Mazatlan Mission Update

Emmanuel

06/17 11:04 pm

Today was a day similar to the last three except for the fact that we changed locations and are now helping a different church. The name of the church is Emmanuel and it is in a rougher part of town surrounded by more poverty. Since there is more poverty, there were more people at home during the day giving us more opportunities to share the Gospel.

Our Gospel saturation was great again. We feared that everyone would slow down since it was the third day canvassing in a row and everyone was noticeably tired. However, we hit more homes today than the previous two. The VBS was unreal. The park was packed with what I would guess 200 people. I know minister's are prone to exaggeration but people were everywhere! This was awesome because it was our first effort at this location. We expect more tomorrow night. I spent some time talking to one of the church members and he was speechless. It gave him confidence that in order to reach people, they needed to go outside to the people instead of expecting them to come to the church. Those were his words.

In our group time tonight, I asked our students what God was teaching them. It was incredible to hear how God is transforming hearts. One thing that we talked about was how the people in this community live in deep poverty but still are so happy and content. At first, we felt sorry for them but maybe they should feel sorry for us. We fill our lives with so much stuff. We have most all we want and very few of us are ever truly in need. Because of that, we depend on ourselves and not God. Another truth that kept coming up was prayer. The Christians here truly believe in prayer. If we want to hand out Gospels on a street, then all of the houses on that street need to be prayed over. It has been neat seeing God answer our prayers. On Monday, we found out that there was going to be a soccer tournament at the park that we were going to have our initial VBS. So the VBS that night had to be moved! We prayed that God would give us another location because we couldn't have it at the church. Well, God answered our prayer in having the soccer tournament change locations. The day of the tournament! Crazy. We also prayed heavily today for Carley because she has been so sick. Well, she was back on the field tonight and did a great job. Those are just two of many ways God has proved faithful. All that to say that we feel a renewed confidence in prayer. To pray first for God's plans instead of praying at the end that God would bless our plans.

Continue to pray that God would use us to point people towards Him. Tomorrow is our last night of VBS and we are showing "Facing the Giants" again afterwards to reach the adults. Also pray that God continues to change us.

Wednesday

06/17 7:31 am

Well, first I want to apologize for not having an update yesterday but I simply did not have time. Sorry. Anyway, the past two days have been very long and tiring but very rewarding. There has been a sickness that has been going through nearly the entire team. The missionaries said they have never seen so many people sick and they do not think it is the water or the food since not everyone has been sick. They think someone carried it in and that it has been passed when we fill up our water bottles from the same jug. Whatever the case, almost everyone has caught this 24-hour bug. A couple are having a harder time recovering.

We began going door to door with out Gospel saturation on Monday. I can't remember how many people asked us if we were Jehovah's Witnesses! We went to over 4,000 homes the past two days. We do this in the morning, break for lunch, and then do our VBS's in the afternoon. While it has been very hot, our group has been doing great. On Monday, Hayley Hoover and another lady had the opportunity to lead a man to Christ from giving him the Gospel. He spoke English and after they had given him the Gospel, they walked by later and saw him reading the Gospel of John. They went back in to talk to him and he began asking a lot of questions and that led him to the realization that he needed Christ. So they led him in doing so. Hayley was so excited as was the rest of the group because the goal of Gospel saturation is to spread seeds so seeing it bear fruit so soon was amazing. While the language barrier there, all of our students have been very bold in their testimony.

The VBS's have been huge. Both groups had too many people to count. Since people have seen us canvassing their neighborhoods, there was a curiosity as to what all of the gringo's were doing. They have been a lot of fun and again, our students have been bold. Last night, we watched "Facing the Giants" after our VBS as a way of reaching the parents. At the two locations, 18 people gave their lives over to Christ, with most of them being adults. There was this one guy, Albert, that Brian Russell spent the whole night talking to. He spoke pretty good English so the conversation was fluid. Brian then turned the conversation to Christ and after hours of conversation, he gave his life to Christ. Albert grew up Catholic and knew about Christ, but not about his personal need for Christ. The funny thing is that Albert and his sister came up to Brian to introduce themselves because the sister though Brian was cute and she wanted to meet him! So Brian's good looks brought someone to Christ!

