Drama and Christmas in Autlan

Here is a few pictures of our drama we did downtown that I have been meaning to post.
Never knew Jesus could be bald did you?

This one is of us in our little choir. Jessie even had a solo during one of the songs. It was a really good experience for us. We had over 200 people watching us. John shared a message after we finished the drama about how sin can get in the way of us coming to God. Several people have said they were touched by the drama. You can see the back of my head in the little group of guys on the right side. Jessie is in the middle group. You can see only the top of her head.

This is a picture several days after we did the drama.
I wanted to show a little bit how decorated the park is during this Christmas season.



This is the gazibo in the middle of the park. It is a full nativity scene.



This is to the right and the left of the gazibo.

As you can see they spray everything down with white stuff that makes it look like snow. Most people in Autlan have never seen snow. My personal favorite is the palm tree with Christmas lights almost to the top of the tree.

This picture was a little bit disturbing. It is a new addition this year. There were more people looking at this part than any other part. When we asked a few Mexicans as to why they had put this in the nativity scene they did not know. There are three devils who seem to be dancing in hell. It is located directly behind Mary and Joseph. It is a reminder to us that we are in a battle all the time.

English class Christmas Party

Jessie and Sandra making a Mexican punch called Ponche.

One our students Jesus playing Mexican love songs after we sang some Christmas Carols.



Lillian is up way past her bedtime.



All kinds of Mexican food for the party.



Some students of Jessie's level 3 class.



Level four and five students playing games and eating.

Decorations and three pinatas helped change the class room into a party room.

Church

Here I am at church lighting our advent candle. I read John 14:1-6 about Jesus being the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is the reason we celebrate Christmas.

Thanksgiving update

OK, it has been a little while since I last posted. With this time of year things are pretty busy as they are back home.

Thanksgiving. It was over a week ago now. We had our thanksgiving meal at the Bruggemans. They have the most room as they live at the Regional training center. We started our first meal at 2:30 PM with just us Americans. We didn't have to worry about speaking Spanish which is a nice change. After the meal we watched a Christmas movie "The miracle of Mr. Tummey" or something like that. After that Elizabeth's English class level 4 came to have another meal. We were so stuffed by the end of the night. Jessie made a great pumpkin cheese cake among other things.

One thing that was really good was that two of the guys that came were the guys John and I have really been getting to know. Their names are Ivan and Daniel. They have continued to come to a Bible study on Friday nights for the last two months. We have been challenging them to make a decision to follow Christ but they seem to take a long time to make this decision. I would ask for your prayers for both of these guys. They are best friends and have a lot of influence on each other. They both have given up drinking for various reasons and with out God's help I fear they will turn back to it. John and I are amazed that they continue to come every week to learn more about the Bible.

Choir update, We are going to be on stage downtown on the 19 of Dec. It will be very exciting for us to be out there. Last night I drove by downtown and there were dancers dancing on the stage. There were many people sitting in chairs & standing around watching. It will be great for us to share with people hope for their lives.

Other people God is working on are Roberto and his wife. Roberto is a level 3 student in Jessie's class. Jessie has said that he always wants to know more about the Bible in class. He came into La Roca a couple of weeks ago and talked with John for an hour and a half about the Bible. One of the things that is really a challenge for him and his wife is that they see that the prayers they are praying over and over have no value to them. John and I got to share with them on Friday night again. They are searching for truth. John gave them a book that was written by an ex-priest from the catholic church who shares his testimony, as well as some of the false teaching that Mexican catholics believe. Roberto came to church on Sunday to check out our small little church. We didn't get a chance to talk with him before he left, as he had somewhere else to be right away, but I am sure that he will let us know on Wednesday what he thought. Here is a picture of him with John on Sunday before church started.

I am very excited to tell you that my brother Ben is coming for Christmas. He is going to a youth conference 12 hours away from us, but is flying into Guadalajara and staying with us for three day before it starts. This will be our first visitor here in Mexico. I am also excited to share with him what it is we do here, not just by phone or pictures. I can't wait to see him.

The women's Bible study

The women's Bible study at our house on Friday night.
There were a few ladies who were not there as well.

We are all under the weather

Here we are a less than a week away from Thanksgiving and it is still just as warm as can be. It has changed at night time to drop in temperature but the days are still as warm as a Minnesota day of sun. With this bit of change, it still brings colds and flues. Over the last week all of us have come down with colds and sore throats. It is the kind that just makes it difficult to do normal things and not the kind that puts you in bed for days on end. All the girls are more whiny and crying more. Jessie and I both have taken naps in the afternoon at various times.

