Langley E-Free comes to Northern Mexico

We just finished a busy week with the youth from Langley E-Free. They were here from the 6th to the 13th. This was my (Lane) first time planning and hosting a group largely on my own. We spent 2 of the days ministering in a little village about an hour outside of the city called "San Juanico". Our intention was to bolster the ministry in this village that an organization called "Partners in Christ" is doing there. We did a kids club and built a small one room house for a man in the town.
In the pictures above you can see the before and after images of his home. His name is Esteban and he has some health issues including diabetes. The pastor of the church there and the representative of Partners in Christ asked us if we would be willing to improve Estebans living conditions.
It was so good to see Esteban helping here and there in the construction of his new place. On the second day as the contruction was nearing its end, he even went and got a haircut to celebrate the occasion!
We gathered around the house holding hands and dedicated the house to the Lord and thanked him for Esteban. Right after one of the people from our church asked Esteban what he thought of his new place and he just choked up and tears welled up in his eyes.
What a blessing the youth and leaders of Langley E-Free were to this town and ministry, not to mention our own ministry as well.
Another evening we did a "Hot Dog" night at the soup kitchen and near 200 people showed up from the community that we have been reaching out to! What a blessing!

Thank you for your prayers and encouragements!

Lane and Sheri

The Beginnings of Transformation

Sunday was a great day! Have you ever left a church service and just felt like God was absolutely working in it? I sure hope so. Well Sunday was like that for me.

You see Sheri and I and some of the people in the church have been trying to reach out to a poor community beside our church. We have done this in various ways although the principal way has been the soup kitchen that we have been involved in running. Sheri and Marcela (one of our friends from the church) have visited in a few of the homes in this area. Jeseña and Maria are two of the ladies we have been reaching out to.
We first met them when they came by our house looking for baby clothes. They each have 4 children. We told them the clothes that we had were all at the church and were available to be given away, they just needed to come by the church to get them. So we invited them to the church and the next Sunday they came! The each took some bags of clothes home and since then we have seen their kids wearing these clothes which is a blessing in and of itself.
They continued coming to church here and there and then we offered a sewing class at the church (led by a volunteer from Alberta who was here for 3 weeks) and invited them to it. They both accepted and Jeseña particularily flourished in learing how to sew. We are exploring the possibility of connecting her with a seamstress here and maybe helping her to possibly start into sewing as a way to supplement the household income.
Fastforward to yesterday. Jeseña and Maria along with their kids were both and 2 other families that we have had some contact with as well. The message was a salvation message and when the pastor said that salvation is found not found with anyone (Buddah, Confusious, Mother Mary) except Jesus, I saw Jeseña say "amen". Sheri and I both felt burdened to pray for Jeseña's salvation at that point. The message continued and I could see that Jeseña was hearing every word. Then the end came and the pastor prayed a salvation prayer and asked everyone who had prayed with him in their hearts to stand. Jeseña stood up! Sheri and I both rejoiced in our hearts!
After the service I went up to Jeseña and asked her if she had given her heart to Jesus. She said that she had and I told her that if she kept seeking Jesus, her life would change as mind had 17 years ago when I made that same decision in my life. I told her that Sheri and I and Marcela were available to help her in her new faith and I gave her a bible.
Sheri and Marcela are making plans to start a bible study with Jeseña and I am so excited to see how God will be changing her life in the weeks and months to come! God is bringing about fruit and we are blessed to be a part of it!

Please continue to pray for Jeseña and for Maria and the others from this same community that have been coming to our church. They need Jesus and our church needs to be His hands and feet! Pray that Jeseña would grow in her new faith and that all the new comers would feel loved and supported by the people in our church.

Thank you for being part of our ministry- the transformation of the lives of the poor by Gods love shown through His kids, the local church. We continue to covet your prayers!

Lane and Sheri

Dream Come True

Yesterday a dream came true for our family. We were part of a Samaritans Purse Distribution of Shoe Boxes!

Each Saturday we help run a Soup Kitchen for a poor community close to our church. We do this in conjunction with a Methodist Church close by. For a few years in a row, this church has received shoe boxes filled with toys from Canada and the US from Samaritans Purse.

Well yesterday after we had played with the kids, and taught them Bible Stories and songs and after they had eaten, we passed out the shoe boxes and then just let our eyes feast on the joy filled kids as they torn into their boxes! It was great to see them so excited and the sound that came from all of them was good and loud!

It was great to see our kids help out with passing out the boxes as well, they were so excited to finally be part of something that our family has participated in back home (buying toys for shoe boxes and sending them). In fact we have also visited the distribution centre in Calgary (before leaving for the mission field) and that got our kids really excited as well!

Each box was passed out with a pamphlet explaining the Christmas story cartoon style in Spanish. Now we must pray that Gods word takes root in the homes of these children. Please pray for us as we build relationships with these kids and their parents. We are starting to see a few of them attend church and we need your prayers! Thank you for partnering with us like this!

For more pictures from this event please visit www.flickr.com/photos/elliottspics

Tar Paper Shack

I am not sure where or how to begin, words never have come easily to me, especially when it comes to explaining what the Lord is saying in my heart. Language falls so short, any language. This story is more about what the Lord has shown me rather than what He is telling me.

