Thankfulness

Sometimes what is apparent is just the surface...
10 days after our event on the 5th of July, we had a party to celebrate what God had done in and through the event, to give thanks to God for being so good to us and to share stories!
We resurrected the Global Grounds space at the church which turned out to be really, really cool and got a band together to help us sing to God that He's the best!
Here are some photos of the fun!

Lots of stories were shared, actually, everyone got up and shared something that God had taught them, someone they met, how they had grown or some encouragement for those around.

Ric shared how he was amazed by the way God stopped the rain the week before the event for our bonfire, then on the day of the event (when even the pastor said it would rain!) so that we could enjoy the activities outside and the beautiful sun.

One of the teenage girls shared how she had arrived at the church early by chance and really didn't want to help out, but everyone kept asking her to lend a hand. She told us how God had used this to help her see how cool it was to help out others and then how she was impacted by the presentation during the event and even though she had grown up in a Christian home, decided it was time to give her whole life to Jesus.

Another guy shared how he had come to know Jesus because one of the other teenagers had prayed for him and invited him along to the youth events just over two years ago. He is so thankful that he knows Jesus as his friend and saviour and is part of the community. Now he had the opportunity to invite his friends along to the event (and he brought lots) to introduce them to Jesus too!

Another one of the teenagers was going to go on holidays on Saturday morning and wasn't going to be able to go to the event. She said she had been praying that something would change and she would be able to go because she really wanted to be a part of it. Through a turn of events, the family's travel plans changed and she was able to go to the event and then leave for her holiday afterwards!

A lot of the young people shared that they were excited about the event, but really believed that nobody would come. One by one they shared that that had been suprised and impacted by God's faithfulness in bringing along people to the event - friends, relatives, neighbours, people that we didn't expect - and that there were lots and lots of young people.

For me, the event was impacting in a stack of ways. I was excited to see the teenagers playing music in front of their friends for the first time and singing that they believed in Jesus and give Him glory and honour. I was excited that we had several teams of grafiteros come along and express themselves with awesome artwork. I was amazed by the quality and message of the winning artwork. I was encouraged to see the Global Grounds cafe space fully decked out and operating again. I was encouraged to see the way God is putting excitement in the hearts of young people to reach their world and to live a life worth of the calling that have received. I am excited that God is allowing me to be a part of what He is doing here in Queretaro!

Amazing experiences in the north...

I’m writing this from the aeroplane heading back to Queretaro (sidenote: Volaris is highly recommended! They even have powerpoints for every seat!). It’s been an absolutely amazing five days in Ensenada and Tijuana. I personally have grown, been challenged and seen God’s hand in so many things.

The reason we went to Ensenada and Tijuana was to attend a conference for pastors and leaders of Calvary Chapel churches in Mexico. I started with the attitude that we were there to receive teaching, resources and recharge. But God by His grace had much bigger plans. When we arrived and were able to see what God is doing here, He allowed us to be a part of it! To listen, pray and share with the people we met and to serve them was so much more meaningful than just receiving. The coolest thing was that, when we served, encouraged and shared, we ourselves were massively blessed and encouraged!

The conference itself was really helpful. The time was intense and full of lots of teaching from a range of pastors. There were eight talks in total and we listened to five talks in one day on Friday! Through all this, God was speaking to me, guiding me and giving me renewed faith in His perfect plan. One of the challenges that impacted me was to have the passion and thirst in Christ for the people of Mexico that says “Give me Queretaro (for Jesus) or I will die”. Knowing forgiveness, love and hope in Jesus is the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I LONG for all of Mexico, all of Queretaro, the whole of the university of Queretaro to Jesus personally and intimately.

