Hi Folks - Here's our latest newsletter:

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                                                                July 17 , 2008

Dearest Friends,

Please accept our apologies for the delay in getting a newsletter out this summer and for our inability to keep up with personal letters or emails in recent months.  We have been so busy that we have not had the opportunity to write much of anything to anyone!  ¡AYE CHIHUAHUA!!!

However, the Lord has been tremendously faithful as always to grace and strengthen us in the craziness and to help us press through in victory.  So, while our bodies may be shattered and our minds scattered (or maybe this is age??!!), our spirits are rejoicing and our hearts are broken even more with a passionate love for Jesus that compels us to seek to follow Him more closely and to press into Him more deeply!  Like the apostle Paul, the fervent cry of our hearts is to know Him more completely, to hold tight to His righteousness rather than our own, and to press toward the goal of that upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Phil 3:7-14).

We THANK YOU so much again for your prayer covering and intercession on behalf of us and the ministry here in Mexico!!  Your prayers support and strengthen us in ways that you may never fully know or understand. They go before us and break through the barriers and the obstacles we face, both natural and spiritual. They create a hedge of protection around us and a covering of grace over us.  They soften the hearts of the people we are working with and make a way for the Holy Spirit to touch and change their lives. In fact, your prayers are invaluable!  Please receive our appreciation once again for your support and partnership with us - both prayerfully and financially.  

Lifeline Website

The website at http://www.lifeline-ministries.net has recently been updated with LOTS of new photos.  Please take a look when you have some time!!  We have yet to add the biographical info and photos of all the new folks in the U.S. and England who are helping us with administrative things, but we hope to be able to update this part of the website very soon!

Visits from Friends and Family

There is much to share since our last newsletter, as so many things have happened since our trip to NM in April!  We had a visit from our dear friends of many years, Jerry and Denise Forte, and their children Jon and Elise, for a family vacation/missions trip in May. 

We also a had a lengthy visit in June from our 19 year old niece, Samantha, who did a bang-up job of plugging in and handling the hardships without any complaint whatsoever.   These were precious times for us! But along with these visits, we also hosted two church missions teams from the United States in June and July.

Glory Missions Team

In early June, we were blessed to host a team from Glory Christian Fellowship in Albuquerque, NM.  There were 9 members on this team.  What a great group!  During the 3 ½ days they were here, they accomplished quite a lot of cleaning and painting type work at the youth center. What a tremendous blessing it was for us!!  They also joined with us to pray and intercede for the city one night, where we not only interceded and took communion together with some Mexican friends, but also had the opportunity to talk with and get to know 5 “skaters”. These boys were really precious and we will be watching for them to come by when the youth center opens. We continue to pray for them and ask that you would keep them in your prayers also:  Arne, Angel, Martín, Juan Carlos and Alejandro.  We also took the team to share and pray with people downtown around the plaza area one night, and to a very poor colonia to take food and 15 Christmas shoeboxes that were left over to 5 pre-selected households.  One house we went to was inhabited by 4 prostitutes and their 17 children, ranging in age from babies to teenagers.  The “walls” of their home were simply blankets hung up to keep the sun and wind out.  Another home was inhabited by a family deeply into witchcraft, who was experiencing much oppression, disease and mental illness as a result of their involvement with the kingdom of darkness.  Joe, who has been healed of cancer, was able to pray for a precious woman battling cancer herself at another one of the homes.  Denise and Michael were greatly touched to watch a young boy in this colonia open one of the Christmas shoeboxes they had prepared back in November for the children here.  Isn’t that precious? Thank you again, Glory Team, for sharing your lives with us and for your diligence at the youth center!!  We know the heat was difficult, and the work hard, but your efforts were appreciated more than you will ever know!!

Mountain CF Missions Team

In late June/early July we were blessed to host a different missions team, this time from Mountain Christian Fellowship in Medford, Oregon.  These folks had found us through our website, and had written us to ask about the possibility of our working with a team of families they wanted to send to Guaymas.  While it was a bit of a squeeze time-wise for us, we felt the Lord say it was a divine connection and to respond affirmatively.  We were tremendously blessed by this wonderful group, which consisted of two families (4 adults, 6 children), and feel that we have made some very dear new friends!  They came down in a school bus packed full of equipment, things for the games, and craft supplies for the children’s ministry they planned to do in 4 different colonias of Guaymas.  The ministry took place in host churches in these colonias, churches led by pastors we have been working with for the past few years.  It involved making balloon animals, a number of different REALLY FUN group games, watching a Veggie Tales movie in Spanish, a short message, lunch, face painting and making bracelets with colored beads that explain God’s plan of salvation.  There was also a day where we took the children from the King’s Kids Orphanage on a day out – hiking in Nacapule Canyon and then to the beach.  This team really felt the heat and made a huge sacrifice to come all the way from Oregon in a bus with no A/C, and to brave the heat and horrendous humidity here in Guaymas this time of year. While others were going on vacations to Disneyland and the like, these guys and their children were sweating it out here because they have a heart to give more than to receive.  Thank you guys for giving up so much this summer to give to the precious children of Guaymas!!

