Garage Sale to Benefit Family

Security Wall for Single Mom

Remebering What it is Like

Today was a good day. Today I messed up a lot of Spanish! Today I misunderstood what people were saying to me. Today I sweated from the heat. Today I got dirty. Today I remembered what it is like to be a Missionary again, and I loved it!

Let me give you a little pre-amble. Sheri and I came to Hermosillo Mexico with a vision. We came with a vision of seeing a community of like minded believers reaching out to care for those who are struggling, in the church and outside the church. We came with a vision of service to those less fortunate than ourselves and with the hope that the church would join us in reaching out in practical ways to those who are in need. We believe that Jesus ministered to the physical and emotional needs of the people He came in contact with and then He gave them the good news of the gospel. We desire to do the same. I think that loving people first before you present the gospel to them is an effective way to do evangelism. It is something the church should be doing and it is our aim here in Hermosillo.

Enter Jorge (not his real name). You see God has also planted this vision in him and has given him many practical skills in which to serve with as well. Jorge attends the church and wants to see the church reaching out in love to those in need as well.

Enter a team of 7 men from our area of Alberta. These 7 arrived on Saturday night and will be leaving this coming Saturday. They are here to further the construction of the church building. However they also said that they wanted to serve a person or a family in need in some practical way.

There is a lady in the church who is raising 3 kids (16, 13, 7) on her own and she is getting by, but with no room to spare. She lives in a tiny 3 room house in a very modest neighbourhood where there are many abandoned houses. Two of these abandoned houses front her property (one on the side and one behind). Now these types of houses tend to attract people who are up to no good. Often drug deals and other such things happen there. This family doesn’t have a wall to separate their property from the others and therefore after doing their “business” in these abandoned houses, the people will often walk right through their yard or even through their house! The 16 year old girl often cares for her younger siblings while Mom is at work. This obviously isn’t the type of environment in which anyone would want to raise 3 kids on their own!

This morning I met Jorge and 4 of the men from the team (the other 3 were working on the church) at this lady’s house and we began the construction of a proper wall made of brick to provide much needed security for their home. This project is happening because of the combined efforts of people in the church (Jorge specifically), the men from back home, myself, the other Missionary Family that serves here and the Mom of the 3 kids who is going to pay for part of the materials needed to build the wall.

I spent a good part of the day driving around with Jorge picking up materials needed for the construction and we also ate lunch together in his home with his wife. It was wonderful and difficult to speak Spanish as we drove for so long with no way of escape! After we ate lunch I thanked Jorge and his wife for the lunch they provided and then as we got into his vehicle, I thanked him again. After a minute or two he told me “I have something to teach you about our culture”. He proceeded to tell me that very few people say “thank you” here and that it bugs him when people do thank him! I told him it would be very difficult for a Canadian who has been invited over for a meal to not say “thank you”! Ah the intricacies of Missionary life!

I don’t want to be too idealistic or get the horse in front of the cart, but I was so encouraged by today! In working toward seeing the church reach out to others in practical ways, it is absolutely key for them to “catch the vision”. Today I saw a leader emerge from them, one who has the same vision and one who will hopefully draw others into service as well. God is obviously at work and today was just the beginning we trust.

Today for me was the beginning of seeing this dream realized. Today I saw Mexicans serving Mexicans. Today I saw Canadians serving Mexicans and being changed in the process. Today a family was blessed. Most of all, and I believe this with all my heart, today God was pleased.

Please continue to pray! We need your prayers!

Lane for the Elliotts.

English Kids Club at the Church- Sheri helping at the back

Almost There

I am typing this from our hotel room in Blythe California which is almost on the border of Arizona on Hwy 10. We have been traveling for 4 days now. The kids have been doing well, but we are all tired. Our drive to Mexico began on Monday morning in Coaldale Alberta where it was -15C or so with lots of snow. We headed south and have traveled through Montana, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and now California enjoying the 19C weather! When we pulled into Blythe we saw a dirty pickup and RV ahead of us and I jokingly commented to Sheri and that it looked about as dirty as our vehicle and must be from Alberta. Upon further inspection the license plate indeed confirmed that it was from Alberta!

We are planning on taking a break tomorrow and not traveling at all. Maybe we will take the kids out to a movie and then hot tub here at the hotel later.

A highlight of the trip for Noah was when we traveled on the "Historic Route 66" hwy on which the movie "Cars" is based- (His favorite). The girls have been enjoying the trip as well except for when Jemma got her fingers caught in the electric window when Dad rolled it up...........................no worries, all her fingers are still there............
This really has been quite the fun time for the kids. These are memories they won't soon forget!

So the plan is to head to Tucson on Saturday and then down to Hermosillo on Sunday. We would love to have your prayer support again for this border crossing. By the way, the one into Montana went without a hitch. The border gaurd asked me for my license plate number and because it is new to me, I hesitated when giving him the answer and even though I got it right he still wanted to see my registration. Oh well, we made it through fine.....................without having to open the trailer!
We were going to spend New Years Eve in Las Vegas but couldn't get a hotel room as the whole city was pretty much sold out! Oh well, we went to Mesquite Nevada (an hour north east of Las Vegas) and stayed there instead. The kids loved the tredmills in the exercise room of the hotel we stayed at.........................go figure.