Another thing that impacted me during this time are these words that Jesus said to his disciples when we was on earth:

Jesus told him [Peter]: You can be sure that anyone who gives up home or
brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or land for me and for the
good news will be rewarded. In this world they will be given a hundred times as
many houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and pieces of
land, though they will also be mistreated. And in the world to come, they will
have eternal life. (Mark 10:29-30 CEV)

I really miss my family in Australia – my mum and dad, my brothers and sisters, my nieces and nephews. However, I have discovered in a new light during this time how much I have gained hundreds of brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, nieces and nephews here in Mexico. I feel so much a part of the family of God and have been encouraged and blessed with the generosity and openness of brothers and sisters here. Over the past few days I have met so many people with whom I’ve talked and prayed – sharing each others’ burdens and problems, joys and triumphs.

It has been particularly special to stay with Chris and Rosalba who opened their home and their lives to us. Our time with them has been awesome and I’ve got a stack of really cool memories. Chris is a bigtime encouragement. He pastors two churches in Tijuana and has been working here as a pastor for about 18 years. He is a massively humble guy and I appreciated the opportunity to share with him what God was doing down in Queretaro and the challenges we have been and are facing. It was exciting to hear of his heart to see people encounter Jesus here in Mexico and to raise up Mexican leaders to strengthen the church here. I also appreciated his balance of wisdom and a great sense of humour!

I’ve also had a lot of fun over the past few days. God knows that I love surfing and I was able to go for a surf at Cantamar where we were staying. Chris has a longboard that somebody gave him and he hasn’t used yet. He said GO FOR IT! So I went for it. As I was getting ready, I was so excited – the others could see that I was about to jump out of my skin. I ran down to the beach with the board and jumped into the water. It was great to get back out there even though I realised that I hadn’t been surfing for several months!!!

On Sunday night Martin, Sara and I went along to a Christian café in Tijuana called Todo Por Ti (All for you) with some of Sara’s friends. We drove through a maze of backstreets in Tijuana until we arrived at a big shed with a little door – Café Todo Por Ti: Café Cristiano. When we entered the little door we were transported into a vibrant space for young people complete with fuzball tables, air hockey, a pool table, indoor volleyball court, stage with musical instruments, indoor soccer field and lots of tables to hang out with friends. The café is open during the evening on Friday, Saturday and Sunday until late as a place that young people, particularly Christians can come to hang out with friends in a relevant atmosphere free from the pressures of bars and clubs. For me, it was a great place and mmmm, the coffee was really good too!

Tijuana part 1

Wow! I’m learning so much. The last day has been huge in terms of God working, building relationships, seeing more of the church in Mexico and opening my eyes to real poverty.

Yesterday, Martin, Sara and I left Queretaro at 4am to drive to Leon and take a flight from Leon to Tijuana. When we arrived, we met Pastor Chris Martinez and various others from the church here in Tijuana. We left directly from the airport with Jaime and Chris to meet some visitors from the US. When Korean Ken and his team arrived, we went to the first rehabilitation centre to see what God was doing.

In this rehabilitation centre, somewhere in the suburbs of Tijuana, 50 guys have taken the step to get free from addictions to drugs, alcohol and other destructive things. In the centre, they experience the love and message of Jesus Christ as the one who can help them out of the hole and lift them up into a new transformed life. That’s exactly what we saw – transformed lives by the power of the Spirit of God. After praying with the team and the guys at the centre, we proceeded to our next stop.

We arrived at a building in another part of Tijuana called Rosarito with all the crew. We were met with smiles by Victor and his wife and had the privilege of seeing a great facility dedicated to the glory of God. This guesthouse is used to facilitate short-term mission teams who want to serve the people of Baja California and share the message of Jesus Christ. It provides a safe, comfortable place for the teams to rest, debrief and get recharged. The ministry also assists short-term teams to serve in areas where there is genuine need so that they can be most effective for the kingdom of God.

Next stop was Tacos Manuel. These tacos were big, man! We ate two big quesadillas each and enjoyed the big flavour of the rich barbeque meat.

We proceeded, feeling fairly tired, down to Ensenada to The Ranch. This ministry only started up last September, but it was the most impacting stop of the day. The Ranch is a rehabilitation centre run by the Calvary Chapel here in Tijuana. After meeting the crew and the donkey called Dulce, I went down to the paddock to see the other animals with three of the guys there. There were rabbits, chickens, goats and pigs hanging out in their pens. The goats decided to give us a bit of entertainment when one of them did a pee and another decided it might be tasty to drink. When we started yelling out that it was gross, the goat started laughing at us which was hilarious! One of the guys started to share his story with us, a story that demonstrated to me just how much God longs to transform lives.

