It is so hard to believe that it has been nearly three months since our last news letter! We hope that you and yours are well and that you have had a good fall and a blessed Thanksgiving.
October was beautiful month here. The weather was warm and Lisa had the opportunity to preach in the Saturday night and Sunday morning service at our church while our pastor was out of the country. Patrick made it through his first round of finals without any blood shed (ha!) and Jim worked hard with Mike, Chetan and Vinay on getting our Servants International web site up. (www.servantslove.org)Please check it out!
We are populating the site on a regular basis and would appreciate your passing the address on to anyone you think would be interested in it. October also brought the “first fruits” (see photo) of the new business we have helped set up at Guadalupe Victoria. To date we have received 36 scarves (bufandas). The women make them, we pay them for their work, sell them and put the seed money back into buying more yarn. The scarves are beautiful but not nearly as beautiful as the faces of the women and young girls who make them. Their obvious joy at accomplishing something on their own and being rewarded for it is an incredible sight and that we will never forget. To be able to participate in giving these women dignity as well, as a financial means to support their families, is a blessing unspeakable. The plan is to continue with the making of scarves and also expand the product line to include hats, socks and whatever else we can think of. We are open to new ideas! We are also trying to come up with something for the young men to do. Let us know if you have any ideas.
We also took at team to Maria’s house (the lady we told you about in our last newsletter)
Since she has been basically bed ridden for the past six years, her house was in desperate need of attention. We took a team from our church there and along with a few of the kids in my Bible study class, we cleaned Maria’s house from top to bottom. Using a plastic chair as a make shift wheel chair a couple of the women were able to get her to the kitchen, heat a dish pan of water on the stove and give her a much needed bath. Maria told us that she didn’t remember the last time she had had a bath. It was a joy to be able to bless her.
November brought much colder weather and a move for our family to a different house. We were constantly having problems with having no water in the house and the way the house was arranged, having ministry activities there became increasingly difficult. Through a friend at church we a were able to find this house and it is much better and for almost the same rent as the smaller house. One of the pluses of this house is that it has a separate room over the garage that we are converting into a little store where we are carrying some of the products we have on Mextraordinary.com. We are looking to supplement our income here through sales from the store.
Two weeks after we moved into our new house, we were delighted to have Pastor Michelle (our missions pastor from Grace Covenant) and her husband Walt come to visit us for a week. It was wonderful having them here. We had a crowd of 24 people at our house for Thanksgiving that included our pastor from our church here and his family of eight plus Patrick’s tutor Areseli and her husband Poncho, Fransisco our 83 year old teenage friend that tutors Jim and I in Spanish, Karla the girl who interprets for us, Mike and his family, Debbie a single woman who is also an American and has no family here, plus the Jenson family that I met at an international breakfast. They are here with the new GM plant. They’re not believers but have tender hearts and we look forward to getting to know them better.
While Pastor Michelle and Walt were here they went with our team to Guadalupe Victoria. They were able to see first hand what we are doing there as well as share some insights on some possible solutions for the problems with the water and food supplies. Most important of all they go to go with us and witness Maria accepting Jesus as her savior. It was a wonderful day at Guadalupe Victoria.
We also did some sight seeing and just generally had a great time of fellowship. We were refreshed by their being here and we hope they were as well.
Pastor Scott Rainey from Grace Covenant is heading a campaign to collect “Coats for Kids” at GV. We have been busy taking pictures of each of the kids in hopes that none of them are left out. They are really excited about getting the coats as the temperatures get down in the single digits Fahrenheit in January and February and most of the adobe houses they live in have only a blanket for a door. We will be bringing the coats back with us when we return to
Lisa has also been doing a teaching about giving. That may sound strange because these kids have so little but the point is to give them the joy of giving. (Found out from Pastor Michelle that Oprah has been copying the idea! Ha!) Anyway they made presents for each other and drew names. Most of them have never given anyone a present before. It was an amazing experience for them and something that we hope will stay with them year after year and not just at Christmas.
This year’s Christmas celebration at the pueblo was great fun for everyone. Last year Missions Imports carried the expense of the party and presents but this year financial circumstances would not allow us to contribute much. However, God came through in an amazing way prompting the hearts of Mexicans in
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