2007-2008

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
PROSPERO ANO NUEVO!

We have had a good 2007 and are looking forward to a blessed 2008--- here is a recap of our last year and a look ahead to 2008!

2007

Winter of 2007 was our first in Mexico. We spent most of it getting oriented to a new way of life and learning the Spanish language. We tried two tutors and a language class and had trouble getting anyone to stick with it. My tutors came by once or twice and then that was it-- my professional teacher would only show up every once in a while too!
The kids were well on their way to homeschooling and did well and Sharlene was finding a groove in the teaching process.

The most surprising part of winter 2007 was the cold. We had gotten rid of most of our cool and cold weather clothes because we were moving to Mexico! Well we had a few nights of almost freezing weather. We were only a few metres of elevation away from snow- they got some a little higher up than we are. Without heat in the house and some days with highs only in the 40's and low 50's- we had 2 weeks in the cold where we could never get warm...

I spent some time in Canada raising support and reporting on our first few months. It was good and God was faithful to supply all of our needs!

Spring came and was spent getting training for my main ministry to start in the fall- Pastor training. I took some training in San Francisco on a curriculum meant for training pastors in the developing world. It has proven to be fantastic and a great blessing to us. Within weeks I had taken the training and a found group of pastors and church leaders who had been praying for someone to come and teach them the Scriptures. We also had Rock Harbour Church in Costa Mesa, CA let us know that they wanted to financially support the training of pastors in this area! Praise God! I love it when HIS plan comes together!

Summer brought us to Canada for a planned hip surgery for Shar and camp speaking for Mike plus deputation in churches while we were there! The surgery was postponed until September, but the camps went exceeding well, praise God, and many kids there decided to either follow Jesus for the first time- or to completely dedicate their lives to Him and follow Jesus wherever and however He wants! It was good to see friends- and rain- and trees- it was a blessing over all!

Fall gave us Shar's surgery, a visit in Mexico from my mother, the start of the pastor's training ministry and homeschooling with the kids. All have gone very well. Shar is now able to walk farther than me- she can even keep up with the kids! She is very happy with her new found mobility! The pastor's training class is going well. The class has wittled down a bit from a high of 35 to an average now of about 20. There have been some external conflicts between students that have caused some to back off. Now we have mostly pastors and their wives who are making the sacrifices to be available to learn from the Scriptures twice a week.
Fall also brought Lupita into our lives-- Lupita is a little girls with a medical problem. My job has been to be chauffeur and taxi driver getting them to Dr.'s appointments and back (there have been many!!). She had surgery a few weeks ago and seems to be improving- though a Dr.'s appointment in the new year will give us more information as to how she is doing.

I am improving steadily in my language acquisition. These last few months I've picked up alot in the classes through discussions and listening to my translator turn my words into Spanish thoughts. But I still struggle with some things and find it a bit frustrating to make myself known and to completely understand folks- likely mostly because of the different sentence structure of Spanish. Shar and the kids's Spanish is coming along markedly slower with their limited time and access to Spanish. Which brings us to our 2008 plans and prayer requests!

2008

Language acquisition.
We are praying about what to do with this. I would like to become more fluent so that I can teach without an translator and take part in discussions with the class. This will come, but is doing so slowly. The other part is that with Shar spending most of her time homeschooling and caring for the house and kids here, her (and the kids) don't have the same opportunity to improve in their Spanish and it affects their ability to serve here and to connect with the local families. There are a couple options-- going to the language school in McAllen Texas. This is a good option- but will be a bit more expensive. We would live in the US which would be more costly than here. It would also be from August to May- so 9 months away from relationships and ministry here. But it would give all of us a good, steady chance to learn Spanish.

Another option is to go to a specialized language school for families in /southern Mexico. The programs there are from 3-4 months long, intensive and comparatively inexpensive. We can do it with the least amount of disruption to the family and ministry, but it is intensive, which can be a bit intimidating... Please pray that we'd have wisdom, direction and provision for whatever we do!

Ministry Direction

Bible Training.
I will continue to teach at the Bible Institute Training in 2008. If we do go somewhere to language school, I have a local, trained pastor who now subs for me who would likely take the class while we are gone.

Church Building
We have one of our pastors who is currently meeting in a dilapidated temporary structure consisting of 3 walls ( one of them is the side of a house) and a makeshift 1/2 a roof. A couple and a church in Canada have donated $6500.00 towards building this church. We will need 10,000-15,000 to build a rudimentary shell in the size he needs and about 25,000 total to finish it off with drywall, electrical, plumbing (rudimentary...). We can use money (Donate to YUGO Canada or YUGO USA see www.yugo.org to find out where ( or look to the left of my blog) and we can use groups to come assist in building. Email me for more info!

