in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life

Virgin of Guadalupe

Someone's house
One of the streets I worked on

I want to share with you what God has been doing in my life these past few weeks. I have gone from deep discouragement to deep joys. God has been using this time in Mexico to truly mold me and shape me and I am so thankful for that. He always wants us to grow closer to him and that sometimes involves hard days.

This last week however, I have been incredibly encouraged. I have been involved in the coordination and translation tasks of two volunteer teams that have come down to help from the US. I worked for two days with a group of youth and we went door to door giving out gospels of John (Evangelios de San Juan) and I translated as they shared their testimonies in English. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed translating! It was a blast of creativity as I tried to translate their profound emotions and thoughts. Simply glorious ;)

I also had my first Bible study with one of my teammates this last week and we had about 6 or 7 people show up which was wonderful! And I was challenged to pray out loud in Spanish for the first time ever. Though I have been learning Spanish for the last 5 months I had never been forced to pray and therefore avoided it at every turn because if speaking isn't hard enough, imagine trying to passionately speak to God in a language not your own. A few days later though, I prayed out loud for about 8 women as I went house to house taking surveys - what a tremendous blessing that was! God is so wonderful to shape us and stretch us at exactly the right moments.

This past week I have had the opportunity to share the truth about Jesus more than I ever have before. And it awakened me to the deep darkness of the city of Leon. These people are steeped in lies from the time they are born and they cling to it stubbornly as it has become not only a religion but their culture. Everything they do revolves around their holidays and idols. Almost every house has an Idol of the Virgin of Guadalupe - if you don't know about her I encourage you to look her up. She is everywhere here and people worship her as their divine mother. She is more important to them than our precious Savior. Though there is no basis for their beliefs in her found anywhere in the Scripture, they cling to her as a savior. One of my greatest conversations and also most tragic moments this week was on Sunday. We went to a part of town that is poorer and also known to have more gangs and I knocked on 3 doors before someone answered. But on that third door, I looked in and saw an old man and then almost passed the house by, but something inside of me made me knock. He came to the door and invited me and one of the volunteers in to sit at his table as we chatted. He is 68 years old and there was an entire wall covered in idols. We began to speak and honestly, I shared about a relationship with Christ and the hope that he gives us more passionately than I ever have before. And it was such a joy because I was speaking Spanish! God is so faithful! What was so tragic was that he had no hope whatsoever. He looked at me and said "All of that sounds wonderful, it sounds beautiful, but how can it help me?" My heart broke. Here is a man who has an entire wall dedicated to idols and he says he believes in God but he has no hope that God can help him or change his life. My heart was awakened to the oppressiveness of the darkness in this city - it is like a heavy weight bearing down us. Please pray for this man, Jo. He has health issues and is taking care of his 96 year old mother. He was a sweet and precious older man - please pray that as we follow up with him his heart would be softened and that he would witness the joy and love that we have within us through the Holy Spirit.

"For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." 2 Corinthians 10:3-5

This passage has really spoken to me lately - Just by living in this dark world we are demolishing strongholds simply with our mere presence which contains within it the Holy Spirit. How blessed we are to have within us weapons that have divine power. What is even more interesting and astounding is that these weapons are weapons of love, peace, humility, selflessness, faith, joy, etc...that through living holy lives we can defeat the powers of darkness is insane. Sometimes it is so hard to actually use these weapons - we want to wage war as the world does with hurtful words and mean glances and manipulation but through the power of the Holy Spirit we can live Holy and allow God to fight the battles through us using His incredible love! It is the Spirit within us who fights because in reality we are incapable of living holy without him guiding us and giving us strength. But with Him we can live HOLY - so amazing. I have been challenged lately, by God, to live a more selfless life. Though I am here in Mexico and I have left my family and the comforts of home I have still been living selfishly - As though I deserve a great adventure in this place and as if I am entitled to happiness. But the truth is, is that God never promises us a great adventure, he doesn’t promise us happy days. But he does promise to love us and to never forsake us. There is a passage that says: I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:12-13. Hallelujah! We can do everything through Him he gives us strength. I have been having to rely solely on God’s strength lately as I have had none of my own and he is so faithful. The secret is to rely on Him - to give it to Him - to surrender our lives to him - to be sacrificial and selfless and also humble. It seems hard and our flesh resists but when we choose Christ we truly have joy and life! How holy is he!!! We truly receive abundant life when we loosen our grip on our own lives and trust God to do with them what he wills.

Thank you all so much for your support during these last few months. Please continue to pray for this city and for these people who have been confused by lies. Pray that the strongholds here would be broken and that people’s hearts will be softened. Pray for us as we continue on in God’s work here - sharing passionately and boldly about him. Pray for strength and a deepening of our faith. Pray that we would draw closer to Christ and that each day as we open his word we would learn and grow and truly hear from Him. Your prayers are appreciated more than I can express here.

Also, here is a link to a site I created to share my music. I hope you enjoy it :)

http://www.purevolume.com/RachelEldredge

And hope does not disappoint us...

“And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given to us.” Romans 5:2-5

“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.” Romans 12: 9-13

I have now been in Mexico exactly 2 months. 2 months worth of time has really held a lot of growing for me. God is stretching me and teaching me in ways I never expected. I am thankful for the ways that I am growing and maturing - I am having to constantly lean on my Father in heaven for strength and wisdom in every situation. I don’t know if I have ever had to be this reliant on him before. Please be in prayer for me as I continue walking on this journey with my creator, every step is difficult but I know that in the end I will find myself closer to Him and that is where I want to be.

Please pray for my ministry here, I have been able to start 3 English conversation groups although they are all very different. One of them only has one student and I have wondered if it is worth my time - however this one student is of the Baha'i faith and we are having very free conversation about faith and beliefs which makes me think it is definitely worth my time. One of the other groups has 4 students and the last group is an entire class (about 10 or so). So far we are having decent conversation in English but I am not really sure how to begin sharing the truth with them. I shared the prodigal son story in the larger group and we had discussion about it, it was very interesting but I am not sure that this will be a good method for every class as they really struggled with the English. Please be in prayer for these classes and these students - The 5 that I know the best are B, J, L, M, and M (the two M’s are girls and the rest are boys).

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” James 1:27

Please also pray for me as I try to create presentations about child development and nutrition. My heart’s desire is to work with the poor and oppressed and so far my only idea for getting into these areas and trying to get to know the people is to share practical information with them. My plan is to prepare the presentations and then find government buildings in these areas and try to see if I can find an entry to share. Through these presentations I obviously want to help these people in any way I can with practical needs but my main goal is to share about Jesus. Please be in prayer for these areas of town and the people that live in them and pray for me as I try to prepare and plan. This is a bit overwhelming for me and I am just leaning on God to show me how to do it.

I have begun to really get involved in my church and have started to make friends with some of the youth there. One of the girls that I have come to know and love is D. She is the pastor’s daughter and she sings like an angel. We have started singing together some and she is teaching me all kinds of Mexican slang which is very funny. I just want to thank you for your prayers that I would find friends, I feel like I have begun to make friends at church and I can only give the praise to God. Please continue to pray that I will make friends outside of church and that I will meet people of peace that I can begin to disciple. Thank you all so much for your prayers and willingness to keep up with what is going on in my life. I am blessed.