Wednesday, August 31, 2005
We found a house!!
That's right! Summer and I signed a rent contract today on our new house. Praise the Lord! We really didn't expect to find any thing this quickly, but the Lord provided, as he always does. Thanks for the prayers! One of the things we like best about this place is it's location (and, as my dad says, the three things to look for in a house are 'location, location, location'!!). It's just a few blocks away from a whole new group of people that Summer and I have been getting to know through the owner of the gym that we both go to, along with Ann Gonzalez. We're excited to be able to hang out with them and say, 'Why don't you all come over to our place. It's really close by!' The other thing we like is that there is more room for people to hang out than there is in our current house. There is actually what some would call a back yard (Americans probably wouldn't, but by Mexican standards, it's huge!!). We are also gaining an office, which means the guest room can actually be a guest room. Unfortunately, we're going to have to paint the whole thing. The downstairs right now is this really strong blue that you see a lot in Mexico. Unfortunately, it doesn't match any of our furniture. Thankfully, the owners have agreed to give us the house 10 days early, so we'll have that time to paint and get things ready for moving day. We've already had several offers to help from different people, but I still think my arms are going to be sore for a month afterwards!
Sunday, August 28, 2005
New leaders
There are some days on the mission field that are red letter days because they involve a lot of people and happen after a whole bunch of work on the part of everyone. Those days are special because you can see how the Lord is forming a community in his church and you just feel good when you get home, mainly because you're worn out. : ) But then there are other days that not everyone sees, but are even more special. We had two of those days this weekend.
First off, Friday night was our regularly scheduled monthly prayer night. We normally have a good turnout for these events and are able to spend time in prayer for the needs of the church and also have fellowship time afterwards. Well, for one reason or another, only four nationals showed up: Aldo, Sandy, José Luis, and Adriana. Incidentally, these are four of our new cell leaders that I'll be telling you about later. It's hard to put into words all that happened Friday night, but I can say that the Lord was present in a mighty way. At one point, I opened my eyes to see everyone on their knees crying out and praying for the lost in this city. It was an awesome sight! I don't know why but I always so amazed when I see the Lord molding people in ways I didn't think imaginable. Why is it that we always underestimate him?
The other neat experience took place on Saturday morning. It was our first meeting of our newest or soon to be cell leaders. (The pic is from that meeting. Don't you love the orange wall in our office?!) We will be having these meetings every two weeks just to talk about what is going on in the different cells, how we all see the Lord working, and what areas we need to be praying about. This week, we had Aldo, Sandy, José Luis, Adriana and Blanca there. Aldo and Sandy are the new leaders of the Thursday cell. Adriana and José Luis will be opening a new cell in a couple of weeks in the north east part of town. Blanca is in the Tuesday cell and is Summer and my apprentice in that cell. Since this was the first one, I must admit that I expected the four 'gringos' to do most of the talking and planning with some agreement from the Mexicans. Of course, the Lord surprised me again! We wanted to hear their ideas on a couple of things we've been thinking about and they were more than willing to throw in their thoughts and opinions on everything. We also challenged them, along with each of us, to be in the Word and to read, at least once, 1 and 2 Peter over the next two weeks. They readily accepted the challenge and were excited about it all! I almost teared up (those of you who know me will realize that isn't too odd for me) sitting there listening to them feeding off of one another. This is how the Lord raises up leaders for his harvest! And it was happening before my very eyes! May His name be praised always and everywhere.
On another note, Summer and I are officially in house hunting mode. The rent on our current house goes up every year when we re-sign the contract and we can't afford the next raise, so we're looking at houses. We saw a couple of possibilities today. We would really appreciate your prayers through this whole process. We want the Lord to show us where he wants us to be for the next few years. Thanks! Also, I hope to see some of you over the next couple of weeks. I'm heading to Texas on the 1st for my grandmother's birthday party. I'm really looking forward to spending time with my family for a few days!
Well, that's all for now. Have a great day!
Sara
First off, Friday night was our regularly scheduled monthly prayer night. We normally have a good turnout for these events and are able to spend time in prayer for the needs of the church and also have fellowship time afterwards. Well, for one reason or another, only four nationals showed up: Aldo, Sandy, José Luis, and Adriana. Incidentally, these are four of our new cell leaders that I'll be telling you about later. It's hard to put into words all that happened Friday night, but I can say that the Lord was present in a mighty way. At one point, I opened my eyes to see everyone on their knees crying out and praying for the lost in this city. It was an awesome sight! I don't know why but I always so amazed when I see the Lord molding people in ways I didn't think imaginable. Why is it that we always underestimate him?
The other neat experience took place on Saturday morning. It was our first meeting of our newest or soon to be cell leaders. (The pic is from that meeting. Don't you love the orange wall in our office?!) We will be having these meetings every two weeks just to talk about what is going on in the different cells, how we all see the Lord working, and what areas we need to be praying about. This week, we had Aldo, Sandy, José Luis, Adriana and Blanca there. Aldo and Sandy are the new leaders of the Thursday cell. Adriana and José Luis will be opening a new cell in a couple of weeks in the north east part of town. Blanca is in the Tuesday cell and is Summer and my apprentice in that cell. Since this was the first one, I must admit that I expected the four 'gringos' to do most of the talking and planning with some agreement from the Mexicans. Of course, the Lord surprised me again! We wanted to hear their ideas on a couple of things we've been thinking about and they were more than willing to throw in their thoughts and opinions on everything. We also challenged them, along with each of us, to be in the Word and to read, at least once, 1 and 2 Peter over the next two weeks. They readily accepted the challenge and were excited about it all! I almost teared up (those of you who know me will realize that isn't too odd for me) sitting there listening to them feeding off of one another. This is how the Lord raises up leaders for his harvest! And it was happening before my very eyes! May His name be praised always and everywhere.On another note, Summer and I are officially in house hunting mode. The rent on our current house goes up every year when we re-sign the contract and we can't afford the next raise, so we're looking at houses. We saw a couple of possibilities today. We would really appreciate your prayers through this whole process. We want the Lord to show us where he wants us to be for the next few years. Thanks! Also, I hope to see some of you over the next couple of weeks. I'm heading to Texas on the 1st for my grandmother's birthday party. I'm really looking forward to spending time with my family for a few days!
Well, that's all for now. Have a great day!
Sara
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Typical Saturday in Morelia
Actually, that title is a misnomer. Yesterday was not one of our typical days, but it was a good day, none the less. I started out by heading to the market to buy some churros (basically long strips of batter that have been fried to perfection, making them highly addictive!). The market I went to is basically the Sam's Club of markets. Most everything there is available in 100 kilos bags or some other highly large amount. This place is HUGE! It's street after street after street of tomatoes, chiles (peppers), bananas, onions, soft drinks, potatoes, etc. I took my camera with me to take some pictures of it because it's kind of hard to explain, but I have this weird thing about not feeling like a tourist and I was already standing out because of my light skin. I did get one picture, which I will post.
The entire adventure was really interesting. Just so you know, we don't usually have to go to the market to buy most things. Here in Morelia, we actually have a Sam's Club, a Costco, a Wal-mart and several other grocery stores. This was actually the first time I've ever gone to this particular market.
The reason I had to get the churros was because we were having a youth gathering in the afternoon. First of all, you need to know that the term 'youth' here in Mexico can be very broad. It basically extends from 13 to 30 or so, if you are still single. We have a few teenagers that have been coming to church for a while and we wanted to have an opportunity for them to hang out and get to know each other better. We told them to get to Sam and Ann's house around 1 for pizza and games and a movie. We ended up having six people show up, plus the four of us, and we had a great time! Of course, I meant to take pictures, but I forgot. We started out the time with a card game called 99. Great fun! It was a huge hit with everyone. By the time we finished that, the pizza had arrived, so we grabbed our food and sat down to watch 'October Sky.' We stopped about halfway through to sing 'Happy Birthday' to Jennifer, one of the girls who was there, and enjoyed a very yummy cake that Ann had made. Everyone ended up leaving around 6. For our first youth event, I would say it was a huge success!
Summer and I sent the rest of the evening with our friend, Montse, and her boyfriend, Carlos. They had both come for the youth time and then we headed downtown to have some coffee and watch the lighting of the cathedral. This is something the city does every Saturday at around 8:45 p.m. They close down the street in front of the cathedral, shoot off fireworks and slowing turn on the lights. We had a great time just hanging out. Below is a picture of Carlos, Montse and Summer that I took after they finished lighting the cathedral. I'm also putting in a picture I found online of the cathedral at night. It's quite a sight!
Well, that's all for now. Hope you enjoyed it! Oh, an update on Larisa. She is being released from the hospital on Monday, I believe, but she still has a long road ahead of her. Please continue to pray for her! Her daughter Amy is heading back to Morelia this weekend so that she can start school next week. It's going to be hard for them to be apart, so pray for that as well. Thanks for thinking of us and lifting us up before the Father!
Sara
The entire adventure was really interesting. Just so you know, we don't usually have to go to the market to buy most things. Here in Morelia, we actually have a Sam's Club, a Costco, a Wal-mart and several other grocery stores. This was actually the first time I've ever gone to this particular market.The reason I had to get the churros was because we were having a youth gathering in the afternoon. First of all, you need to know that the term 'youth' here in Mexico can be very broad. It basically extends from 13 to 30 or so, if you are still single. We have a few teenagers that have been coming to church for a while and we wanted to have an opportunity for them to hang out and get to know each other better. We told them to get to Sam and Ann's house around 1 for pizza and games and a movie. We ended up having six people show up, plus the four of us, and we had a great time! Of course, I meant to take pictures, but I forgot. We started out the time with a card game called 99. Great fun! It was a huge hit with everyone. By the time we finished that, the pizza had arrived, so we grabbed our food and sat down to watch 'October Sky.' We stopped about halfway through to sing 'Happy Birthday' to Jennifer, one of the girls who was there, and enjoyed a very yummy cake that Ann had made. Everyone ended up leaving around 6. For our first youth event, I would say it was a huge success!
Summer and I sent the rest of the evening with our friend, Montse, and her boyfriend, Carlos. They had both come for the youth time and then we headed downtown to have some coffee and watch the lighting of the cathedral. This is something the city does every Saturday at around 8:45 p.m. They close down the street in front of the cathedral, shoot off fireworks and slowing turn on the lights. We had a great time just hanging out. Below is a picture of Carlos, Montse and Summer that I took after they finished lighting the cathedral. I'm also putting in a picture I found online of the cathedral at night. It's quite a sight!
Well, that's all for now. Hope you enjoyed it! Oh, an update on Larisa. She is being released from the hospital on Monday, I believe, but she still has a long road ahead of her. Please continue to pray for her! Her daughter Amy is heading back to Morelia this weekend so that she can start school next week. It's going to be hard for them to be apart, so pray for that as well. Thanks for thinking of us and lifting us up before the Father!
Sara
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Cell groups
I thought I would give you all a little more info on what our cell groups are like. Last night, Summer and I had our weekly cell group at Blanca's apartment. Blanca was the first person in our church to decide to be baptized. The Lord has done some amazing things in her life, but that story is for another time. She is a single mom with two kids and lives in an apartment on the north side of town. We've been meeting in her place for almost a year now. The area that she lives in is FULL of hurting people who need a personal relationship with a personal God. But they are hard people to reach. What we've ended up having is a cell group of mainly kids, which is fine with us!
Anyway, a typical cell starts out with the welcome (bienvenida), which is a question for everyone to answer (something simple, like "If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?" or "Here's a piece of paper. Draw the animal that most resembles your personality.") The purpose of this is to help us all get to know each other a little better. After that, we have some praise time (alabanza) to help us focus on why we are there. After that, the kids go to their class and the adults start their time in the Word (Palabra). This is generally a discussion time where we can apply the Bible to our daily lives. So many people here think of the Bible as this really big book that sits on the shelf and collects dust and is passed down for generations but it never read. They don't understand that it is full of life and spirit! That is our focus during the word time. How does this affect me? After this, we have fellowship time. We always have snacks afterwards and sit around and talk and live in community for 30-45 minutes. The kids come back for that (like you can keep kids in any country away from cake or cookies!). Our night usually concludes with taking someone back to their house on our way home.
As I mentioned earlier, we have three cells meeting right now. Our cell is on Tuesday night at 7:30, the Gonzos (as we like to call them) have their cell at their house on Wednesday nights, also at 7:30, and the third group currently meets at our offices on Thursday nights at 6, with Aldo and Sandy as the leaders (I'll tell you more about them some other day). The group that will start in September will be meeting at Rosa's house (she is one of our older Christians) with Adriana and José Luis (also Mexicans) as the leaders. We don't know yet what day of the week they will choose to meet.
I thought I would also include some pictures from our cell last night. Yesterday was Blanca's birthday, so we had pozole, a typical Mexican soup with hominy and chicken, and cake. Sam González stopped by to celebrate with us. We also had some friends in town from Tennessee, so they came to cell. Enjoy the photos!
Sara
(L to R) Summer, Mari (cell member), Blanca
(L to R) Polo (Blanca's fiance), Mike and Carol Dotson (our friends from the States), and Rosa (the new cell will be at her house)
Anyway, a typical cell starts out with the welcome (bienvenida), which is a question for everyone to answer (something simple, like "If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?" or "Here's a piece of paper. Draw the animal that most resembles your personality.") The purpose of this is to help us all get to know each other a little better. After that, we have some praise time (alabanza) to help us focus on why we are there. After that, the kids go to their class and the adults start their time in the Word (Palabra). This is generally a discussion time where we can apply the Bible to our daily lives. So many people here think of the Bible as this really big book that sits on the shelf and collects dust and is passed down for generations but it never read. They don't understand that it is full of life and spirit! That is our focus during the word time. How does this affect me? After this, we have fellowship time. We always have snacks afterwards and sit around and talk and live in community for 30-45 minutes. The kids come back for that (like you can keep kids in any country away from cake or cookies!). Our night usually concludes with taking someone back to their house on our way home.
As I mentioned earlier, we have three cells meeting right now. Our cell is on Tuesday night at 7:30, the Gonzos (as we like to call them) have their cell at their house on Wednesday nights, also at 7:30, and the third group currently meets at our offices on Thursday nights at 6, with Aldo and Sandy as the leaders (I'll tell you more about them some other day). The group that will start in September will be meeting at Rosa's house (she is one of our older Christians) with Adriana and José Luis (also Mexicans) as the leaders. We don't know yet what day of the week they will choose to meet.
I thought I would also include some pictures from our cell last night. Yesterday was Blanca's birthday, so we had pozole, a typical Mexican soup with hominy and chicken, and cake. Sam González stopped by to celebrate with us. We also had some friends in town from Tennessee, so they came to cell. Enjoy the photos!
Sara
(L to R) Summer, Mari (cell member), Blanca
(L to R) Polo (Blanca's fiance), Mike and Carol Dotson (our friends from the States), and Rosa (the new cell will be at her house)
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
¡Hola de Morelia!
Hello, friends!
Well, I'm going to try this whole blogging thing and see if I can be more consistent with this than I have been about sending out e-mail updates. I plan to post prayer requests, news about recent events here and maybe even profiles about some of our members here so you can put faces with names when you are praying for them, so check back often to keep updated (but not too often so that you get frustrated because I'm not updating every day!).
For those of you who don't know anything about who we are or what we are doing, let me give you an overview. My name is Sara Holland and I am a member of a team of missionaries working in Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico. My fellow team members are:
Sam and Ann González and their two girls, Victoria (6) and Sofía (3)
Summer Powell
(Summer is on the left and I'm standing next to her. The other two girls are friends of ours, Deysy (pronounced Daisy) and Mandy, who's from Chicago and was just visiting for a couple of days)
We've been here for almost three years now and have watched as God has started the Iglesia de Cristo Río de Vida (River of Life church of Christ) before our very eyes. We currently have three cells groups meeting in homes across the city, with another one starting the beginning of September. Our goal/dream is to have between six and eight cell groups by the end of the year. We would greatly appreciate your prayers towards that goal. We are keenly aware that the real battle is done on our knees and the more people that we have battling with us, the better. The Lord is moving in some amazing ways around us and we are just along for the ride!
The latest news is an update on one of our members, Larisa.
She is the one with the neck brace on. This is a picture from when her daughter's boyfriend, Norberto, was baptized a couple of months ago. Anyway, she was in a car accident about a year ago and severely damaged her spinal cord. She's been waiting for an operation for about that long that will hopefully allow her to move freely again without needing the neck brace or the wrist brace she sometimes wears. It's been a VERY long process, but she finally had her surgery today in Mexico City! Praise the Lord! We got a call from her oldest daughter, Amy (far left in the picture), that she had made it through the surgery well and was recovering. The doctors were very optimistic about everything that happened. Please continue to pray for her quick and miraculous recovery and that she can be back here again soon praising Jehovah Rapha, the God who heals.
Well, I think that's enough for my first post. Thanks for the time and the prayers and thoughts! Next time you're in Morelia, look us up. We love visitors!
Sara Holland
on behalf of Team Mexico
Well, I'm going to try this whole blogging thing and see if I can be more consistent with this than I have been about sending out e-mail updates. I plan to post prayer requests, news about recent events here and maybe even profiles about some of our members here so you can put faces with names when you are praying for them, so check back often to keep updated (but not too often so that you get frustrated because I'm not updating every day!).
For those of you who don't know anything about who we are or what we are doing, let me give you an overview. My name is Sara Holland and I am a member of a team of missionaries working in Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico. My fellow team members are:
Sam and Ann González and their two girls, Victoria (6) and Sofía (3)
Summer Powell
(Summer is on the left and I'm standing next to her. The other two girls are friends of ours, Deysy (pronounced Daisy) and Mandy, who's from Chicago and was just visiting for a couple of days)We've been here for almost three years now and have watched as God has started the Iglesia de Cristo Río de Vida (River of Life church of Christ) before our very eyes. We currently have three cells groups meeting in homes across the city, with another one starting the beginning of September. Our goal/dream is to have between six and eight cell groups by the end of the year. We would greatly appreciate your prayers towards that goal. We are keenly aware that the real battle is done on our knees and the more people that we have battling with us, the better. The Lord is moving in some amazing ways around us and we are just along for the ride!
The latest news is an update on one of our members, Larisa.
She is the one with the neck brace on. This is a picture from when her daughter's boyfriend, Norberto, was baptized a couple of months ago. Anyway, she was in a car accident about a year ago and severely damaged her spinal cord. She's been waiting for an operation for about that long that will hopefully allow her to move freely again without needing the neck brace or the wrist brace she sometimes wears. It's been a VERY long process, but she finally had her surgery today in Mexico City! Praise the Lord! We got a call from her oldest daughter, Amy (far left in the picture), that she had made it through the surgery well and was recovering. The doctors were very optimistic about everything that happened. Please continue to pray for her quick and miraculous recovery and that she can be back here again soon praising Jehovah Rapha, the God who heals.Well, I think that's enough for my first post. Thanks for the time and the prayers and thoughts! Next time you're in Morelia, look us up. We love visitors!
Sara Holland
on behalf of Team Mexico
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
