A Thanksgiving Gift!!!

As many of you know, we have been asking for prayers for our visas every since we arrived in Mexico 14 months ago.  Well, we finally received our visas . . . on Thanksgiving Day.  Who says the Lord does not have a sense of humor.  It made it an extra special day.

This means that Dan will leave on Wednesday (28th of Nov.) to drive up and bring down our semi trailer with our furniture in it.  Please pray for this trip.  Pray especially that he would not have any trouble getting the permission to bring in our furniture from the consulate in Denver and that the border crossing would go smoothly.

Thanksgiving in Mexico!

“How do you celebrate Thanksgiving in Mexico?” is a question I recently received.  Well, for starters it is not a holiday down here.  It’s not that they are not thankful, its just that when the pilgrims arrived they were already in the throws of the conquista by the Spaniards.  So after the kids arrived home from school we got together with a number of missionaries to celebrate Thanksgiving with turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, a pick up game of football, and a little soccre thrown in.  We had a great time!

Thanksgiving in Mexico! (Yes that is Dan next to the Packer fan)

A Trip to Mexico City

The last week of October both of us along with Adrian spent the week in Mexico City.  Dan had been invited to speak at the Baptist Seminary there as their pastor in residence.  He spoke on “Lessons Learned by a Church Planter”.  We had a great time speaking and spending time with the 60 seminarians and their staff.  We also received a driving tour of this megacity!  It was a facinating trip.

Lunch with the Seminarians

 

Mexico City has a population of over 20 million

A parade

The 12 of October is the Day of the Virgin of Zapopan. On this day, 3 million people march in celebration of the Virgin of Zapopan as she makes a pilgrimmage from the downtown cathedral in Guadalajara to her “home” cathedral about 15 miles away. The Virgin of Zapopan is a small doll of the Virgin Mary made out of corn husks and cactus paste. She is worshiped as bringer of miracles. This past month we decided to go down to see the procession. Here is a link to some pictures a colleague of ours, VaLynn Ruth, took and posted online.

(Pictures)

For more information on the Virgin of Zapopan check our her story at:

(Story of Virgin of Zapopan)

She’s 14

Karina turned 14 years old yesterday. Karina with her sister celebrating her 14th!!

So What’s with the Visas?

One of the common questions we are asked is what is the status of our visas.  We received a call from our attorney last week stating that our visas had been approved.  We still do not have them, however.  We now are able to submit photos so that we can actually receive the visa document.  We hope to do that this week.  We are praying that we will receive the final documents before the end of the month.

What is the big deal?  Well, there are a couple of items being held up until we get our visas.  Without visas we are not able to open any bank accounts in Mexico.  This means that for the past year we have had to use “borrowed” bank accounts opened by others but on which we do not have signatures.  We are also still driving on our US driver’s licenses since a Mexican driver’s license requires a visa.

The biggest item is that we have not been able to bring in our household goods.  We brought the bare necessities when we came down.  The rest of our furniture is sitting in a trailer in Denver.  Once we get our visas we can apply at the consulate in Denver for permission to bring in our furniture.  Please pray with us.  This has been a source of discouragement for us and especially for our children.  It’s hard enough moving to another country, but they still don’t have their beds, games, bikes and MeLinda is using a borrowed washing machine.

A Church Planting Consultation

This past week Dan had the opportunity to travel to Mexico City to meet with some influential pastors from the Mexican Convention along with some of the leaders from the Baptist General Conference. They were discussing how to plant churches which will reach the next generation. One of the results of this meeting is that we are moving toward pulling together a consultation of influential church leaders to discuss this question further. This is an exciting development and one which has the potential to give the church planting movement here in Mexico some real momentum.

Dan with Pastor Gilberto Gutierrez at the meeting in Mexico City

A Book Recomendation

We recently had the opportunity to hear a missionary speak on Mexico’s spiritual history and how it impacts on spiritual warfare. This missionary, Pat Carter, has been a missionary for 45 years in Mexico. He has a doctorate in philosophy and was the director of one of the seminaries here in Mexico for a number of years. He has written a book where in novel form he describes his perspectives on how the enemy has been at work throughout Mexico’s history and continuing to the present day. It’s a must read for those who are ministering to the Mexican people. You can find the book at Amazon. It is called “Charming the Serpent”.

A Trip to Tehuacan

The 3rd week of September, Dan had the opportunity to travel to Tehuacan, a city about 2 hours southeast of Mexico City.  Tehuacan is main city in a long valley  with a number of towns in it.  The Baptist Convention presently has about 11 churches in the valley.  Their pastors have set a goal of starting 50 new churches by the year 2010.

The leaders of these churches invited Dan to come and give them some conferences on Church Planting.  He arrived on a Wednesday and stayed through Sunday speaking 4 times.  A highlight of the trip was to travel up into the mountains about an hour into a village which speaks Nahuatl, the native dialect of the Axtecs.  There he visited a young missionary couple working on learning the dialect and ministering the Nahuatl people.

The conferences Dan gave were well received. He was overwhelmed by the treatment he received from the pastors and the leaders who attended the conferences.

Another hospital visit

Yes, it was Diana again.  About a month ago while playing basketball Diana dislocated her kneecap.  It had happened once before just prior to our coming down to Mexico.  While this dislocation was not as severe as the previous one, she was still on crutches for a week and is in her 3rd week of therapy.  The things teenagers will do to get attention!!