Well that is about it. We are getting more and more excited as we get closer to Mexico. We are truly looking forward to what God is going to do in and through us there in Hermosillo. We have a vision but God is refining it and will continue to do so. There is a song that we have been listening to on the way down here that is new to us. It is called "God of This City" by the Passion Worship Band. The chorus goes, "greater things have yet to come, and greater things are yet to be done in this city". That kind of sums up our anticipation as to what God will do in Hermosillo. We believe He has big plans for the people of this city, and we consider ourselves blessed that we are hopefully going to be a small part of it!

We will update again when we can and also we will post pictures of our trip at www.flickr.com/photos/elliottspics

Blessed to have you behind us, The Elliotts.

The Rollercoaster Ride Continues

Well we have left our home where we have been living for the past 6 months in Sundre. We packed up our 5 by 10 trailer in the minus 27 degree temps. Let me tell you that in those temperatures we are sure looking forward to leaving! On that topic though, it has been hard. This life of transition that we "signed up for" sure isn't the easiest thing, but we wouldn't change a thing. We so completely enjoyed our time in Sundre connecting with the people from our home church - McDougal Chapel- and we truly felt loved by them. It was a wonderful 6 months with our church family. It is obvious that so many people from our church care for us so deeply. They proved it to us time and again in many different ways and it sure isn't easy to leave them all.
The kids loved their time in Sundre as well and got so connected again with their friends at church. It truly is bitter sweet for us and for our kids to leave. We are all excited- the kids included- about leaving for Mexico and getting settled in there. However it sure isn't easy to leave. Each one of us deals with the leaving a little differently. We have had times of crying as a family and times of jumping up and down as we look forward to what is coming. Just when we were ready to leave our house for good, we couldn't find Noah because he was hiding in the closet crying. It is at times like these that as a parent you wonder if it is all worth it. However God is gracious and He quickly reminds us that there is no doubt it is worth it. He gives us what we need to get through the hard times and He allowed us to stay in Paraguay long enough to experience some wonderful relationships with the Paraguayan people and that showed us that all of the hard work of learning a new language and culture was so worth it. We didn't just endure the hardship of learning and adjusting without reaping some benefits, specifically with a number of wonderful Paraguayan people.
This helps us to remember that even though we are having a bit of a hard time with the transition that is upon us again, we will get through it and we will come to love the people in Mexico that we will be serving and serving with.
We are looking forward to spending Christmas with our families and then we will be driving to Mexico shortly after Christmas sometime.
One more big goodbye, to our families! Then we can look forward to some hellos in Mexico and be finished with the goodbyes for a while!

Thanks for your prayers.

Lane for all of us

Preparing to Leave Again

Preparing again

For those of you who aren't familiar with what we have been up to nor what we are going to be up to let me introduce ourselves.
We are Lane and Sheri Elliott, along with our kids Alexis 9, Jemma 7 and Noah 5. We lived in Paraguay as Missionaries for the last 2 years or so and now we are back here in Canada. Our plan was to stay longer, but God had other plans.
Now we are preparing to leave once again. We are committed to serving as Missionaries in Latin America and we believe God is calling us to serve in Norther Mexico in a city called Hermosillo.
Hermosillo is a city of about a million people. There is already an existing church that we are going to join. There is a Canadian Missionary family there already as well. This family is from our area of Western Canada and they have 3 children who are about the same age as our children.
Vision-
Our desire is to partner with the believers in the church that we are going to be attending with the goal of going into the poor areas of the city in order to serve. We desire to demonstrate the love of Jesus to the people of society that are often overlooked.
We see plainly all throughout scripture that God cares deeply for the poor of the world and how He warns against the exploitation of them. When Jesus walked the earth, He most often ministered to the poor and most often it was the poor who responded to Him. God loves to use the poor, and the weak and the broken to accomplish His purposes, it is a pattern in scripture.
We would love to see a church full of ex-adicts, ex- prostitutes, ex-whatevers. It is a big dream, but we serve a big God. We believe God still wants to change lives and He chooses to use broken vessels like us to do it.
We are supposed to be the hands and feet of Jesus, living here on the earth to do what He did while He walked the earth. Simply said, we should be characterized by love, by reaching out and touching the broken hearted just like Jesus did.
We believe that when we reach out and touch and love in practical ways, that people will respond to that love. Once they do, then we can share with them the best news of all, that Jesus loves them and having died for their sins, wants to enter into a loving relationship with them.

That is pretty much it. We covet your prayers as we perpare to leave for Mexico by the turn of the new year. We will do our best to continue to update this blog regularily and hopefully we will be able to add video soon as well. Alternatively, you can see pictures of our time in Paraguay and soon, of our time in Mexico at www.flickr.com/photos/elliottspics