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On Friday night we had a great experience near the vineyards. Kenny, Gerardo, and I left Hermosillo about 6:00 p.m. and made the 1 hour drive to Pesquiera. When we arrived at the ranch next to the vineyard, the gate was open. Fearing that we might get locked in, we opted to walk to the field. When we arrived we were greeted by about 25 smiling faces. After shaking hands all around, we sang praises under the clear Sonoran sky. Gerardo brought an evangelistic message from the story of Zacchias and several new persons responded to Christ. While we were assembled, several more people came ending the night with a total of 35 people.

As you can see by the photo, we are doing this virtually without resources. I’ve heard of “house church”, but how about “pasture church” (I know you don’t see any grass, but there are cows!) or maybe “desert church”. Anyway, some of the ladies brought their 5 gallon buckets to sit on and the guys brought a guitar, one broken chair, and a small cooler of water.

The real story is the singing and the heart-felt prayers that were offered up. As you think about this ministry this week please pray for the following requests:

1) The grape harvest is underway and should be finished by June 15. We have 3 more Friday nights with these folks. Pray for them as they return to their homes in southern Mexico.

2) Pray for R. He accepted Christ in April. His wife and her family are involved in spiritism and witchcraft. Pray that God will touch her heart and this entire family (4 kids) will come to know Christ.

3) Pray for B. He is an alcoholic that drinks excessively. Last night he came to the service to “see what this Christianity is all about”. God is working on his heart and he is close to accepting Christ.

I loaded up some supplies in our mission vehicle and we were getting in when I noticed a large wet spot on the driveway. I am no mechanic, but it appears that the water pump has given up the ghost. Not to be outdone, I quickly moved the supplies to my personal vehicle and off we went. We arrived at the land next door to the vineyard on time, but the gate was locked and the key was missing from it’s hiding place. I made a quick phone call to the guys inside the vineyard. They did not have any contact information for the landowner. We had no choice but to leave the vehicle at the gate and walk in, so we did….all 7/8 mile!

We arrived a bit late and were pleased to see nearly 20 of the migrant workers gathered to hear from God’s word. Since we were so far from the road, we didn’t try to carry chairs, so all of us just stood and sang and listened to the teaching.

What a privilege we have to be able to go to be with these people! I pray that God will work in their lives and that they in turn will take the gospel with them as they soon move on to other places.

On Thursday night we held our weekly ministry in Villas del Sur. This area has proved to be difficult since there is such great need. The people we are ministering to are truly in survival mode…some wondering where their next meal will come from. Oftentimes we Americans think of benevolence ministry as a one-shot deal. We’ll quickly give someone some help, but we expect that one instance to suffice. We’re learning that its truly an ongoing experience…..But I digress…Anyway, last Thursday we went to the homes of some of our ongoing Bible studies and no one was home. We finished early and decided to visit the home of a lady who had come to a group Bible study recently. We knocked on her door and eventually were seated in some chairs outside here front door. There she heard the gospel and accepted Christ as her Lord and Savior. Clearly, this lady has many needs, but now she has one less need…salvation! Praise the Lord.

On Friday, my partner Kenny and I drove over to the town of Miguel Alemán, about 35 miles west of Hermosillo. I was in search of information about an Unreached People Group (UPG) that has a significant number of members there. After a driving tour of the town and a couple of stops to ask for information, we found a pastor who is trying to minister to this UPG. He took us to the home of one of his deacons who is heading up the mission work. There I heard a comment that I’ve heard several times recently…..”We’ve been praying for the Lord to send someone to help us!” This church (not Baptist, by the way) was contacted around the end of 2009 and a ministry opportunity to this UPG just happened! They weren’t particularly looking for it, but I am deeply grateful for an insightful pastor who saw God at work and decided to join him there. I am not sure how this partnership might work out, but my prayer is that our Baptist brethren in Hermosillo will catch the vision to go and share Christ among this group. (I’ll share more about the Triqui people in a future blog post. For now, pray for them, please.)

I returned home around mid-afternoon on Friday and rested briefly before heading out for Pesqueira and the ministry at the vineyard. As you might remember, we made 3 or 4 trips to the vineyard before we were told we could not return. Thankfully, we have some resourceful and tenacious partners inside the vineyard. It seems that there is a fenceline near the dormitories where the workers live which separates the vineyard from the neighboring ranch. One of the Christian workers took the initiative to go and ask the landowner if he would permit them to have a Bible study or worship service on his land and the owner said yes. When I spoke with Chuy on Friday he said that maybe three of the brothers were willing to “go across the fence” to have the Bible study. I agreed to go and did so, arriving about 6 p.m. Sadly, the gate to the neighboring ranch was locked, so I spent 30-40 minutes trying to contact the guys on the vineyard. Long story short, a “cowboy” finally drove up and opened the gate for us and we were able to drive around the vineyard to the other side. We parked and walked up the hill, expecting three workers. But there were 10! We started quickly since the sun was going down, as we sang and as I shared from God’s word, 10 more guys showed up. We ended the night praying and praising God with 20 workers under cool, windy, and dark Sonoran skies. God is truly good.

On Saturday, we headed up to north Hermosillo and participated in an evangelistic event with the Casa de Dios church. This congregation has recently bought two vacant lots and hopes to construct a church building. We were pleased to be able to help them with their first event on the property. About 100 people form the neighborhood came to take part in the event. The most gratifying part of it all is that the Casa de Dios church did the event all themselves and they had a great team.

Finally, today we celebrated 5 baptisms at Las Lomas. These are the first that we’ve had and we pray that some other candidates will be motivated to take this step of obedience very soon.