Continue to pray for us and for those few that are still battling sickness. Pray that God changes us as well. Many of our students have come to the realization that this is not a "mission trip." This is just life. If we believe Scripture to be true, our lives are a mission trip. The passion and commitment we have here should not change in Owensboro. Being missional is just understanding that our lives have a mission. Pray that once we get home, the pursuit of personal success and achievement don't seek to rule our hearts again.

Also, I'm sorry for the lack of pictures. The web connection here is not very conducive for uploading large files. It would take hours we don't have. Sorry!

Stuffed

06/15 11:31 pm

Today was our first full day in Mazatlan and everything is going well. We had some more training this morning and our groups split and went to three different Mexican churches. Transportation was entertaining as each group had to have some people ride in a taxi. Well, a taxi is actually a Nissan truck with benches and a canopy in the back. They definitely are a little more lenient with their transportation laws. It was a neat experience, though.

Once at the churches, two of the groups were put on the spot. They asked for someone to sing and someone to share their testimony. I was really proud of our group as they were the ones that stepped up. Although they are the youngest, they have really stood out in their work ethic and willingness to put themselves out there in uncomfortable situations. Katharine Stodghill shared her testimony at one church with Abby and another girl singing "Amazing Grace." At the other church, David Harrison shared his story and Kim Thurman and Margaret Thacker sang "Shout to the Lord" in Spanish. I was told that they did an incredible job. As a whole, they really have been impressive in light of being surrounded by college students.

When we got back from the church, we began stuffing our Gospels for the Gospel Saturation tomorrow. We thought we were going to do some Gospel Saturation today but they went ahead and had us stuff all of the Gospels. This involved putting a Gospel, tract, and an invitation in a small plastic bag. We stuffed nearly 20,000 of them this afternoon! It took over four hours. Our goal is to pass out half of them throughout the week. We finished up all of our training tonight so we are 100% prepared for our VBS's and block parties.

Everyone continues to have great attitudes and we are anxious about tomorrow. At our group time tonight, we each shared what we hoped God would teach us this week. It was great to hear everyone's heart. God has brought us to the point that we understand that this trip is not about us or the people of Mazatlan. Us being here is all about God and bringing people to worship Him. We are humbled to be a part of His mission. We appreciate the prayer!

First Day

06/14 10:59 pm

As I'm sure most of you know, we arrived safely in Mazatlan at around 1:30 pm. The travel was uneventful as we didn't see any movie stars this time. We all arrived pretty tired since most of us were operating on little or no sleep.

The drive to our hotel was about 45 minutes although it was only 13 miles from the airport. Traffic was pretty bad and coupled with road construction made the drive longer than anticipated. The drive was eye opening as we saw the harsh poverty that so many Mexicans in this area live. The living conditions that we saw were much worse that Uruguay and nothing like any of us ever see in the states. Our missionary informed us that we would be working in similar neighborhoods. I am looking forward to what God will teach us through being in these areas. We could all use the reminder Matthew chapter 25.

We had a few hours to rest when we got to our hotel. We were all happy to meet the other students. There are around 55 total participants from 4 different churches along with 8 or so missionaries. Two of the churches are from North Carolina and the third is from St. Louis. We have been divided into 6 different teams with 8-10 people on each team. A few of the teams have six FBC members while another only has two. We are all looking forward to serving along side other groups. We are definitely the youngest group. Two of the churches only have college students while the other church has only two high school students.

The rest of the day was filled with orientation for group leaders and students. It has been really helpful and we will continue with training tomorrow morning. Tomorrow we will go to different Mexican churches for worship and then go to our ministry sights for the week. We'll begin with prayer-walking and start our gospel distribution. I think that everyone is anxious about getting started.

I hope that tomorrow we can begin reporting what God has been doing through us and what He is teaching us. Pray that God will use all of us to make much of Him this week and that we can fade into the background. I'll try to update again tomorrow night.