Medical Missions
I've been helping out driving Lupita to Dr.'s appointments and keeping our Medical Missionaries apprised of what is happening with her. I'm now going to be more involved as a liason with the pastors that the Medical Missions works with sometimes helping to make sure that those that need more medical help get it. I love the Mobile Medical Missions clinics we have and am glad to be serving them! We can always use nurses, doctors dentists and hygienists in this ministry- again- email me if you are interested in participating in this ministry.

Training Missionaries
We have a couple opportunities to serve in this area. I am planning on getting training on Perspectives in World Missions in February. It is an intensive 1 week course in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The cost for the course, transportation, accommodations, and food comes to around $1600.00. Our Medical Missions Ministry will be having Medical Missionary Internships in the summer. Part of the training will be a missions course based on the Perspectives course. I am also helping to train new missionaries who are coming to YUGO. They will stay at El Faro Ministry for a month or so their first month in Mexico while they get adjusted. I'll be helping to teach courses on Missions, conflict management and other ones as well as needed. I'm looking forward to serving in this way!!


Thank you for partnering with us this last year and for coming along with us in 2008. We are thankful for your prayers and your sacrificial giving on our behalf! This really is our ministry together as God uses what you to effect changed lives in Mexico! Praise God for what He has done in 2007 and we are reliant on Him to lead us to follow Him in His work in Mexico in 2008.

God Bless you all in 2008!

Mike for the Family!

Fiesta de Navidad

Last Saturday we put on a Fiesta de Navidad (Christmas party) for my class and our families-- here are some pics of the event!














We were given lots of blankets and clothes from Canada and US to hand out to the families-- they were very happy to be blessed this way!!














Sharlene speaking with the daughter of one of the students (Lourdes). She lives in San Diego and speaks some English so between the languages they were able to have a conversation!















This is Caleb abd on eof the pastor's kids "Chico Nico". Chico Nico is 12 and about the same height as Caleb (9). The Mexican people are amazed at how big our kids are for their age! In Canada, McDonald's are usually amongst the smallest kids in class- here they are among the tallest!!















Marisella (Far right) and Cynthia (middle) are in the class. Marisellas husband is a pastor and she has been praying for a long time that she'd be able to go to Bible School and get her diploma! On the left is Marisella's daughter.
















Pastor Ramiro and his Wife Catalina (both with guitars) are in my class- they came with their church band and lead the worship!














One of the pastors kids. (Cute!)
















Pastor Feliciano and Marisella giving testimony. Feliciano teaches for me when I can't be at the class. He has a diploma already, but comes to class anyway because he says he is learning more!















Arnulfio (left) receiving a gift of books. A family sent down enough books for all of our students to get 5 Christian books! On the right is Ivan, my translator.















Comida!! Food! We had a feast of tamales, champurrado (Chocolatey drink with corn flour and sugar) salad and flan (desert)! We ate till we were stuffed!!















David- one of the kids of a student of mine- David is the happiest, smiliest kid i know and always seems to be on the verge of a laugh attack!





















Pastor Feliciano showing off his cast. He broke his foot in an accident at work as a tractor was backing up and narrowly missed crushing him. He fell down and the small tire drove over his foot- breaking it.















Eating Tamales! They are corn flour filled with beef or chicken or pork or chile peppers and cheese, wrapped in a corn husk and steamed. A traditional party food- espescially around Christmas and new years-- we had a feast of them!















Me eating with Pastor Javier and Odillia. We have class at their church in Rojo Gomez, East Tijuana.
















Leonard Janssen, YUGO president, came to give the message to us. He has been working in Mexico longer than I've been alive and connected very well with the class! It was good to have him out.


Thanks so much for praying for us- esp. the Bible Institute work in the Colonias of East Tijuana. The students gave great testimonies about how much God is teaching them and how thankful they are for the opportunity to dig into the Scriptures together!

Just yesterday I heard another story of why this ministry is so important. A lady in a local church who is a self-proclaimed "prophet" told a friend of ours to return to her husband- who had been abusing her and whose family had been abusing her kids- even to the point of selling the pre-school girl to a man for a night!!!! Absolute evil and deprivation to the highest degree. But the "prophet" told her it was best to take her kids back to that situation because God hates divorce. Our friend quit her jobs because the "prophet" was now going to find her work and find her some land to buy and had all things under control. Our friend (a new christian) has broken off relationships with everyone else to follow the "prophet". We so need our pastors and leaders to understand their relationship with God and their grave responsibilities of leading humbly and with servitude, the sheep God has given them!

Please continue to pray that God will speak tous all as we search His Scriptures together!

Bless you all and Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad!

Mike for the family

Shortbread

Here is a picture of Sharlene making the traditional Christmas shortbread! It is a delicate procedure of utmost importance...

