A New Fire

This past month has been great for our congregation here. Tomorrow Ryan will wrap wrap up the Nooma preaching series. After much discussion between the members, we are all equally encouraged. There's a new spark among our members and a new energy to begin new things.

A fellow missionary here in the city, James Henderson, preached at the area-wide service two weeks ago in the center. He spoke about us being active Christians and not passive Christians. He posed some through-provoking questions to us all. Things like, "What is your deepest desire?" "When were you the happiest in your life?" These questions have been in on our hearts since, and we've had many a discussion. Last night in our leaders' group meeting, we had a brain-storming session about the direction of the Benito Juarez congregation. We have many plans on the horizon...new groups that will be starting, and new preaching series, and evangelistic events that will take place.

One of the most encouraging things that has happened lately was one of our fellow workers, Alejandro, stopped by to say good-bye. Yep, he just left for a month-long vacation to Europe...we feel REALLY sorry for him! Anyhoo, when he was over saying his good-byes, he blew us away. "I'm ready to do something more, something NEW!" he said. We were blown away and very inspired. Alejandro is a great leader within this congregation and has the gift of speaking. Whenever he preaches, people listen! Upon his return, we hope to help him start a new cell group in his mother's house. Please be prayerful of this!

Starting soon, as a congregation we will be reading "The Story". We are excited that we have found it here, in Spanish! We are hoping that this tool will provide a way to get all of us involved in reading our Bible on a daily basis.

Also in the works, is a fall festival. The Benito Juarez congregation hopes to use this event to reach out to the Del Valle community. Del Valle is where the Pink House is located. We are planning a Saturday for us to drop invites into mailboxes. Israel Campos and I will be working on the design of the invitation. We are looking forward to some members from the Monterey Church in Lubbock to come down and help us out.

That's all for now. Please pray for us and the fire that burns within us to grow the leadership within this congregation. We feel blessed to be members and co-workers among so many dedicated people. God is great!