Happy New Year to you all! It’s been another crazy season for us as we continue to serve the Lord down here in Oaxaca, Mexico. We have had teams since the last update and much more.
In September we had a team from Calvary Red Rock in Las Vegas come down. This was the second team with this awesome church and they blessed our church and family so much. We did a two night men’s conference, did a fitness event called the Fit2Serve Roadshow, had a fun event for the youth group, and so much more. (If you have Facebook and don’t follow us personally or our church page, you should! Calvary Chapel Oaxaca is the church page and we keep things posted on social media).
At the beginning of October Jeff and Bonnie Johnson came down and did some training on how to do great marital counseling, and then they did a marriage conference and our church provided a meal and dessert for the couples. It was a blessing to learn from Jeff and Bonnie and for us to personally get to know them better.
At the end of October, Jonny and Noah had the privilege of attending one level of the Spanish school that Jon and I attended in 2017. It was quite the adventure as the boys and I lived in the little village for 6 weeks while Jon was in the city continuing with the church ministry. I was able to help in the kindergarten class at the school on the mission’s base and it was a blast. The boys learned so much in their classes. We are grateful to Calvary Red Rock for sponsoring the boys’ schooling.
In December we had a team from Calvary San Juan, now Calvary South OC. This was also the second team from this church since we arrived 3 years ago. We had such a great time with them and they really blessed our church and us in huge ways. They painted an orphanage and we had a little Christmas party for the kids there. They also extended the stage at the church which was much needed. We had an outreach day for the kids in the community, a Christmas party for the church after service on Sunday. And we did it all while the entire city was blocked off with blockades. If you don’t know about the blockades in Oaxaca, you should look it up.
We decided to sell our car since we could no longer have it here in Mexico, so we drove up to the states and sold it. While there, we visited lots of our supporters and some family and friends. We returned to Oaxaca without a car, which can be difficult when trying to do certain things. And… Jon and I got our PERMANENT RESIDENCY, which is a very huge deal and we are so excited!!!
Ministry at church is going well. Jon is planning on starting a men’s Bible study and he’ll be having some of the guys take turns teaching also. He will be doing that every other Thursday, and I’ll be doing the women’s ministry on the Thursdays that he’s not meeting. We have been so blessed to have this church family here, filled with people who genuinely want to serve Jesus. People we get to call our friends!
PRAYER REQUESTS:
- Please pray for wisdom and provision to buy a car. We would really love to buy something that has enough space to transport people. Unfortunately we cannot use our missions funds to buy a car possibly because of tax purposes, which we understand. So we are trying to save up some money to buy something. This complicates some of the ministry we were doing at one of the rehab centers here, and being able to handle everyday church needs.
- Please pray for all of the ministries in the church. Unity within the ministries and communication. We have a great core group of people who serve, which is such a blessing.
- Please continue to pray for all of our spanish to improve more and more.
- We no longer have a Wednesday night translator so we need to find someone for that.
- Continued good health in the church and in our family. With the new cases of Covid right now, we pray that no one gets sick because the medical care here isn’t like that in the states.
- Please pray for a more personal prayer request…that our son and daughter-in-law would be able to have a baby. They really desire to have a baby, so please pray for God’s perfect timing and peace in the waiting.
We are so grateful for all of you who love and support us through prayer, texts/calls, and financially. We couldn’t continue the ministry here in Oaxaca without all of you. May the Lord bless you all in this New Year.
Jon, Allison, Jonny, and Noah