Youth Conference

A few days after the MCF team left, we traveled with a group of youth from Guaymas to a big Christian youth conference at Vino Nuevo in Juarez, Chihuahua.  It was a 16 hour trip by bus, and we traveled through the night both directions.  The idea was to sleep, we guess, but have you ever tried to sleep in a tight, uncomfortable bus seat traveling with 40 young people???!!!  We took 9 teens from the Miramar church, really precious kids who have found a special place in our hearts!  While in Juarez, we also ministered to an Italian man named Ruben that we met at one of the malls that we went to for lunch.  He offered to share his table with a group of us, and it turned out to be a divine appointment!  Our young people had some divine appointments of their own also.  Most of the kids we took had life-changing encounters with the Lord sometime during the conference.  Two got absolutely blasted by the Holy Spirit!  There was a significant amount of relationship building that went on also.  A number of kids from Guaymas and Obregón had either come alone or without any adult leaders to speak of.  They ended up hanging with our group a good part of the time, bonding with our kids and getting to know us as well.  Many of them even came to our group’s early morning prayer meetings by the hotel pool (which was completely voluntary).  These were also divine connections.  We believe that the Lord will be directing some of these kids to be part of the leadership at the youth center and to be part of the leadership team for the youth event also.  It will be interesting to see what He has in store for all of us!!

Update on YouthCenter (Opening finally this fall … we hope!)

Well, with all the other things going on, we understandably haven’t had a lot of time to work on the youth center!!   It remains only partially completed, though we have made some progress.  We lost two months in April and May when the city tore up the street in front and cut off our access.  We couldn’t park close enough during that time to do any real work at the center or get materials delivered.  Thankfully, the street is now open again and when things finally settle back down, we will be able to get over there again to work!!  In the meantime, please continue to pray for Dave, who is doing most of the work there by himself, as the skill level and reliability factor here make it difficult for us to find good help.

Update on Monthly Youth Event (Starting soon!)

We’ve had to delay the start of the monthly youth event, which will be called ¡Conéctate!, until September because we were finding ourselves with no time this summer to prepare for it!  It is scheduled now to begin September 12th and will be held on every second Friday of the month thereafter at the city’s outdoor gym downtown.  At the moment, we are trying to get flyers (leaflets for our British friends!) ready to be printed and handed out at a youth event sponsored by the Transformations group, being held at the civic auditorium on Aug. 1st and 2nd.  We are also trying to find Mexican ministers to share something in each event, specifically those with an anointing to minister to youth and with a deep revelation of the Father’s heart.  As you might imagine, that is a rather tall order and a definite prayer need!  We still need to work on assembling and training a local ministry team, finding time to learn the details of our equipment (some of which we still don’t have), and then to teach different kids how to work the equipment, and finally we’ll need a dry run with everyone sometime before September!  So we appreciate your prayers very much as we prepare for the start of this POWERFUL AND LIFE-CHANGING YOUTH EVENT!!

YouthBeach Party

In June, we were asked by one of the local pastors to help with a beach party for both the younger and the older youth groups.  We took our BBQ grill to the beach, played volleyball with the kids, & led lots of fun group games – including bobbing for jellybeans in a flour-filled baking pan!  Even some of the kids’ parents took part in the games.  A wonderful afternoon and evening together was had by all who participated!

Parting Thoughts from the Heart …

Abundant blessings to each and every one of you!  You remain firmly fixed in our thoughts and prayers. We have had Numbers 6:24-26 on our hearts recently as we have been praying for you: “The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.”  THANK YOU again for your love and friendship, for your prayers and financial support, for your encouragement and graciousness to us. We are deeply touched to have such wonderful, caring friends and family.

P.S.  Please pray for the next missions team we will be hosting!  They are coming from Texas, arriving this weekend (Sat 19th) and leaving the 25th.  We are asking the Lord for safe travel, protection from gut bugs and dehydration, His power and anointing, and His hand of grace to rest upon them in every way.  We also are praying that His plan and purposes for this particular team will be fulfilled completely, and that each person will return home with something of eternal value deposited in their hearts.  Thanks for joining with us in praying for this team!!!  

We love you dearly,

y

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