Festival of Hope

We received this email from a lady who came to Mexico City on a short term missions team with her church last year.... we think this idea is AWESOME!

"You know that Mexico had a big impact on many of us last year and God has been speaking to us. The outcome is that we were really challenged by the way you all have a vision to reach Mexico City for Jesus. We thought of our little home town of 8000 people of whom probably only around 800 - 1000 ever go near Church. We are now holding a mission for a week this year instead of sending a team overseas. We have called it 'Festival of Hope' and are so excited at the opportunities God is opening up for us. The Festival will run from 18 to 25 August and includes loads of events such as: Family Fun Day, Christian Concert for young people, Songs of Praise evening, Kids' Clubs, Lunch for Retired people with a speaker, Lunch for all the traders in our town with speaker, Ladies' Evening, Breakfast for Men, Pub Quiz with speaker for young people, Mums and Toddlers morning, Bar-B-Q and celebration, Bus parked in the town serving teas, having Christian literature, using this to meet with people to talk about Jesus and pray with people. We also have a caravan planned to use for prayer for our town. We've made booklets to go into every home and DVDs of testimonies of people from our Church. Would love you to pray for this."

What could you and your church do to reach more people in your city for Christ?

Armagh Team

One of Christian's favorite things to do in ministry is to help lead short term mission teams to the streets with Proyecto MEFI. Proyecto MEFI is the name of the organization that facilitates the care, compassion, outreach, integration into society, evangelism, and discipleship with key Christian Churches in Mexico City all for street kids. Christian is honored to a part of this effort. Pictured is Christian translating Andrew's testimonial (from Northern Ireland), the street kids praying, Alex (a Proyecto MEFI worker) sharing from Mark 7:14-23, and a street kid with Christian.

VBS Kickoff

Last night we had the opportunity to see Maddie perform in the church's Campo de Verano Obra (VBS Play). You'll notice Maddie say her line like a pro and sing and dance as well. It was great to see Maddie in ministry.

Dairy Queen

One of our closest Christian Co-workers are Alexis and Alicia Saucedo. He's the pastor of our church & she works as a teacher and MOPS coordinator with Robin. We've had the opportunity to visit the Pacific Coast together and while we were there we enjoyed Dairy Queen more than one night (American Style Ice Cream is very difficult to find).

So we've been on a quest to find a DQ somewhere in the central valley. The day before Amelia was born Alexis and Alicia told us they had a surprise to show us. So we traveled for about an hour into the center of Mexico City and sure enough there was a Dairy Queen. It was a complete delight to be with our good friends and their kids....and good old American ice cream!

Short Term Missionaries

Today we said goodbye to one of our short term missionaries - Kristen. Her role was teaching English and video taping the work that UNIFAM and OMS do together here in Mexico. As the short term missionary coordinators we are charged with planning out, following through, and evaluating their work. Kristen made it very easy on us as she often took the initiative to make relationships. The OMS Team and many Mexicans will certainly miss her and her smile.