GingerBread House

Click to Play

Here is a small, soundless video of our annual Gingerbread house making party...

Wish you were here!

McDonald's

Construction Stuff...

This is Pastor Ramiro and his assistant Lamberto. This church is 4 months old and has about 50 people in it. It is in a VERY poor neighbourhood beside some train tracks East of Tijuana. There are several hundred families living as squatters on railroad land and government land in houses often made of scrap wood. Last month we had a Medical mission for an afternoon there and saw 33 people and had to turn away about 50 for lack of time and medical workers.
Lamberto and Ramiro are both in my class. There has been about $6000 raised in Canada to help build a church building for Ramiro. They had to cancel services the last two weeks because of rain. It is also very cold in this area of Tijuana, with the temperature going down to freezing temperatures!
We need groups to come and build portions of a 10X15 meter one story basic building- and we need a few thousand dollars more raised to cover the cost of construction- if you are interested in helping a couple of my students out, get a hold of me or the Canadian Office at the information on the left of this blog!!
















This is one of the walls-- made from garage doors. It's better than nothing- but not enough to keep out toe cold wind and rain of the winter!!
















This is an orphanage I was at today. YUGO Missionary Scott Pepito and I helped set up a new stove they had given to them and Scott measured out a new open-air roof section for them. They have 21 kids and 2 adults living in a less than 1000 Sq. Foot house. So they use the outside area for eating and, again, need protection from the rain in the winter time... We have a group coming to do this project- but we have other projects at this orphanage and others if you are interested in coming to help!!

















This is another roof at the same orphanage that Scott lead a team to build. It houses their "laundry room" so they can still wash when it rains. There is no end to laundry in a family of 23!!

For more info on coming down with teams to do construction, orphanage work, evangelism, or other mercy-type ministries-- contact us through the YUGO office- the info is on the Side bar on the Blog!!

Blessings until next time,

Mike for the family.

Christmas Decorating and mud...

December 1st... Christmas decoration day in our family... so we went through the closets, put on some Christmas CD's and decorated the tree and the house...












Shar putting up flowery-type decoration thingys...












And finally the Angel!












As usually happens, we end up with a "Fallen Angel"












In the end we make it work and heres a pic of the McDonald men...















We had rain yesterday- about 1 inch of it-- we had 3 inches all last year so this is the equivalent of 33% of all last years rain in one day! So we went 4x4'ing for a while up and down our roads here-- they are mostly clay, rock and dirt roads on hills and mountains. We had rivers where roads used to be, little ponds on the roads... it was a blast bopping around in the mud with the truck-- afterwards the boys wanted to go 2x2ing in the mud in our yard and this was the result!















Jacob soaked to the bone and muddy too.















Caleb ready for the elements...




















Elijah didn't want to take the time to put on a coat so he went all out-- even used my boots...















Rain is a rare commodity here so this is very much liek the first snowfall of the year--- only dirtier... We had run out of propane that day too so we had no hot water. The boys enjoyed a cool bath afterwards after we stripped them down to their gitch before coming in...

Beach Day

We decided to have a beach day last week since we'd not had one since Shar's surgery.

Here are some pics...

Praise God!

I've been spending quite some time helping out in the Medical Missions aspect of YUGO's Ministry here in Tijuana area because they've had quite a few outreaches in the churches of the pastors that are in my Class.

One little girl I have been taking to hospital visits is little Lupita. Lupita is 8 years old. She has 11 brothers and sisters-- 8 of which live at home now. They live in a small house ( 320 Square feet) in one of East Tijuana's poor Colonias.

Lupita has a condition where her brain is moving into her nasal and sinus cavity. Her nose is noticeably large on the bridge area- where her brain has pushed it's way out to. She has frequent infections in her eyes and is in danger because her brain is in a vulnerable spot!

We found Lupita when YUGO Missionary Cindy Reid was working in that Colonia helping the poor children and families with clothes and food. This last spring a Medical clinic was held in her community and Al and Barb Goldworthy set out to help her with whatever she needed. Little Lupita declared her faith in God saying that she was trusting Jesus to take care of her one way or another! We finally got things together to get her to Dr.'s appointments this fall and she's been going lots. Her family is very poor and cannot afford taxi or even bus fare really to the Dr.'s appointments so I've been going out and transporting them back and forth as they need.

We just got word that she is close to ready for Brain surgery- she has 2 more pre-op appointments left. The issue was the cost... The Medical ministry had been able to raise the cost to cover her many $15.00 appointments- and then her $500. MRI and her second $160 MRI/ Blood test... but the surgery is $4000.00-- still a bargain compared to US or Canadian costs, but for the medical mission, a new ministry with YUGO ( They've been in Mexico for about 8 months...) a formidable task!