One thing that we are excited about, is our church doing a Christmas outreach. We will be singing three Christmas songs as well as doing a Drama. We are doing "Everything" by Light house. It is on God tube and You tube. We hope with the time that we have left we will be able to do it well. We are grateful for your prayers for this event. We know that Satan does not like what we are doing.

English Classes are continuing. There is a lot of seeds being planted. My last homework assignment was for my students to take a gospel of John in Spanish and read chapter 3 and summarize it using only English. I told them they could take it as far as they wanted to go with it. I am excited to see what they will do with it and how God will reveal himself to them.

Few more pictures

Here is a pic. of us and our ministry partners that we work very closely with, John and Elizabeth Rodgers. We are so blessed to know them. We love you guys and thank the Lord for giving us the opportunity to serve Him with you!

Our church had a baptism in a river just outside of Autlan. Here is John sharing some scriptures with us about baptism and what it represents.

This is Norma and Carlos (pictured below). They have only been Christians for a very short time. Being baptized for most Mexicans happens when they are babies. It is not the baby's decision to get baptized. So to new believers being baptized is a statement of faith. They are choosing to identify themselves as a follower of Christ. They are a very financially poor young family and are continuously in need of our prayers.

Our mission conference

Every year our mission has an annual conference. With the growth in Autlan, this year the leaders came down from Tecate, California, & had the conference here. There were five of the leaders that came, including our mission director, Ron Huffman. The theme of the conference was "The hand off" focusing on passing the baton off to others. The baton represents our faith & that we need to pass others. The theme verse was 2 Timothy 2:2.

"And these things you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. "

It is a good reminder that we need to bring others to Christ and teach them to pass their faith on to others. It was an encouraging time for us. They also shared the vision 50/50. The mission will be 50 years old in 2012 and the vision is to have 50 different ministries under Tecate Mission International. Right now there are only 25 or so. One of the highlights was the time we were able to spend getting to know the leaders personally, as well as them getting to know us. This was the first time we had met some of them.

Here are some pictures that we got from our director's camera.
He is the guy standing next to me. (Andy)



John, Elizabeth, Jessie and I did worship on Tuesday during the conference.
The second is of us during one of the morning sessions.

We had some time of fun with team-building games.

The banquet we had using an Olympic theme.

Ok, these are a little scary I know, but they are right in front of the Government building downtown. It is part of the celebration of the day of the dead which was October 31 and November 1. I am not totally for sure which day they celebrate it, but they have festivities both days. Both of these stand over 15 feet tall.



This is right inside of the Independence building (the main governmental building). It is a shrine dedicated to the dead. You can see the shelf is covered with little skulls. This is one area that needs to change in this culture. They pray for their dead relatives in hope that if they are in purgatory, they will be released and go on to heaven. It is reminder how deceived people can become.

This is us at La Roca church, with our mission leaders attending.

Funny thing happened today

A funny thing happened to us today. We were getting ready for church when Jessie and I both agreed that we were going to get to church early for a change. It is a bit difficult to get to church with 3 little girls who all have to have their faces washed, hair brushed and clean clothes on. We also try to get the house cleaned up from Saturday night choir practice, which is at our house. So, today we decided to get going earlier. We made it to church at 10:50 AM, 11:00 is when church starts. Our church is still small at this point, maybe 8 to 10 people, so when someone is not there, you notice. Mexican culture is such, that people arrive somewhere in between 11:00 and 12:00 to church. John, Elizabeth, Jessie and I decided to start service with the four of us at 11:15, so people would start getting the idea that we were trying to start church at 11. We finished singing about 11:45 AM or so and still no one had shown up. We all were confused, because this had not happened before where no one came to church. We decided to talk about the up coming conference next week that our mission is doing here for us. (Some of the main leaders of Tecate our coming down for it). At 12:10, Carlos and Norma come walking in. They informed us that it was only 11 AM. We had no idea that daylight savings time happened last night. Not more than 5 minutes later, the other members of our church arrived as well. We all had a good laugh about it. We did get to go over the music before anyone had gotten there. Unless someone would have told us, we would have left and gone home wondering why no one came to church today.

Our house video & update

We have posted a guided tour of our house on http://www.clarkcreation.blogspot.com
if you want to see it.

