God is Our Faithful Provider

So much is happening that it's hard to know where to begin.  Recently, my house in the states sold in just 4.5 weeks of being on the market!  As we are moving through escrow, we are also working on paper work for our family to have their VISAs.  As we're working our paperwork, I'm preparing David for attending a welding school in Ensenada.  That leads us to David getting his driver's license and also a truck for commuting back and forth between school and Door of Faith Orphanage.  Whew!  There is a lot going on!

Tyler is entering high school and has grown about a foot in the past year.  He is just days away from being able to say that he's taller than me!  Tyler has been a great help this summer to the American groups that have come to serve at the orphanage and made some great friends with people from all over the US.  His Spanish is very good and I already find myself calling on him to help me communicate sometimes to the kids at the orphanage.

On top of all the great things that are happening in our family, I've seen God's faithfulness this summer in many different areas.  While many surrounding ministries and orphanages have had little to no visitors, Door of Faith continues to see groups come and serve.  The groups have been a little smaller and less than before, but they have been faithful to come, despite the "fear factor" portrayed by the media.  We are running a "tighter" ship due to the effects of the economy in the US, but again we are still eating 3 meals a day, our kids are all going to school in their uniforms and we still believe in blessing others in the midst of our needs.

Dios Me Ve (the outreach our family is a part of in Ensenada) continues to be blessed.  Recently, we received our first monthly pledge to help us feed our needy families and one time gifts have started coming in just in time for purchasing groceries.  On top of all that, this weekend will be the first of our dispensas (groceries) that we will have produce donated from a ranch 2 hours away.  The LORD even worked it out so that it's brought to us.

We have been very busy, but being busy for the kingdom of God is an exciting kind of busyness.  It's taught me to stay on my knees in prayer.  I've also learned the beauty of getting connected with others to accomplish the same goal....SOULS.  

The other day, as I was in a car with two friends on the way to run errands in the states, another major need was met.  I like to say that it was a "Divine appointment".  While riding with my friends, Mike and Becky Spitz, we began to clearly see how God was bringing our ministries together.  Mike and Becky have a non-profit, VIDA Outreach, that is specifically for helping ministries like Dios Me Ve.  As we began to talk, I saw some ways that I may be able to help them out a little too.  I am so excited to see God bringing people together, with different skills and gifts, all to serve the same true living God.

If you are interested in sending a financial gift to Dios Me Ve to help us help the needy in Ensenada with food, clothing and shelter, all checks can no be made out to:

VIDA Outreach

PO Box 6434

Chula Vista, CA 91909 

and write Dios Me Ve in the memo!

We Have a Building!

Thanks to the grace of God through Los Altos Church, Calvary Chapel Apple Valley and Calvary Chapel Big Bear we have a church building at the river colony.  That's not including thanks to all the people that contributed to the prep work so that a building could be built!  Our thanks to everyone who contributed to purchasing dirt to level the property, laying a foundation frame, funding the footings for the building to be built on and much more.  

Today was a day of celebration in the river colony at Dios Me Ve.  A friend from GVCC Placerville contributed to pop up tents to give us much needed shade today, GVCC Watsonville left us their carnival games that they had used for the carnival they presented at Door of Faith Orphanage and Apple Valley brought face paints for the kids too!  

While Apple Valley continued to finish cutting out the front doors and windows to the church building, over 400 people were fed hotdogs, chips, bananas and oranges.  But before they even were fed, they were playing numerous carnival games and having their faces painted.  Many were even asking for their pictures to be taken.

I met a young man this weekend that used to sell drugs on the Dios Me Ve property previous to us purchasing it.  He came to check us out.  When asked what he thought of what had happened to his old space, he was glad for what we were doing.  He thought it was good and ended up helping for three days straight!  He was given a Bible and one of the Americans that came to build the church building, befriended him and shared Christ with him.

On Friday, two men were apparently on their way to buy drugs and again a visiting American that came to build, stopped the two men and with the help of an interpreter ended up praying with these two men to receive Christ!

Please continue to pray for us as we prepare for Bible classes to begin discipling people so that they understand why they need a Savior and so they understand Jesus came to give them abundant life here and eternal life as well.  

We will be trusting God to give us tables and chairs, the curriculum for Firm Foundations and complete NIV Bibles in Spanish.  

We are excited about all God has done and is continuing to do in this colony.  The Light of Jesus has come to a very dark place.  God is bringing beauty for ashes and hope for despair.  Continue to pray as we move forward in the grace that God is providing.

Progress Continues

The latest.... I was at Dios Me Ve today in Ensenada to check on the progress.  When I got there I saw a man with his two sons finishing up the footings that will hold up the building that is going up on Friday.  It was quite the site to behold, when you look back and up to the present, just to think of how far God has brought us. 

When I pulled up to the property, there was a man and two sons working.  I asked Hector who the man was.  He was someone from Hector and Maribel's church that Hector used to work with in the past.  He had agreed to do the work for the price of his son's tuition for school.

It continues to amaze me the investment that different people have put into this little dirt lot on the corner of a forgotten community.  It's as if the words "Dios Me Ve" (God Sees Me) have been realized. 

I have no doubt that in the very near future there is going to be a harvest of souls.  I look forward to the Light of God's love continuing to push back the darkness.

God Sent Me an Intersessor

Sometimes God sends you a gift that you are not expecting, desperately need, when you think you need something else.  This weekend, I got reacquainted with someone that has been coming to La Mision with her husband for quite some time.  Her name was easy to remember, because it was the same as mine.  But this weekend, when I had been asking God for more funds for purchasing food, He sent me an intercessor instead.  I wasn't able to purchase as much food as before because of a change in my income.  I kept asking the LORD to supply what I needed, but what I needed was not more money.  What I needed was someone that was going to intercede for me in prayer on my behalf.  Someone to cover me as I move forward in the plans God planned in advance for me to do.

It's interesting, sometimes how we pray for what we believe we need and find out that we didn't need it at all.  I brought my new friend Robin, to the colony on Sunday.  I also brought Cesar from the orphanage, because Tyler was home feeling ill.  Luis, from church, followed us to the colony too.  I brought lots of people to help and so did Hector and Maribel.  I was feeling a little sad about not being able to buy as much dispensas for the families of the colony.  

All the time and energy I spent on trying to figure out how to have more money for dispensas  had been totally unnecessary.  What I needed was an intercessor.  

When we started passing out the food we noticed that only about 1/2 of the people came that day.  Someone had spread a rumor that we had said that we weren't coming back with food anymore.  We actually had plenty of dispensas left over.  Please don't misunderstand.  The food will never go to waste for there is so much need wherever we go.  But I found it interesting how I brought Robin on a day that there were only half the people.  I wanted her to see the many people that come, but God had other plans.

You see, on the way to the colony, Robin shared with me that God had put me on her heart to pray for me.  She also felt she was supposed to come to the colony that day.  Then she told me that she was an intercessor for various people and ministries here in Baja.  

I am so very grateful that I serve a God that loves me enough to give me what I really need and not necessarily what I "think" I need.  I look forward to a wonderful friendship with my new friend, Robin. I love how God has weaved our paths in life together.  Then again, He's awesome like that.