Lima is a large city, maybe 9 million people or so. We stayed and met in a section of the city called Miraflores. It was probably as clean, modern, and safe as anywhere I’ve ever been. I was surprised. The streets and sidewalks were spotless, not a piece of trash to be seen. As a matter of fact, the sidewalks seemed to have been polished or coated with some kind of finish. They were smooth, almost brilliant, and would seem to be very easy to sweep clean.

Perhaps the most amazing thing that I saw were the moneychangers. These were guys standing on the streets with handfuls of money. They wore vests with their name and number, the location where they were supposed to be working, and with large dollar signs and euro signs. They had rolls of money that “would choke a horse” as we say in the south. It seemed evident to me that things were pretty safe if those guys could stand around at night with money like that.

In terms of the meeting, we spent lots of time going over the new IMB strategy and focus. There were lots of questions and some of our colleagues were not happy campers. Change is difficult, and particularly so for us Baptists. I pray that each will find comfort in the calling that God has placed in his life and that these difficult days will soon pass.

The first option is to find an off-site location and continue to offer ministry to those who can find a way to get into the village. The problem with this option is that the folks would have to walk or catch a ride for the 2-3 trip. We think that we might have a small core group committed enough to do this, but obviously we will lose our contact with the larger group.

The second option, which to me seems to be the best and most in line with our strategy, is to train a few selected leaders off-site and encourage them to continue the ministry with the larger group on the inside. Chuy and Luis seem willing and able to do this and I think it will result in more “trained” leaders and less dependency on outside pastors and missionaries.

The guys are sharing these thoughts with the group and we are all praying for clarity in this matter.

On another note, Chuy related that he might be changing vineyards soon (maybe today) and feels sure that he can get work in a nearby vineyard that has nearly 2000 workers. Since it’s under different ownership, there is a possiblity that we could gain access there. We’ll keep you updated….you just keep praying for us!

We have some options to continue ministering with the workers at an off-site location, but that may or may not be a viable option. The ranch is located several miles from the nearest small town and the dorms are located on the back side of a large ranch. Perhaps some of the most faithful and most interested workes might make the trek into town, but clearly the large part of them won’t.

We are praying for God to reveal to us how we should continue with our ministry. We are a bit discouraged at this point, but still hopeful.

We made a quick survey of the area and picked the side of one of the dorms as the “big screen” for our movie of the evening. The guys helped us set up the sound system while I connected up the DVD and projector. Within about 10 minutes we were playing some music and the movie was ready to go shortly after.

We decided to show a film called “La Esperanza” (The Hope in English) which is basically chronological Bible storying done video style. Approximately 70 people gathered to watch the film. During the film, our team members distributed bags of popcorn and cups of steaming hot chocolate. (It still gets cool in the desert at night!)

After the film, Pastor Gerardo took the microphone and extended an evangelistic invitation. Several people lifted their hands in decision, but only one young man was brave enough to step forward. We prayed for him and then began to mix and mingle with the crowd. Seven other men prayed to receive Christ during our one-on-one witnessing. As we wrapped up our event, Jesús and Luis came to the sound table with CDs and asked if they could sing. The group that hung around seemed to really enjoy the songs.

I ended the evening in a discussion with four brothers from Chiapas who are all working in the vineyard. We laughed and talked and they expressed their interest in spiritual things, although none of the accepted Christ. The door is definitely open for subsequent visits.

Our team arrived in Las Lomas at about 11 p.m. What a great experience we had! May God receive the glory!

The “annual” university worker’s strike appears to be happening soon at the University of Sonora. For the last several years, the union has made demands for salary and benefit increases. Typically the university administration rejects the demands and the campus is locked down. Students are the most affected by this process. Last year the strike was not settled until the summer and the students never returned to classes. Our concern this year centers around our efforts to start a campus ministry. We are not sure what will happen if classes are suspended and the campus is locked down. On the one hand, there could be lots of students with lots of time on their hands. On the other hand, many who are here from out of town, may simply go home for the summer. Pray for God’s will to be done.

A 24 hour stomach bug seems to be going around Hermosillo. Several of us have been hit with symptoms of varying degrees over the last couple of days. Pray that we’ll all be back to 100% soon.

Our colleagues L & P are relocating this week. Pray for them as they pack, drive 750 miles, and get set up in the new house.

Finally, pray for our friend L. and her children this week in the loss of their husband/father.

We were blessed to have a group from Illinois State University here working alongside our two great semester missionaries. They spent most of the week on the UNISON campus, making friends and building relationships. They drank gallons of coffee Caffenio and played volleyball until they dropped. We are grateful for their sweet spirit and can do attitude.

The day after the Illinois project ended, a group from our home church (Eastwood BC, Haughton, LA) arrived. Led by Bryan Canup, this team exemplified flexibility and servant leadership. They drove nearly round-the-clock to get here (and to get back home) and arrived with big smiles and loving hearts. The people of Las Lomas were touched by this group. Just last night one of our church members gave a testimony of how some of her unsaved neighbors commented positively about the willingness of this team to come and work in our neighborhood. The trip culminated in the screening of an evangelistic film which was well-attended. As a result, 8 new families have requested marriage counseling and we had some new folks at church on Sunday! Praise the Lord!

Back again for their 4th consecutive year in Hermosillo, the team from FBC, Borger, Texas arrived in force–three church vans and 27 people. These guys have been here so much they know their way around the city and feel right at home. They worked the entire week on the UNISON campus and developed many relationships. We pray that their efforts, along with those of the Illinois group will result in some students coming to know Christ and gathering for Bible study.

Today, we are taking a day off to rest, catch up on laundry, and regroup for the followup work. Pray for us!