A New Study

While our primary ministry continues to be providing educational support for other missionaries in Mexico, the summer months are often quiet on that end and our schedule during these months often involves travel, work teams, hosting ministry guests, spending time with our teammates, relaxing, and continuing our discipleship efforts.  It's a hard mix for which to write up an annual work plan!  Many ministry opportunities arise unforeseen and thus unplanned on our part.

The present time is not excluded.  It's a long story and some of the details are sensitive for those involved, and so I can't share them.  However, I can say that due to an extraordinarily tragic set of events, God is reaching deep into Jason's family.  We've been praying for God's hand to move in this family for several years now.  Tomorrow (Wednesday) evening Beth and I will begin an evangelistic Bible study with a couple from Jason's family.   I wish I could share with you more details because it's obvious that only God could have orchestrated this.  We did not offer to study with them.  They asked us to.  Some of the damage done in recent events may never be undone.  However, there is healing and there is forgiveness and there is hope to be found in Christ.

Pray for Emmanuel and Mari Cruz.  They need more prayer than any of us know.  They also need to understand the Gospel and to respond to the invitation in faith.  May the Holy Spirit draw them into a saving relationship with God through faith in Christ.  Would you pray for them?  Today?  Right now?

Pray for us too that we'll speak the words of life through this study of the Gospel of John.  We'll be studying and sharing strictly in Spanish and this will be a challenge for me since so much of our ministry has been in English the past couple years.  I'm looking forward to it.  Pray that I'll speak clearly and correctly in Spanish so that the messenger wouldn't mangle the message.

Thanks for praying.  We hope we'll have another story of God's amazing grace to share with you some time in the future!

Happy 480th Birthday San Juan del Rio!

from Wiki:

The city was founded on the Feast of Saint John the Baptist June 24, 1531 by Fernado de Tapia, an Otomí chieftain that converted to Catholicism and dropped his Native name Conín. San Juan was one of the first Spanish settlements outside the Valley of Mexico and thus marked the beginning of the colonisation of Northern and Western Mexico, including the city of Querétaro which was founded one month later. The settlement became important since it was an obliged stop en route to the rich mining regions of Guanajuato,Zacatecas and San Luis Potosí.

We celebrated by enjoying a delicious Molcajete La Vaca at our favorite restaurant in town.  I don't think I've been for about a year so it was a nice occasion.  Actually, we were taking our guests there for a nice lunch before they head back to the States.  San Juan's birthday is a good added excuse.

The syncretistic Aztec dance group was doing their thing at the big Catholic church on the plaza earlier this afternoon.  I happened to be walking by there on my way home for the copy shop with materials for tomorrow's English class at the community center.  Took a few photos.  It's strange.  That's about all I have to say about it. (The Indian thing...not the lunch!)

If you're wondering, the Molcajete you see here consists of chicken, beef (arrachera), sausage (chorizo), nopal (cactus), onion (cebollita), cheese, and salsa.  To eat it, simply take a fork or spoon and put some of these yummies into a tortilla and add more salsa to taste and enjoy.  We did do just that.  Each one feeds about 2 to 3 people and costs about $14.  The drinks are gouge prices for here, about $2.  Come visit and we'll enjoy it all over again with you!

Loom Weaving in Bernal (A Dying Art)

A Really Nice Day

Beth and I left the boys at home and taking our Texan guests to La Peña de Bernal, a famous monolith (otherwise known as a very large rock), that is located about an hour from here as the car drives.

It's a lovely little town with some nice shops, some nice views, and a little restaurant on the main plaza that is owned by believers.  We didn't know that until we were seated and began conversing with our waiter named Cristian.  He sounded like he had an Argentinian accent which made me wonder if he was somehow related to the nearby Christian training center and camp, Palabra de Vida (Word of Life), which has a branch in Argentina, and apparently many other countries as well.  I don't know it well, but we've been impressed with the college age students we've met here who have attended the local branch.

So, we asked him realizing he may have no idea what we're talking about.  Just so happens, he is affiliated with Palabra de Vida, and he is a missionary from Argentina to Mexico through Palabra de Vida.  He was very busy as the only waiter in the restaurant so we didn't get to talk much.  We made sure to slip him a few extra pesos on the way out to bless him and his family.

We were graciously allowed to go into the back of one of the shops that sells all sorts of textiles.  They said that they're the only remaining shop in Bernal that still uses looms and makes their own products in this way.  I took a couple of videos which I'll post separately.  A man working on one of the looms told me he's been doing this kind of work for 35 years.  Wow.  When we first visited Bernal with Beth's family back in 1990, it was a sleepy little hamlet with rough cobblestone streets, many shops had large looms being operated by indigenous men and women, and locally made wool sweaters were in practically every shop.  Today, you won't see too many tribal people and if you find a sweater, it will probably be made thousands of miles from Bernal.  It's very touristy, attractive, but missing that pueblito charm that it once held.  It will never look like that ever again.

I did finally get some photos of our guests.  Something I might not have remembered to do if we hadn't gone out today.  It was a really nice day.  It even rained on our way home; hard enough rain that the boys would have declared we received a "missionary car wash."  (i.e. free! ha-ha)

A Sharp Reminder

A reminder from the latest Operation World:

The Rosary Belt, a region in central Mexico consisting of Zacatecas, Jalisco, Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Colima, Michoacán and Querétaro.  This region is often called the “10-40 window of the Americas”  by Latino evangelicals.  Spanish colonial and religious influence is very strong here.  None of these states numbers over 2% evangelical, and Querétaro is only 0.25%.

