One Mission Ministries

A couple of times in this space I have mentioned my friend Abraham Barberi, with whom I have worked in Matamoros. He, along with Paul Bellington, leads a ministry called One Mission Ministries. They recently produced a video about OMM, which can be viewed here.

Have You Heard?

It's official! The dates for our medical missions trip to the Dominican Republic are now set. God willing we will leave Thursday, June 7th 2012, and return the following Thursday. This will give us 5 ministry days, a free day, and 2 travel days.
The DR is an enchanting land full of natural beauty, friendly people and, in places, grinding poverty. YOU can do something about that. While we'll certainly be needing medical professionals, we'll need some "common" people also. Space is limited. If you are at all interested, get in touch with me right away.

Week 2

Last night was our second Summer of Serving evening at FBC (see the post from May 22). In all we had 3 teams going at the same time. One was working at the local Christian radio station, another was preparing Scriptures for distribution (stamping contact information on them and inserting a gospel tract), and another was delivering food to needy families in the community. The "stamping team" completed about 6,000 copies of the Scriptures, while the "food team" gave away 20 bags full of non-perishables. I was on the food team, and I can tell you that it was a lot of fun seeing people light up when we showed up at their house, unannounced, with a tangible expression of God's love.

Hogar De Niños

Maybe it's because of my background, but I've always had a tender spot in my heart for small, struggling ministries. If there's one thing that they all have in common it's that there is never enough of anything....money, time, or help. But they keep rolling along anyway, with the conviction that it was God who called them to do it. Well, today I met a woman who, along with a handful of others, operates a small hogar de niños (children's home) about 45 minutes from us in Mexico. They care for 21 children at the moment. The double whammy of border violence and a bad economy has taken its toll. They will be closing their doors soon unless they are able to raise more funds. I post this story here with the hope that someone reading this might feel led to help. If that person is you, please e-mail me and I'll put you in touch.

As Many As We Can

We received an update yesterday from one of our team members who is in Japan. She said that the work is hard and hot, and emotionally taxing as well. She told us that, while working on one of the houses that had been damaged, the men threw away as many idols as they could get away with! Pray for the team; they are scheduled to return at the end of this week.

Japan Update

An article appeared in the June 12th edition of our local paper about our team that is in Japan. You can read it online here.

Summer in the Son

Today we began 8 weeks of children's ministry in a local apartment complex. We are calling it "Summer in the Son". What is really gratifying about this, other than the kids we met, is the fact that about 6 kids from our youth group showed up to help. One young lady who was at the apartments told us that she wanted to start attending our church youth group on Wednesday evenings. Woo-hoo!

Land of the Rising Sun

Monday a team of 5 from our church, along with a former staff member from Dallas, flew to Japan for a few days of disaster relief work. While we deeply regret that the earthquake/tsunami happened, we are grateful that we now have a platform to show God's love in a country that has long been resistant to the gospel. Please pray for our team as they minister there.

Our First Team

The first team of summer 2011 has arrived. This is a group of old friends from FBC Blanchard, La. They will be doing some door-to-door evangelism in Mexico on Monday, and then conducting a VBS in a local park the rest of the week. The violence in Mexico has substantially affected our ministry here. All ministries near the border, so far as I know, are having fewer teams to come help this year. So, while the workers are fewer, the needs are not. For this reason we are especially grateful for the teams that are willing to help this summer.