Alberto was an alcoholic, his Dad taught him to kickbox so he was fighting all the time with other guys, he was into drugs and crime and he told me that he was hopeless. The crowd that he hung out with weren’t real friends and he was living some really full on stuff. Alberto lost hope and decided that it was better to end it all. He tried to commit suicide four times, but God had his gracious hand in the situation and each time Alberto wasn’t successful. Later, one of his friends who had been living these full on situations with him told him that he had something that was even stronger than the drugs he was taking and asked if he wanted it. Alberto was up for it! This time it wasn’t a new drug, it was Jesus Christ. Later, someone invited Alberto to the church because they were going to have free pizza. He went along to the church simply because there was going to be pizza and he hadn’t eaten for three or four days. That day, Alberto accepted Jesus and his life started to change. Now Alberto is in the centre, knows Jesus as his salvation and only hope, wants to live every day for Jesus and tell others about Him, loves reading his bible and has recently been baptised. His ambition when he leaves the centre is to tell others about the power of Jesus to heal and transform lives.

Later, the guys showed me the dormitory where they sleep, we listened to some worship songs in Spanish including La Niña De Mis Ojos that Alberto really likes because it says (translated roughly to English), you found me when nobody else cared, you called me by my name, you are my child, the child of my eyes. We read the bible together and prayed together – thanking God for His son Jesus who has transformed our lives and given us new hope. I am praying that God would continue to work in the lives of Alberto, Javier and Aaron and see them grow in their relationship with God and impact the lives of others with their stories.

Later, we arrived here in one of the poor neighbourhoods of Tijuana called Pedregales de Santa Julia at one of the churches where Chris is pastor. The poverty around us here is profound.

We arrived for the Wednesday night service and Martin shared the word of God in the service. By God’s design I’m sure, we sang La Niña De Mis Ojos, which now has even more significance for me because I see in the lives of my new brothers in Christ, the depth and strength of God’s love for us in Jesus. Martin was talking from Luke 15 about why tax collectors and “sinners” – those who were not holy and righteous – were attracted to Jesus, the one who is holy and righteous, and why Jesus was attracted to them. We saw in the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the prodigal son, God’s amazing desire to “seek and save that [those] which was lost” (Luke 19:10).

Later we listened to the story of a brother from Chiapas who has a mountain of problems – economic, family and personal. We saw the love of another brother who has taken this guy in and is showing him the love of Christ – tangible and practical. We prayed together and once again, I was impacted by the love and compassion of our God who knows each personal intimately and has a plan for each of us.

This morning we met for morning devotions with about 18 people here in the church. I played the guitar and sang a couple of songs in Spanish (it was a little bit dodgy, but God uses even the least of us for His glory). Chris shared a really cool devotion from Daniel 4 about God’s transformation of Nebuchadnezzar. We saw that sometimes God has to take us to the floor before we lift our eyes to Him. Sometimes our pride is too much and like Nebuchadnezzar, we fail to acknowledge the king of glory and trust in our ourselves. But God is gracious and when we come to our senses, He saves us.

More to come…

Faithful God!!!

The lead up to "5 de Julio" had been going for about 6 weeks with lots and lots to get organised! The aim of the event was to reach young people who don't know Jesus personally with His love and His message of hope. We also worked really hard as a leadership team to involve the young people of Horizonte in the process and see them grow throughout all the planning and preparation. I was in charge of organising publicity and live music for the event.

On Friday night, the 4th of July, we had a band rehearsal to prepare for the event. We played from just after 6:30pm until 11pm and rehearsed about 16 songs! Afterwards, I was stuffed! I was already starting to get a cold and my head felt awful! I wondered at that point how I was going to get through the day on Saturday with all that I had to do to help out. There were loose ends that had to be tied up and apart from that, I didn't want to just be there, I wanted to be there serving at 110% and chatting with young people! Also, the weather forecast didn't look too promising and most of the activities were planned for outside. In desperation, I prayed and also sent out an email to my friends to pray for me and the event. And guess what!? God answers prayer!

