We had a victory this week that I am excited to share.

Guillermo is a Christian deaf man who has come to the church a few times. He had not been as faithful as we would like to have seen, but seemed to genuinely make an effort to be there. He sprained his ankle about 8 weeks ago. This was a severe sprain and required physical therapy. Bill Green and I had been to visit Guillermo a few times at his house during his recovery. Physically he was not showing any improvement.

We made his healing a serious matter of prayer in the church. Friday of last week I spoke with his mother and learned that he was still at least a week away from being able to leave the house for anything other than his therapy sessions. They were seeing a new doctor who had given a better prognosis about getting him walking again.

Wednesday night Guillermo walked into church! He drove himself to church and said that he was doing much better and the new doctor feels that he was only about 1 month away from full recovery. The old doctor was still saying it would be at least 6 months, if ever, when he would be back to normal.

This was a great answer to prayer and is an encouragement to me personally as well as the church.

Categories: Ministry Update
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Dear Friends,
We found a building for our new church. Though it took several weeks to get it all worked out, it is a wonderful location for our needs. It is much larger than what we imagined we could afford. Realistically it will be able to serve as our church for quite some time. It is also located just 11 blocks from the main square. This makes it possible to catch a bus from any part of town and arrive within walking distance of the church.

We just completed our second month in the new location. We are excited to see what the Lord has in store for us as we continue in this ministry.

In October, I was able to take a trip to Monterrey, Mexico. As some of you may remember, the missionaries and national pastors who work with the Deaf here in Mexico get together twice a year for spiritual encouragement and to help plan out the next summer’s camp. This meeting was wonderful. There were 6 missionaries and 8 nationals. The Lord allowed me to build a stronger relationship with the other missionaries and national pastors and wives.

Previously I had mentioned a pastor who had heart problems. His name is Horacio. I was able to see him at this meeting in Monterrey. He is doing much better and has been released by his doctor to preach again. Thank you for your prayers.

We had a great Thanksgiving. We got together with a group of missionaries from the area. There were about 30 people at the meal. We did this same thing two years ago and it was such an encouragement to us as new missionaries.

After explaining to one of the national pastors about our Thanksgiving events, he was curious if we did “traditional” type activities. I told him the food was very traditional and that we sang a few songs and had a time of giving thanks to God. He pressed for more details about what was considered traditional activities on Thanksgiving. I thought of one other thing we did that is traditional–we watched the Dallas Cowboys play football.

We are getting ready for Christmas. This coming weekend our church will be singing Christmas Carols at an open air bazaar. It is a great opportunity to pass out tracts and invite others to church. There will be a large group of Deaf there since it is an event where the handicapped are honored by the city.

Thank you for your continued prayers.

Categories: Prayer Letter
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Many have asked for a new family photo. You can click the link to view the photo or right click it and save the photo to your computer. It can then be printed for your church’s missions display.

James and Leyla are 8 and 2 in this picture. James will be 9 in January and Leyla will be 3 in April.

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We are celebrating our third Thanksgiving here in Mérida. It was on this day 2 years ago that we met many of the missionaries who have become good partners in the ministry here as well as people we can turn to for cultural help. Just another reason to give God thanks.

Look for a new prayer letter coming soon!

Categories: Personal
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We just completed our fifth Sunday as an independent Deaf church. This was also our fourth Sunday in the new building. This past Saturday we had a fun activity at the church which went very well. Everyone had a great time.

God has opened up new doors for contacts and we are excited to see how He continues to work. We have not seen any salvations in the last couple of weeks, but we were able to see evidence that one of our newest attendees has been saved in the past.

Be sure to check out the pictures to the left. I am glad to finally get them back up.

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Today was our first service for the new church. We were not able to be in the new building yet. We are still waiting to sign the lease agreement. It is just a matter of waiting for the paperwork to be drawn up. We ended up meeting in the house of Bill and Jennifer Green.

The services went very well. We had 11 of us today. Because we knew we would be limited in space, we decided not to heavily advertise. That will come next week.

Please continue to pray as we get this new ministry off the ground.

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• Camp report
• Deaf Conference with Gary Layne
• New Church to start

Dear Friends,
Camp was attended by 85 campers from several cities and states in México. There were 5 who accepted the Lord as their Savior during the week! We praise the Lord for each decision and for the wonderful spirit during the week. All the teachers and preachers did a great job filling their roles with the Lord’s help. We missed having Pastor Horacio from Monterrey. Because of heart health issues, his doctor would not allow him to come to camp. God used this…

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The conference was wonderful. There were other decisions that were made during and after the conference. Not the least of which was a decision made by us four missionaries. We were talking about the meeting the Saturday morning after the conference trying to decide what more we could do to make the ministry more effective. God clearly showed us that now was the time to launch out and start a church.

We have had the ball rolling in the 2 weeks since the meeting trying to get things organized enough to start holding meetings. Right now we are looking for a place to rent for the church. Once that is found we will be able to set a date for starting our own services. Until then we are excitedly holding our meetings with the church we have been with the last 2 years.

Since the conference we have had one new young man attending our weekly meetings. These are the results that you really look for in a conference like we had.

God is really doing a work here. It is exciting to be a part of the team.

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Tonight we started a conference with our Deaf. Missionary Gary Layne and his wife Ann are here with us for the week. They came from Guadalajara where they have been working with the Deaf for 24 years.

Gary spoke tonight to a group of 36 people which is a great number. At the end of the service, 4 people prayed and accepted the Lord as their Savior.

We were very excited to see such a great turn out and are praying for more of the same the next two nights.

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The Deaf man I mentioned in the last update did come to church that weekend with his mother. He has also been at our weekly Bible study with our other Deaf. He marks a new area of ministry for the work here. He belongs to a different segment of the Deaf community that we had previously not been reaching. Pray for our relationship with Guillermo. He is a Christian already and is very interested in helping us grow this ministry.

Last night the Deaf School got rained out. There was so much water in the streets that every time a car came by the water would run up into the school building. Classes were cut short and I took the kids that normally come to our Deaf class over to our house to wait until church time. We had a good time of drinking hot chocolate and talking for that extra hour.

Categories: Ministry Update
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