But not for our Jesus!!

They had sensed God telling them to follow through with Lupita no matter the cost! The Goldworthy's had preplanned a trip to the North Eastern US to fundraise for the ministry on Nov 6th- the same day we found out the surgery's cost-- Today on the 9th they called me to tell me that God had provided the finances already for Lupita's surgery!!

Praise God!!

Thank you for partnering with us to allow us to be here- in this case I'm only the chauffeur-- but there aren't many others who know the communities like I do so it's an area I can assist...

I love what I'm doing! I'm thankful that God has allowed me to be apart of this ministry-- thank you for the part you play in making this happen!!

Report

Summer and Fall...

This summer found us back in Western Canada through Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. We had the opportunity to speak in 8 churches as well as be camp speaker for 3 camps. It was a great time to connect with new people, reconnect with old friends and partners and share the vision of Training Leaders in Mexico.

After we got back in August, Sharlene returned to Calgary for pre-op appointments and her hip resurfacing surgery. She was in Canada for a total of 3 weeks staying with friends when not in the hospital. It was a real blessing to have friends help out with rides, places to stay and company as well while she was in the hospital!

Our kids are doing well. They started their Homeschooling year in September. Elijah is in Grade 5, Caleb in Grade 3 and Jacob is in Kindergarten. Sharlene spends an awful lot of time teaching them and preparing lessons. The two older boys curriculum is on their computers (Christian Based "Switched on Schoolhouse") and Sharlene is making up Jacobs curriculum from many sources.

Language learning for me is going well. I've been saying that I've learned more Spanish in these last 6 weeks than I did all last year! Last years study was a great foundation, but I seem to have hit a good stride recently with being more involved in direct people related ministry. The kids have been learning in their classes and are improving slowly. Sharlene is needing some more exposure, but that has been difficult to come by after surgery and with much of her time spent homeschooling and housemaking. Please pray for more opportunities for her to learn Spanish.

Ministry is going well. I have started a Bible Training for Pastor's ministry in the East Tijuana Colonias. The idea is to train pastors, their wives and church leaders in basic Biblical training. Over the course of 2 years we will complete the equivalent of a first years Bible College or Seminary with the following courses:

Bible Training Centre for Pastors Curriculum

Courses
1. Bible Study Meth./Interpret.
2. Old Testament Survey
3. New Testament Survey
4. Preaching Biblical Messages and Pastoral Ministry
5. Bible Doctrine Survey
6. Personal Spiritual Life
7. Church Ministry/Admin./Educ.
8. Teaching Princp./Methods
9. Church History
10.Missions/Evang./Discp.

The vision for Bible Training Center for Pastors is to Disciple Disciplemakers. After they are finished this course, the graduates may be trained as teachers (a weekend class) and may begin a class of 10-20 themselves.

Eventually I hope to have Mexican leaders doing the training here in Tijuana while I oversee the teachers. The vision is to have 1000 Biblically trained leaders in 10 years. what I love about this vision is that it is in no way dependent upon a missionary to continue the ministry! It is inexpensive and transferable to the local church. We have no plans to build a building-- the training happens in public buildings or churches that are already available.

Currently I have 31 students. We just finished our first course of Methods of Bible Study and Interpretation and are now moving on to Old Testament Survey.

I am also involved in Project Joy Christmas box program. We connect US and Canadian teams in Ministry to poor families through the churches here in Mexico. We collect Christmas boxes and teams come and hand them out at a 1 day VBS like ministry. This was previously the ministry of Stacey Frederick of El Faro and I have agreed to help organize it this year.

I have also been involved a bit in the Medical Missions of A&B Ministries as they minister in the churches of my students. It has been a privilege to partner with Al and Barb Goldworthy in this ministry as we pray for people, they administer medical advice and help as well as food and supplies. Last week they saw 30 people and had to turn away another 30 (not enough time and only 1 nurse) before I left at 2pm, undoubtedly more came and were not able to be looked after. We plan on returning here in December. I've also helped by driving a little girl and her pastor to her Dr.'s appointments as they examine her. It appears as if she may need brain surgery / cranial repair. Please pray that God provides for Lupita's medical needs!!

Thanks for your support and work on our behalf on the Canadian side of this ministry! I would love to bring any of you who are able to come down out to meet our pastors and leaders in Tijuana's poor Colonias!! While you are coming down, think about recruiting a group of men to come and help build a church building!! One of my guys is leading anew church in one of Tijuana's poorest squatter communities. It is 3 months old and has 50 people in it. The church has no roof, only 3 walls and needs to be finished before the winter rains!!

God bless and keep you all!!

Your partners in Ministry,

McDonalds in Mexico!!