NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

The end of August brought us some visitors from home. Chris’ parents flew out to visit with us for a week. We had a great time just hanging around. We also were able to celebrate Chris’ birthday with a party and mariachi. We also took them to a Brazilian resturant that serves 14 differents types and cuts of meat. Mmmm… We were so glad to have a little visit from home.

Vacation Bible School at the Brickyard was a huge success this year.  The kids seemed to enjoy themselves almost as much as the adults! Each day the kids recited the verses from the days before in order to win points to spend at “the store”  at the end of the week. Our snack time included foods from around the world – believe it or not the kids were not entirely crazy about American mac-n-cheese!!  While Chris got to play with the kids during recreation, Rachel was having a craft class with the ladies and older teen girls. Thanks to all for your prayers for this ministry. God is truly blessing our relationships with the kids, youth, and ladies at the Brickyard. It is also a great time to practice our spanish!

Peniel Baptist Church provides a wonderful church family for us here in Chihuahua. The church is growing and has a heart for missionwork. What a blessing has Peniel been in our lives. Recently, Chris was able to spend a couple of days with the Pastor and his family and some of youth of the church. It was a great language learning time. We are quickly learning that relationships are vital to our ministry here in Mexico. And we are very thankful that God continues to bless us with wonderful friendships here.

Our Mexican church here in Chihuahua has participated in several outreach evangelism events in an area a little ways outside the city. In March, a group from Oklahoma came to help with another event. I also had the opportunity to teach a jewelry making class two nights. The ladies really responded to the opportunity for free classes. It is amazing to see God at work in this area. It is a very poor area with no real New Testament Church presence.  The ultimate goal of the evangelism activities is to do a church plant in this area. Please be praying for the leaders involved and that hearts be softened to the word and work of the Lord.

Temperature is rising and flowers and trees are blooming. All around you see more and more color – which is saying a lot since we are in the desert! Along with change in temperature has also came a new intense dryness of skin. We are still in our language learning. At some times it seems really slow going, but at other times it appears to be going really well. For the most part, we stay encouraged. We would love to hear from you guys from time to time – feel free to shoot us an email or you can even use “snail-mail”! We are praying that you feel a new awareness of the presence of God in your lives this Spring. God bless!

God is so faithful to use the talents and passions that He gave us to His glory – if we are willing. The ministry with the youth at the Brickyard has been so challenging but also so rewarding. Chris has been able to teach the basics of playing guitar and Rachel has been having English classes. And as our ability to speak increases, we continue to share more and more with the kids. Please pray for these kids and our work there!

Learning the basics of a language is one thing, but learning a whole new language from top to bottom is quite a different task! Recently, Chris took his language learning sessions to a mechanic shop to learn more spanish nouns and verbs. It is very complex – learning a new language. For instance, knowing how to change a verb to different tenses and such english is hard enough to explain – but in a language unfamiliar it is even harder. We continue to advance in the language and stay pretty encouraged. Please continue to pray for us as we continue in culture and language study!