downtime...

A short little update! It seems like we´re going to have an early winter here in Mexico. It is only now beginning fall (Sept 21 just like back home) but its been in the low 40´s every night this week and the low 50´s during the day! We´ve had long rainy days with lots of wind and clouds! This is the type of weather we usually get in November, but its been coming early this year. I´m hoping for some more warm days before the actual winter times come. Most of you back home are thinking, 40-50 isn´t that cold, but remember we don´t have heat here and the walls are just cement, so that makes for some cold times!

During the past cold week, I´ve been inside due to a nasty sinus infection. It started over a week ago when I got the infection my roommate Claire had been fighting. On Monday, after a weekend of feeling really sick with a fever I went to the doctor and he said it was a sinus infection. On Wednesday it all started moving down to my chest and I went to a different doctor with Pastor Carlos and Monica (a Christian lady they go to as a family). She said it is not fully developed bronchitus yet, but my bronchials are full of the same stuff that caused my sinus infection! I´m now at home resting and taking some different medications to be able to breath better and get over this! Its been a long time since I´ve gotten a cough and head cold-infection like this! Today I am feeling better in waves--I´ll feel somewhat able to be up and about and then get totally exhausted and need to lay down again. The doctor said I´m not allowed to do anything until she sees me again next week on Friday. I guess God knows when we need to take a time out and just have time alone to think, read, rest, etc.

Today was the evangelical breakfast at church, which I was not able to go to in the end, due to this sickness. I was pretty bummed, as Lina was so excited to go with me, and I was praying today would be the day she accepted Christ, but God knows why he allowed me to get sick and not go with her! I know there will be MANY more opportunities to share with her. She is going to come over on Monday to visit me and have coffee together. I hope to talk to her on Monday. One of the things they are announcing today at the breakfast is a discipleship study for all of the women who come who want to just KNOW MORE about the Bible. I will start giving this study every Wednesday night from 6-7 pm at church. We have had LOTS of new visitors from around the church come, mostly women, so I want to invite them to just learn more about the Bible, through a chronological study. Pray for these studies!!

In being sick, I spent Thursday and Friday at Pastor Carlos´house where I had four attentive nurses (Monica and the girls, Mariann almost 2 years old, Deborah, 3, and Priscilla, 8). I also had time to talk through the new discipleship course plan with Carlos and we will be starting soon! I am going to be teaching the Good Soil Evangelism and Discipleship course in spanish, which is the same course our reg. director Rich taught us back in March. It is EXCELLENT material on how to view a nonChristian and know where to start and how to present the gospel in an effective way. We went through a basic version of this material last Satuday with 5 women and it went so well. We all learned a lot together.

Another exciting thing is that two of the youth at our church, Pablo and Ruth, are studying in a seminary and have recently designed an evangelism program for one of their classes. They are going to be implementing it starting in November. Part of their plan is offering music classes as an evangelistic outreach so I am going to add English classes to the program as well.

There are lots of exciting things going on in Mexico right now and I can as always say I am so excited to be here and happy that God has me here. There have been lots of days recently which have been discouraging, especially being sick and feeling alone sometimes being away from my real family and often alone here at my house, but God allows those moments and he allows things to be taken in and out of our lives. The one thing I see is that HE NEVER is taken in or out and HE is always present and constant. I thank God for that. I am reading a book called Surrender by Nancy Leigh Demoss and it is so good. I want to share a prayer from this book that was originally written by John Wesley. It really describes what God has been teaching my heart these days:


I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,
Exalted for thee or brought low by thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
Thou art Mine and I am thine. So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
Let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.

This is my prayer!