During Christmas time, there are a lot of events happening. Our church is putting together a choir to sing in the center of town. We are very excited about this. Two and a half years after John and Elizabeth did a choir event, they still get comments about how nice it was and how they would love to see it again. Music is a great way for us to reach out in to the community. They love music here. The church is still really small and having a way to interact outside of Sunday service is good way to get people connected.

One couple that came to our church is Carlos & Norma. They have a one year old daughter named Acady. They told us some of their story of becoming Christians. When they decided to step out of the Catholic church, the church erased their marriage records, as well as their whole family not supporting them in their decision. Often times, the whole family will push new Christians out of the family. They feel the pressure from their family continually not agreeing with them about not attending the Catholic church. That is where our church can meet some of their needs. The body of Christ is not just going to church on Sunday mornings, it has to be more. They need the body of Christ, they need the fellowship. Often new believers will give in and go back to the Catholic church, where everyone in their family attends.

Lady of Guadalupe

Here are some pictures of when I went up the mountain where the Mary altar is in Autlan.
The first is from just outside of our house. You can see it anywhere you are in the city.






They have mass once a month, as well as a festival each year, where people will crawl on their hands and knees for penitence. It is a sad to see so many people who don't know the truth.




There are candles burning all the time. The walls are completely black, as you can see, from all the candles that have been burned.



This is inside the doors. They will leave flowers for a few of the different saints. The picture is of the Lady of Guadalupe, which is why the whole place was built.

Independence day celebration

One of Mexico's days of Independence was on Sept 15th this week. We ended up going to see a dance show in front of the town hall. There was a big stage set up with a set of bleachers that was about 6 or 7 rows of seating. It was not going to work when we had two strollers for Lilly and Aletta. They brought out chairs that were in between the bleachers and stage & it was there we found enough seats for all of us to sit down. We waited around for a while for the show to start. A lady got on the microphone and started the program by talking about what groups were going to be dancing and by welcoming everyone to the Independence celebration. It was at this point she started speaking English. She said very clearly "And we want to welcome all the people who have come from the United States to be with us here tonight." Talk about being pointed out in a crowd. It was instantaneous that the whole crowd of people were now looking at us four gringos (John, Elizabeth, Jessie and I) with three little girls sitting in the front row. We just laughed and looked at each other. I looked down the row where we were sitting and all eyes were on us. Here was our unofficial welcome to the small town of Autlan, Jalisco, Mexico.It was a great eye opener to know that even being here a short amount of time, we are being recognized. We had someone just come to our door today saying that someone had told them that Americans live here and that they might buy something from them. We are not in Guadalajara any more.
The English classes are an instant involvement in meeting a need. A lot of college students need to have some level of English before they graduate. A number of Jessie's students are middle age people who need to learn English for their job. Elizabeth has said that she is already getting more ministry opportunities than she has ever gotten before, this early in the school year. God is doing great things. We are only starting to see the fruit from the seeds that have been planted. We are blessed to be apart of what God is doing here in Autlan.

Here are some pictures of La Roca

Ok, I have tried three times to put on a video of La Roca coffee house. It did not work, so here are some pictures instead.



The back terrace of La Roca. The classroom where we are teaching English.



What you see when you get up the stairs. The kitchen where we make the coffee drinks.



The front room where there are Christian materials in Spanish and English.

The terrace and the middle room for more seating. The book shelf is where some of the games are stored, such as Uno, Phase Ten or Skipbo. They get a lot of use.

These photos are just to give you an idea as to what La Roca is like. We hope to give you more as time goes on, as we do ministry here.

Jessie and I both will be teaching English classes at La Roca. I will be teaching level 2 and Jessie will be teaching level 3. They are both on Wednesday nights. It will take a little juggling with the girls, but we are very excited to be a part of this ministry. There is over 100 students at this time. Last year there were only 60, so you can see the need and the ministry is growing. Level one alone has 60 students plus. The more people who are in the classes the more that are getting the truth of God's word. We use a lot of Bible stories and Bible verses to get the students to start reading the Bible themselves. The transformation is beautiful, when God starts opening their eyes.

I do want to let you know that we are going to need prayer partners for our English students. Elizabeth has said that it is a great way to get people praying for these students to come to know the Lord. It is vital to our ministry and it gets you involved. We will be sending more info soon. I wanted to put it out there, so that you are thinking about it.