Thanks to all of you who are reading our blog and are praying for us. We deeply appreciate your interest and your love for us. We thank our Southern Baptist friends for your gifts through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering and the Cooperative Program.
From our house to yours, may you have a blessed Christmas season!
November has been a month of ups and downs in ministry here in Hermosillo. We ended the month encouraged by what we saw, but we certainly had some moments!
A couple of posts back I wrote, “Summer, summer go away!”. It did….The weather has turned out to be really nice. However, what is comfortable for us thick-blooded Americans, is considered “cold” by Mexican standards. We are running around in short-sleeved shirts and occasionally wear shorts (not for ministry, but for relaxing). Our Mexican friends are wearing hoodies and scarfs and mittens and such. We are finally able to have a Bible study without sweating through our clothes and are praising the Lord for it. Our friends are passing around the hot chocolate and warning us that drinking a cold beverage will certainly make us sick. What a contrast.
In that respect, we’ve seen our attendance drop somewhat at our house church events. Since we meet outside and are subject to afternoon breezes and quick desert cooling at sundown, some have elected to stay in. We’ve resorted to erecting the tents and tarps…I refer to our mobile facilities as the “Tabernacle” and everyone seems glad to have some makeshift shelter.
One of our partners told us that October and November are particularly difficult months for ministry here, precisely due to the “change of weather” as the Mexicans put it. For us, it’s been a great transition to fall….but for many, it’s been a source of apathy and depression and a general bad attitude.
On the other hand, we’ve had some new attendees during the past month and our mid-week group has devoured some deep doctrinal studies. They’ve been asking some hard questions and we think that we have a solid core group now with clearly Baptistic beliefs. For that, we are grateful.
As Team Strategy Leader, I’ve had to do some traveling this past month and have a calendar full of upcoming trips that will take me well into the spring. As it was put to me, I am wearing two hats….one hat is that of front-line missionary. The second hat is that of team leader for three cities. I enjoy both hats, to be honest, but it’s hard to switch from one to the other.
All in all, we are encouraged. God is at work here and we are fortunate to be able to work alongside Him.
We at IMB are in the midst of a mountain of changes. Some of the changes are due to the reorganization of the board this past year. We have new leaders, new support centers, new strategies, and new priorities. That’s not to say that we have changed everything…..We are still focused on reaching the world for Christ. What HAS changed is how we will do that, and perhaps, thinking about who should get the opportunity to hear first. More about that second comment….
On top of the structural changes at IMB, we are feeling the pinch from the global economic crisis. It seems that offerings are down and the cash flow is slowing. We are facing personnel cutbacks, reduced ministry funds, and even salary and benefit cuts. It seems clear that 2010 will see a leaner and more efficient missionary force. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I think as a whole, we’ll be more aware of our DAILY dependence on God. To use a good Baptist saying, “Where God guides, he provides” will be something we’ll be depending on more than ever.
With that in mind, we are making some hard decisions about WHERE to preach the gospel. From one point of view, there are lost people everywhere and one place is about as good as another. But from what we are told is more “strategic” thinking, there are obviously places in the world that will NEVER hear if we don’t go. This is going to hit close to home for us missionaries in the Americas. Some of us are working in places where Christianity is at 5%, 10%, 15%, or maybe 20% of the population. Yet there are places in the world where the percentage of known Christians is virtually 0%. The tough question is “Should we continue working in areas that have significant numbers of believers, or should we exit and redeploy to the least-reached peoples of the world. These are truly hard questions. For someone like myself, who is working where the percentage is about 5%, that means 95% of the people are lost. But that also means that I am not working among the least-reached peoples of the world. What does the future hold? Good question…….
movilizando méxico