What a Milestone!

Today the Crossing Church dedicated it's fourth home to a needy family in Puerto Penasco, Mexico. However, this home was the 200th house built through the mission agency through which we have served - 1Mission. We were blessed to have this honor of building #200.

 

 

The joy of Tania, Daniel & Manuel upon receiving the keys to their new home was indescribable. Tonight we also did a community outreach event in Tania's neighborhood - a popcorn and movie night. A great time was had by all. We are exhausted, but energized by the joy of serving this very grateful family and community. Please continue to lift the team up in prayer as we travel home tomorrow.

Photo Gallery

I decided to let these photos tell today's story for us. Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here's our family at our Family Fiesta Night - LOTS of fun!

 

 

We can hardly wait to finish the house and hand Tania the keys to her new home tomorrow. She has been grinning ear-to-ear every minute of every day, telling us how very happy and blessed she feels. The team is feeling blessed as well.

 

Great day of fellowship

The day started with a beautiful sunrise at Base Camp and just kept getting better as Tania greeted us with a huge smile and the repetition of how happy she was to see us as we arrived to start the house build. We finished the foundation, after somewhere between 100 and 105 wheelbarrows of hand mixed cement, and the walls and roof frames are ready to go for tomorrow. After coming back to base camp for showers and a brief period of rest, the team loaded back in to the van to go visit last year's family - the Galaviz Enriquez family. We were thrilled to be greeted by Bette and the girls, Lluvia & Priscilla, and to hear that dad has some fulltime work. They have done some nice things to the house and have really made it a home.

 

It's been so great to feel like we're visiting old friends and to continue to build a sense of community. We hope to visit our first family tomorrow and our second family on Sunday. Sunday night we are planning to invite the neighborhood families to a movie and popcorn night, since Spring vacation begins for the students on Monday. Stay tuned for more - as internet access permits. :-)

Arrived safely!

We so appreciate all those who follow us on the field and want you to know that we feel your prayers. There is no more availability of data usage here at base camp due to the fact that they purchase internet based on usage. Greg Yochim has very graciously allowed me to use another device that connects to his cell phone, simply to let you all know we have arrived safely. Not sure what the continued availability will be, but we are excited about leaving shortly to meet our family and begin our build! Keep lifting us up in prayer - the Lord will guide you even if I am unable to provide more consistent updates. Thanks for being here with us!

Here we go again!

The team is prayed up and ready to go! We're heading to Puerto Penasco, Mexico this Thursday to build our 4th home (1Mission's 200th home!) for a deserving family.

Tania and her two boys, Daniel and Jesus Manuel, are currently living in a small trailer. The family moved to the area 7 years ago from Tijuana. One year after the move Tania's husband went to the state of Sinaloa looking for work and was killed, leaving Tania a single mother of two young boys. Tania used to work as a cook in a popular restaurant but the restaurant went out of business about a year ago and she has been essentially unemployed ever since. However, Tania's mother owns a small grocery store (tiendita) and Tania works there to earn enough money to feed her kids.

Tania has completed over 200 community service hours by working at an elementary school and Tania and her boys have worked on the construction of their neighbor's homes, making them eligible now to receive a home of their own. Our team of fourteen are thrilled that God has chosen us to go and build a new house for this precious family to call home.

Your ongoing prayers are appreciated for the family, the team and those to whom we will minister while on the field in Puerto Penasco. May God be glorified!

Back From the Field

Hi, Pastor Janette here. The team is home safe and sound and I just wanted to take a brief moment to say a few thank yous. Pastor Nate was the one posting all of the blogs for this trip, which left me with MANY additional hours for direct ministry. I am grateful that my full attention was able to go toward encouraging the many pastors we met and worked alongside, loving and serving the people in the varied communities that we visited, and leading and ministering to an awesome team of dedicated fellow workers for the Kingdom. Many thanks to all of you who followed us and prayed for us. The spiritual battles were many and I am convinced that your prayers protected and enabled us. This entire trip would not have been possible unless many of you responded to God's call to give - to Faith Promise, to our Compassion in Action fund, to purchasing Jesus Film equipment, to our Work & Witness scholarship fund and to the well water project. Thank for for your faithfulness. God brought together abudant resources to meet abundant needs and we were all blessed to get to be a small part of it all. God is on the move in the Doiminican Republic!

Jesus Film Part 2

It was an audible gasp from the crown when the nails were being driven into the arms of Christ. We arrived at the site where we were going to show the Jesus film for the second time this trip. While some began to set up the equipment, others took small bags of gifts to nearby houses to bless the families and invite them to the movie.

Originally we were not planning to take gifts and care packages because we had given away all the crisis care kits. But it seemed like we should really do something if we could. So we did. We purchased about 50 hand towels and bars of soap and made small kits with information about the church that was showing the movie.

As we grew closer to film time people began to show up with their own chairs. The crowd grew and grew as we started the movie. People were gathered on both sides of the screen so they could watch - and there was little to no chance of rain in the forecast. In all, 107 souls were counted.

As the movie ended one of the pastors with us began to give an altar call. We didn't get to experience this part of the film last time because of the rain so we weren't sure exactly what to expect. As the pastor preached and prayed people began to move to the front. Kids and adults gathered near the pastor as he began to pray and lead them to pray the sinners prayer as well.

You could see in the eyes of the adults that came up front that they were sincere, this wasn't some act of going through the motions. The Holy Spirit moved there in the middle of the street in a poor and broken neighborhood. The church gathered infomration on the 28 new converts and will be following up with them personally. They received names of people who needed their ministry, who needed Jesus.