Recently at a prayer meeting at church, we took a collection for a lady who needs medication. This lady is the mother of a large family. She is a grandmother as well and she has ten or more people living with her (not sure if they are all family or not). I came to get involved with this family through my friend Marcela. You see Marcela was leaving her work the other day and rather than showing up for an appointment, she felt the Lord tell her to go home and on the way, saw this family picking through the garbage looking for food. Marcela can relate to that as that used to be part of her life as well not so long ago. Now the Lord has changed her circumstances and her heart but she still remembers what it is like to have to look through the garbage for food. So she had compassion on this family and took them to the store to buy some food and a few things they needed, even though Marcela doesn’t have a lot herself (by Canadian standards anyway).

Fast forward to the prayer meeting one night later.

A few members of this family took Marcela up on her invitation to come to the prayer meeting at our church the next day. We took an offering and then went to buy the things that were needed with the money that had been given. Afterwards we took this family “home”. I put home in quotes because it could hardly be called a “home”. Marcela and I followed them into their house to find their bed ridden mother/grandmother inside. I have never really seen the inside of a tar-paper shack (maybe once briefly in Paraguay) but this was so hard to swallow. It was cold that night and the wind was blowing the cold air through the many holes in the boarded up, patched together walls. There was one mattress in the room (the size of a very small bedroom) but there were 8-9 people in there. The smell inside resembled the smell of an outhouse, just not quite as strong. The baby lay on the mattress but fell asleep beside the make shift boarded up wall that was full of holes.

As Marcela shared the hope of Jesus with this family, they all seemed quite content and comfortable; perhaps I was the only one uncomfortable standing on the sloped dirt floor as I tried to keep my balance in the dimly lit room.

That night after we parted ways, I returned to my house speechless. “They have nothing” I kept thinking, with tears running down my cheeks. “Lord how do they live in there”? In Canada, our garages are plush mansions compared to this home.

The next day Marcela and I returned with the medicine for the mother/grandmother. As part of our routine, Marcela and I prayed together before we set out, feeling weak but strong in the Lord, knowing we only had to be willing to be used by Him, and that He would do the rest. When we arrived, everyone was sitting outside of the house, visiting with a lady whom we had not yet met. They quickly welcomed us and brought two broken unstable looking chairs to sit on…………………

We took our seats and Marcela and this lady began to visit. As it turned out, this lady (Blanca) was a niece who RARLEY visits. Marcela and she hit it off and talked for an hour, while I took my usual position of praying my heart out for Marcela as she talked and for the people as they listened. At times I got distracted from praying as I focused on trying to understand the Spanish that was being spoken between 2 native speakers at a record speed, and the open sewage that rushed out from the house into the street and the smell that it produced.

“Lord sometimes I have good thoughts and feel privileged to be here, but sometimes the overriding feeling is to get up and run away, far away”. This time the latter was what was coursing through my brain. I wanted to go back to Canada, where it is comfortable for me, clean and safe. I know this is only the beginning of our time in serving the poor here in Mexico, and is only the beginning of spending time in places like this, I think that is why I wanted to run. It can seem like a big mountain to have to scale. Sooner or later however, the Lord brings perspective back to me.

Did not the Lord himself come from a much more glorious place than Canada into a gross and smelly place? Was not the first smell He smelled as a little baby, the smell of animal feces? His “house” was hardly a place for a newborn baby. “Lord to say ‘thank you’ isn’t enough, I need to give you all of me, I can’t run away”. “You took your cross and now I need to take mine, though you gave so much more than I could ever give”.

As Marcela and I left the family and drove back to my house, my thoughts were still of running away. Then God touched my heart with his grace and mercy (which he didn’t have to do) and gave me a better perspective. He reached out and touched me because of his loving heart.

Marcela then spoke up, “Did you understand what happened last night to Blanca?” (Remember she was the niece who had visited with Marcela). I confessed I didn’t follow Blanca’s story enough to understand what had happened. Marcela then explained how Blanca and her boyfriend had a fight the night before as he had come home high on drugs again. He accused her of cheating on him and grabbed their baby saying that Blanca would never see the child again. Blanca also grabbed the baby and a struggle over the child began. Blanca pleaded with him to let the baby and her go. He then tried to rape Blanca but she somehow managed to escape with the baby in her arms. She managed to find a place to stay that night and had what she called “a vision”. She saw her auntie’s face and then a voice told her that her life was going to change the next afternoon. The next morning she went to her auntie’s house and that afternoon Marcela and I arrived and she heard the good news and hope of Jesus Christ from Marcela.

Thank you Lord for your mercy. I know you have called me here and even though at times I want to run, I have peace about being here. Thank you that you allow me to see your mighty hand at work around me. Use me in my weakness Lord. Be glorified.

The family in this story has been coming to church here and there since this story took place. Thank you for your prayers, we need them!

Blessings to you this holiday season.

Sheri Elliott

Teaching and Singing Before Eating at the Soup Kitchen

We had about 80 kids in total by the end of the day as well as 20 adults, and for our first time, we were very pleased! We will continue serving the community each Saturday in December. Please pray for us! We want to reach the spiritual needs by reaching out to the physical needs.

Serving Food for the First Time at the New Soup Kitchen

Soup Kitchen Opens to Meet Needs- Physical/Spiritual