ready for us. It was about 62 degrees so the hot drink was appreciated. People began pouring in so that during that first morning service, there was at least 200 plus in attendance in the mountain village church of Panix. (We shared pictures of this church when we attended their Bible school graduation ceremony in Feb.)

Linda had a great power point presentation to show them about the commission we have all been given to share Jesus with everyone, everywhere. She gave some statistics of missions around the world but, she also showed us the specific statistics of Mexico. The scriptures say we are to take the "good news" to every tongue, tribe, and nation. The word "nation" does not mean a country but, rather, it means ethnic groups in which are found the same idioms and cultures. There are 16,890 such groups around the world. There are still a good number regarded as “unreached”. To qualify for being “unreached” requires a population of less than 2% Christians. In Mexico, there are 317 ethnic groups (nations) identified and 14 of them are unreached. Of those 317 ethnic groups, 154 are found in the state of Oaxaca, where we are presently located, with 7 of them being unreached people groups. This state then, has the most density of unreached people groups in all of Mexico. Along with presenting mission statistics, Linda was telling each church about two upcoming trips. We mention those at the bottom.

Juquilla church w/Carmelita



Juquilla church tacos

We traveled an hour down the mountain to Juquila, the village famous for a doll that is worshipped. Thousands of people prigrimage to the village every year in large conveyances. Many walk or biked in groups at least part of the distance to view the doll idol. A small, thriving church with a lady pastor, a former Bible school student named Carmela is just relocating at the outskirts of the village. What began as a house church is now a growing congregation on a new property. They have a concrete pad with metal roofing with a small kitchen room and an outhouse. We were in the great outdoors, sitting on a mountainside under towering pine trees with a brisk, cool breeze blowing through the tabernacle. We arrived there for at 11am for the second service of the day and sought jackets quickly. They could never adequately rig up the screen for the presentation but after an hour of trying, it was on a white sheet that vaguely showed bits of the pictures and information. Linda didn’t let any of that slow her down in putting forth the call to missions. The church blessed us with egg and bean tacos afterward which we chased down with Jamaica, a kind of flower tea drink.

Ladies Bathroom

Juquilla bathroom

The third church was a two hour drive back up the mountain another direction. Its usual worship time was 6am but for this special service, we were meeting with them at 4pm. It was quite cold there; the truck thermometer read 58 dg. Its hard to imagine how cold it would be to worship so early in the morning but, they generally have a very rousing worship time that would help anybody stay warm and then, they are packed like sardines into the building so, along with coats, they probably do pretty well. The Mixteco Indian people are very short. They often reminds us of the Nepali people. It seemed very special to be there in that place among such a very old native people group.

San Juan church

 



San Juan dancers



The three churches were very attentive and only time will tell how many heard the call and will answer it in their hearts. Each of the churches gave offerings and prayed over the three who will be traveling to Nicaragua. We now understand that there are 30 pastors in Nicaragua who are wanting to begin Bible schools in their churches. Linda, Eli, and Victor will be going to carry the DVD's for these new schools and training their teachers/people how to use them. That will be Feb. 4th-12th so keep them in prayer. Then, the end of April, the second year Bible students, along with teachers and the medical team, will go to one of those unreached areas here in Mexico to open the door to a new work. How exciting to be a part of reaching peoples who have NEVER heard the name of Jesus or known of His love and salvation.

The road was very rough, extremely curvy, dropped off in all the wrong places, and demanded all our attention to drive safely. The time with each church seemed very short as we enjoyed the wonderful worship, fellowship, and teaching. The last church was very gracious to shorten the worship considerably and allow us to leave promptly after teaching so that we arrived back down the mountain around 9:30pm. We stopped for a late dinner of tacos, continued our last short leg of journey, and fell into bed about



11pm. It was a LONG day but everyone was very satisfied, very contented that the Lord was with us as a mighty Awesome One. Thank you so much for covering us, lifting us, and interceding for us in prayer. This was a new message for these people and just as was prayed before beginning every service, "may their eyes be opened to see as God sees".

The following day began our first month of Spanish language school. But that is another story.