If you didn't know this already, the occult is the 2nd leading religion in this state of Querétaro where we live.  I was reminded of this last week as I walked downtown to pay the electric bill (see the photo below of a newly opened tarot card reader in town).  

Sad to say, since we began our small ministry here in San Juan del Rio in 2005, among CAM or CAM-related missionaries, I can count at least 11 missionary units (families/singles) that have left this region (all 11 are in the USA now) and 3 have come that are still here.  I could count a few more families with other evangelical mission agencies that have also left and not been replaced.  The attrition rate is difficult to comprehend.  At the same time, according to Operation World this is the least reached state in Mexico and one of the least reached areas of the Western Hemisphere.

Pray with us for the Lord of the Harvest to send laborers into His harvest field.  He still has "other sheep" here who need to hear the Gospel.  There is nothing lacking except "the feet of those who bring Good News."

Too Cute

We enjoyed "cena" Friday evening at the home of Miguel and Minerva.  Miguel is a leader in the Bible church that meets in the community center.  We attended and worked in this church for about 4 years before beginning our Sunday study and outreach in our home.  We don't have many opportunities to visit with very many of the believers from the church, so this was a special treat.

They have six adorable children and the youngest is certainly a cutie.

Summertime is Here

Inviting isn't it?

 Those strawberries could be really yummy or practically deadly.  Anyone want to give them a try?  We don't know anyone who has yet!  (believe me...when you've had strawberries washed in tainted water, you will probably never take that risk twice!)

The town is busier than ever in the two adjacent plazas on weekends.  These shots were taken last Sunday evening as we took a long walk with our guests in ministry the past 10 days.

I've so far somehow managed to not get a photo of Martin and Rubi Sweaney while they've been here, but maybe I'll do better next week.  They left this morning for some ministry in Salamanca and will be back Tuesday for a few more days.  We've enjoyed having them.  Martin is a great guest...I'm too slow in the morning to get the coffee made, and he's done a great job of making it for us!  I can't complain!


We've decided to call it a school year for now and are giving the boys and ourselves some welcome break from schoolwork.  They've finished all but some extra writing I want to do with them.  The writing  will wait...hoping their literacy won't wait.  Actually, we received the results for their Stanford Achievement Tests and they performed better than all their previous years so far!  They're catching up in their language as becoming more bi-lingual has put a drag on their spelling and structural development.  They scored no less than the average range on everything and are edging up into the above average ranges in many areas.

We hope to see them turn into Lake Wobegon kids before they finish high school!


Today was my third English class of six at the community center.  I hadn't felt too great about the first two sessions, so I spent a few extra hours trying to figure out how to approach the book we're using and to come up with a better lesson.

When I drove across town to the community center, I felt very comfortable with my plan today.  I walked in and discovered that I had three new students for a total of six.  None of them are from the church and that is very much what we're trying to accomplish in making new, unsaved contacts.

To my chagrin, no one in the class had the textbook we're using for the class, and we have no more to sell them.  That messed up most of my lesson plan for the day, but the one worksheet that I put together was plenty to work with for the hour.  We had some good conversational practice and they were definitely involved and paying attention even though they varied in ages from about ten to forty-something.  I'm looking forward to our final two lessons for this segment of classes.  I hope we'll be able to resume classes in August after taking a break during the school summer break which is mostly just the month of July.


There is plenty more happening around here but hey, this is the summer.  No sense in getting too wound up over details.  Enjoy some watermelon, sit on a wooden bridge and drag your toes through a chilly creek, and remember the time when summer was all about doing anything but chores, school, and work.

Wasn't that nice?

Now snap out of it.  There's a lot to do!
(I remember hearing something similar in my childhood summers too!)

A Helpful yet Unwelcome House Guest

You might recall the video I posted here last August of a thread snake we caught in our bathroom and ended up flushing it down the w.c.  Only problem then was we didn't have any idea what it was and had never heard of such a creature before.  It doesn't help that we're not fond of worms or snakes...at all.

However, this one showed up in our hallway this morning and instead of disposing of it in a more permanent manner, Beth swept it into the dustpan (I took a quick pic before it slithered over the side), and she took it out to the weeded lot beside our house.

While the snake is harmless to people, other than the fright it might provide, thread snakes eat ants and termites and other kinds of unwanted invertebrates.  They are effective in doing so.  Given we had an ant invasion in the bathroom just a few steps from where this friend showed up, it's no wonder this one is longer than the last one we discovered.  Perhaps its presence in the hallway rather than the bathroom may be an indication that the ants in that part of the house are now eradicated.  We haven't seen any since our intense 2-day battle against them a couple weeks ago.

It's good to know that God has created predators to deal with many problem pests and pestilences.  For example, Coke and chocolate cake combat rice cakes and aspartame.

Hopefully, if you've been considering coming down here for a visit, you aren't scared off by some ants and snakes.  I would think we're weird enough of our own account to scare you off, but we'll try to be good.  :-)

Teenager In the House...Camboy Is 13 Today!

As Beth and I go the way of all the parenting-earth, we have reached the milestone that brings excitement, fear, and trembling into the hearts of parents everywhere:

the big 1-3
thirteen
XIII
trece
iiiiiiiiiiiii

Only a few photos can take us back in our minds to the Camboy we first knew and remember, but he's still a great kid and we love him like our very own son.  Oh yeah...he is!  (on loan from God)

A few photos from way back and one for today: