Extreme Drought in Durango, Mexico

Posted by: Jacob Friesen
Church: Nassau Street Church Winnipeg
Date: January 31st, 2012

An important letter and prayer opportunity for our brothers and sisters in Durango, Mexico.  Two leaders from the church at Durango attended Church Planting Congress in Winnipeg with us in November and also shared at our General Council Meeting.  Dave & Margaret Penner and incredible workers in that area under the MCC umbrella.

Please read about the drought, the extreme poverty and the responses.  As Go Mission! we are praying and anticipating assisting in some tangible ways.  Pray with us for an appropriate response.

Greetings from dry & dusty Mexico,
Wishing all family, care group members, church friends & other friends in many parts of the world a blessed & happy New Year. The new year brings about a new resolve to submit to greater obedience, knowledge & servanthood in our daily Christian walk as we rub shoulders with such a variety of people.
We thanks those of you who take the time to send emails, they mean very much to us. We do feel very far away & removed from life as it used to be. We also know life after Mexico will never be as it was before.
January marked 3 years since we first came to Durango Colony Mexico. We wonder where the time went, but we must say that it has been a full, rich, interesting & challenging time. By now we can hardly envision what a different life would be like. We feel as though we belong here. Yet there is a very real other part to our life & that part became a reality again over Christmas when we were joined by our family in Mazatlan. We had a wonderful Christmas with our family there. It was short but so wonderful, the weather was good & we made the most of our time together.

We are thankful for health & energy & a warm  comfortable home with a furnace & food in the house. Most people here could not say that, but continue to feel the sad effects of the drought around us. A large percentage of the cattle in the colony has left for unbearably low prices, & the feed that has come in from other parts of the country is too high priced for the average person to buy. We have heard about effects of drought related poverty in other parts in the country where as many as 50 women have committed suicide because they can’t bear to see their children starve to death. Here people are worried as well as to how they will make it through the winter. Many families will go to bed hungry & worried about food for the next day. Fortunately it is a milder winter, as cold on top of the hunger would make it even harder. It is so dry & dusty at times it seems like a winter blizzard with the dust. There is much “grip” influenza, with coughing, sore throats & fever from the dusty dry air.

We wish to pass on sincere thanks & appreciation from the folks who received the food hampers at Christmas.  It was heartwarming to see the responses.
Today was a much anticipated & joyous event for MCC & the colony. Earlier in the year we had made application to Operation Christmas Child for shoe-box gifts for the colony. 6 people from the colony went to Durango for the training program in fall. We were granted 250 shoe-box gifts for needy children in the colony. Today was the hand out day, & what excitement & joy for the children.
We continue feel & rejoice in God’s protection & mercy. We are however aware of new concerns regarding the drug war. Last week one top leader from the drug cartel in power here was captured,  and one was killed. The cartel who had lost power last winter in this area appears to be resurfacing again and there have already been 3 Spanish kidnappings in the last 2 weeks in our area . Today there were rumors of 2 more. Unbelievable large amounts of money are requested from people who have next to nothing. It seems so terribly wrong & ridiculous. This activity is immediate cause for  concern for many. We pray that it is a short lived period of unrest. Please pray for our safety as we expect to travel for the next 9 days as we leave Mexico this morning to renew our visa. We are feeling quite uneasy & nervous about being on the road so much at this time.

Our friends Abe & Hilda Froese from Winkler visited us for a few weeks in January. Hilda was able to have several meetings with the School Board & teachers out here. They got to taste & see what mission work & life in Durango colony is about, & I’m sure they would be happy to share with you.

Our routine doesn’t change much, except that new layers keep being put onto our plate. All interesting & good opportunities, but also all time consuming. I’m thinking that writing about our activities is “old hat” thus writing becomes less frequent. Dave has been working with organizing a group from within the colony to go to another area in Mexico to help build a Spanish Mennonite church. Dave has also worked very diligently with persons afflicted with alcohol problems, it is ongoing work, and finally some results are taking place. We now meet one night a week, there are 5 couples, to give support with singing, sharing about personal struggles, & also a bible study. The meetings have been very good, with open personal sharing.

Our calendar will be very full from now to the end of May when we return to Canada. This weekend we need to exit Mexico to renew our Mexican visa, this includes going to Cuauhtemoc for MCC meetings.

We ask for your prayers for:
Safety & security.
Wisdom, health & energy.
Breaking down of wall between the churches.
More MCC workers for Mexico.

Operation Christmas Child, 250 gifts were given to needy children in our colony today.

Bolivia Trip Report in Brief

Posted by: Jacob Friesen
Church: Nassau Street Church Winnipeg
Date: January 29th, 2012

Report on Ministry Trip to Bolivia – Jacob & Arlene

Arlene and I just returned from an extended visit to Bolivia.  Attached is a 3 minute video summary of our trip.

We are very encouraged by how God is using our missionaries and ministries in bringing people into a relationship with himself and growing in Christ-likeness.  The ministry in Villa Nueva is taking root and growing .   We are especially excited about the start of two brand new ministries.  The work in San Jose is up and running.  The radio has started, the ministry center is taking shape, the fence and the first buildings are nearing completion.   Now is the time to join in and help finish this exciting center.  The relationships for fruitful ministry are well under way.  The Low German and the Spanish are looking forward to the radio and resource ministry.  Much more on this later.  Let me just say that by God’s grace we have been able to do in a year what could very well have taken 5 years.

The other new ministry is a Christ Centered Counseling ministry in Santa Cruz.  Simon and Edith have arrived and are discerning with our team how and where to start a much needed healing ministry.  The construction of the Rehab Center is also well under way.  Pray that God will provide the right ministry team and then many who are willing to come seek true freedom.

Our relationship with LIEAB, our sister conference, with a theology school, a high school of 500 and 15 churches is good and we have new opportunities to learn to encourage each other in missions and discipleship.

That is a summary of a very exciting month of ministry.  We will submit more pictures and a fuller report shortly.

In Christ

Jacob

Opportunity – Teaching in Bolivia

Posted by: Go Mission
Church:
Date: January 18th, 2012

The Villa Nueva School in Bolivia is in need of an additional teacher for the 2012 school year (February to November).
Bolivia 2012 Teacher ad