Catching up!

Hola from Mexico!

2016 is already 1/4 over and it’s time to share some highlights of life and ministry!

La Hacienda Los Arboles…

This is the property that we (Reg and Linda Toth, Winnipeg Evangelical Free Church, the EFCCM, the Arbol de Vida Church and many others) have been developing for the blessing of churches in our city and state.  We have been upgrading and adding some features over the last few months to get it ready to share this fall when we hope to see it used for church retreats, picnics, weddings, 15th birthdays (quinceañeras), baptisms, missions training and much more…  We, as a church (as well as some other churches and the House of Grace Children’s home) have been using the facility for a few years now.  Here are some photos from the recent activities at “The Hacienda”!

Here (above) is a group of youth from Arbol de Vida and 2 other churches that spent an afternoon and evening at the Hacienda.

The youth played games….

And had food and then a great time of worship and a message from the Bible.

Here is Shelli with some of the church ladies (above).

On the Easter weekend we had a family day with many activities, food and time to reflect on the redeeming work of our Lord Jesus.

Here’s Annelise (above) with her team for one of the activities.

Shelli and I have been focusing on ministering to married couples and adults in Arbol de Vida and have had a number of evenings with the adults.  Here (below) is Shelli leading one of her games that always involves dressing up and a lot of laughs and fun!  Shelli hasn’t lost her touch as making ministry creative and fun!

At the end of January, we were able to visit Mexico City where we spend two days with the leadership ((see below) Gamaliel y Damaris – he is the president of the Evangelical Free Church of Mexico) of our denomination here in Mexico.

Caleb was doing a home-school project on the Aztecs and the history of the Mexico City area so we were also able to visit some of the important historic sites.  We stayed with our friends Antonio and Becky (and their daughters Jessica and Susie) Muñoz.  Antonio was our tour guide for Caleb’s “homework”.

The Zocolo in downtown Mexico City (above)…

Ancient ruins of the Temple Mayor (above).

The sun pyramid at Teotihuacan (above).  It was so busy that day because it was a day of free entry to the park.  It took us over two hours to go up and come down the pyramid because of the line of people!

We were also able to reunite with Jim and Shari Cottrill and their kids(below)!  Shelli spent a year with Jim and Shari on a Venture Teams International mission in 1993-1994 in Mexico.  We had a great afternoon catching up, sharing about what God has been doing in a through us as missionaries in Mexico.  They serve in Ixtapaluca near Mexico City.  Note the cool shirts we all have…

Back to Hermosillo…. The Breakfast Children’s club (El Comedor) is where you’ll find us most Saturday mornings as a family serving 20 -30 kids from an impoverished area near our church.  Here (below) are Annelise and Caleb getting ready for a messy (but yummy!) craft with the kids!

Another craft!

The Arbol de Vida church is doing well!  We are starting into a 50 day project on April 10th.  It is called “Putting my home in order” (translated from Ordenando Mi Casa) and it will be a focus time of working through a devotional book as a church, meeting together in homes to study and grow together, memorizing Scripture, a day of fasting, an evangelistic outreach event and much more.  Please pray for our church that God would use this time to unite, strengthen and grow our church.

We have been working through the long, drawn-out process of getting permits to build over the last months.  With the Lord’s help I hope to be able to share in a few weeks that the permits are in place to start building the sanctuary at Arbol de Vida!  Here (below) is a photo from a recent Sunday morning…

An answer to prayer!  Remember Daniela (below)?  We asked for pray for her a number of months ago because her liver had failed and she was desperately needing a liver transplant.  God did a miracle in this girl’s life and we are happy to share with you that she has since made a complete recovery and is back at home and in school and doing very well!  Praise the Lord!

I will post this update at this point so that it doesn’t sit in the draft folder and collect dust.  There are many more things that are worthy of reporting on but we’ll have to save them for later…. We thank you all for your prayers and for your encouragement and love.  God is good and faithful.  It is a great joy to be in His service.  We trust you too find joy in serving Him wherever God has you right now as well.

Adios for now!