I woke up on Saturday morning, still feeling tired and a little bit under the weather, but got going and felt even better. I arrived at the church just after 10am and we were also supposed to have a rehearsal for music on Sunday morning (which I just didn't know how I was going to fit in doing that too!). Fortunately, not everyone was there so I started cleaning up the area ready for the band and getting the sound system ready. I then popped back in and we rehearsed a couple of songs and then went on with what we had to do. Meanwhile, there were thick clouds covering the heat of the sun trying to poke through...

We lifted up all the sound gear to the top of the Ark (yes, it was a Noah's Ark) via the ladder and I kept saying that I've got faith that it's not going to rain! Even so, we put some garbage bags and tarps up there just in case.

The loose ends started to tie up when some others on the team were able to help out getting some things printed and the event started!! The young people started to arrive and God continued to do His stuff!



Here are some photos of the event, including some of our final rehearsal.
The event included a rock climbing wall, grafiti competition, the Global Grounds cafe space (looking very cool I might add!), volleyball and ping pong, videogames, live music and food during the afternoon and a concert and panel discussion in the evening.

Our special guests from 100% were actually filming their TV show with us in the evening (which I didn't know beforehand) which made it both really cool, and a little bit clunky when they had to film a few entrances and exits for the show. The band was really, really funky and the young people got into the songs. Later, the panel worked really well around the theme of "Why?" with the young people submitting some awesome questions and the panel responding really well from a biblical point of view. The guys from 100% and the band Juan were good blokes with a huge heart for Jesus. At the end of the night, the young people were given a chance to respond to God's invitation to new life and forgiveness of their sin. We had quite a number of people respond both to accept Jesus for the first time or to give their WHOLE life to Jesus. We prayed with them and there was a party in heaven!!

Overall, I was really, really tired, but super happy to see what God did with our humble hands, feet, voices, drumsticks, coffee machines, church... etc... to impact young people for His glory! Thanks so much to those who have been praying for the event and the young people - I'm sure this is just the start of what God is doing here amongst the youth of Queretaro!! We still have lots of work to do!

Chain, chain, chain... chain of prayer

Apologies to Aretha F. for that title...

In the lead up to the event on the 5th of July, we spent a lot of time praying. We pray(ed) because we know that what we're involved in is bigger than us - it's something that God is doing. Also, we pray because we know that as humans, we stuff a lot of things up, and more than anything, we NEED God desperately to give us the strength, guidance, wisdom and life to be and do things that have forever value.

One of these times that we prayed was last Wednesday, 2nd of July. We had planned to have a bonfire with the youth and pray for the event on the 5th of July, but it was raining cats and dogs! Sidenote: Here in Queretaro, everyone is scared of the rain and nobody goes out when it's raining - some for good reason, others are genuinely freaked hehe. I had also forgotten to organise the rest of the band to play some music and lead our worship in song to God due to changes in plans. So we thought that nobody would show up and it would be a failure. God had other plans...

Nolan was coming to help me check out the sound gear, so he agreed to play bass. Job had been running a music and worship workshop with the youth so he agreed to play guitar and lead things and I asked myself and agreed to play drums. It was still raining when we started singing praises to God, but we lifted our 15 or 20-odd voices (about 15 or 20 of us, and only some of our voices were odd) and worshiped our Creator and Savior with all we had. It was a really awesome time! It was about half way through when I caught the reflection in the glass of the door... something yellow and orange, and moving!! Then I realised, the bonfire was lit! Afterwards, we went outside, the rain had stopped and gathered around the warmth of the flames. We joined together and thanked God for what he was doing, we prayed for our friends, we prayed for ourselves, we prayed for Queretaro, we prayed for the event and God heard and acted (see the post Faithful God).

God answers prayer.