This is RenovArte

This video was produced by some students of the University Autonoma de Queretaro and the Instituto de Technologia de Queretaro for a project involving RenovArte Cafe.  This is RenovArte.

14th of February in RenovArte Cafe

Real love

The 14th of February is all about LOVE!  On Valentine's day, the world gets our their luvvy-duvvy side and seemingly out of nowhere we see a multitude of expressions of romantic love. At RenovArte, we made use of this tradition, but with a twist. In the cafe we celebrated Valentine's Day, in Mexico known as the day of "love and friendship" with a live music outreach event.  We played love songs of a different kind, love songs that talk about an unconditional, unfailing and unrelenting love shown by the Creator God towards his creation.  On this night, we also partnered with the worldwide organisation the Gideons to give the gift of God's word to those drinking a coffee and enjoying the music.
We had a surprisingly good response and many people were happy to receive a small New Testament Bible and hear of God's love.
Now that the seed is sown, we will continue to water, showing and sharing Jesus to a generation searching for love in all the wrong places.
Check out these clips of the concert...

Groups

Groups...
Groups are a great inroad for us at the cafe. Apart for helping the economic side of the ministry, they are a point of connection with often a new social circle.
We often have groups if up to 15 young people arrive at the cafe and we have to get things in rapid motion to attend them all! This obviously limits our one-on-one interaction with them but also gives the opportunity to connect with the group as a whole or tell them a little bit about the cafe.

This is often an icebreaker for when individuals return to start a closer relationship with the individual and share life and Jesus authentically with them.

Today we have had lots of groups through and God is at work calling individuals and groups to a new freedom in Jesus.

Not go Ere

Now I'm not one to embrace bad grammar but we do have an in joke here about "not go". It was a Spanglish phrase coined by Sandy's cousin when I had to travel to a conference and was farewelling the family.

This time it applied to our beloved Ere who after almost two years of faithful service in the cafe has finished up her time to return to full time study and look for part time work in her area of study.

Ere has been a special blessing to us in the cafe and we have shared many special moments with her. She has been serving with us since we opened our doors in the original RenovArte Cafe and has seen God work to share the love of Jesus and as we have grown.

We will miss her funny sounds, tantrums and creative drawings on the coffees. But most of all we will miss her contribution to the team in serving the Lord.

I'm sure still still pop in to lend a hand as it's not so easy to escape the charm and love that is RenovArte Cafe.

Thanks Ere!!!

Los Caramelos - Oscar, Erika and Fernanda are baptised

What an exciting event - our friends with whom we have walked for over a year and a half now, have come to Christ and have now been baptised.  What a joy!

Look at these great shots of this special day...

 Erika

 Fernanda

 Oscar

Renovations at RenovArte

The Easter holidays brought with them the opportunity to do some maintenance and improvements that we just don't get time to do normally. Here are a few snaps:

Squeaky clean floor after Sandy's acid clean!

I mounted the decorative lighting that we had from the old location and painted the ceiling.

Step 1: white background

Step 2: the first 3 coats of red. Step 3 is pending hehe

My beautiful Romi investigating how the broken cash register works. We actually got the little printer motor to work which sparked her interest!

A night on the town - Easter in Queretaro

Day 1 of holiday maintenance

We are making the most of Uni holidays and doing some maintenance in the cafe whilst serving coffee in the cafe bar.

This is day 1's progress. The wall was still bare wood. We are planning to paint it red like the front of the cafe but yesterday it occurred to us that we could put a cool design on that wall with the white background.

What do you think??

The RenovArte Band

I love to play the drums!

Last Thursday we invited my brother-in-law Job Garcia and our unnamed band to play at Conexion Thursdays.

This time we had a better turnout and a great response. Several clients from the cafe came along to listen and stayed to hear The message of Jesus. A couple of women passing by on the street were angling their heads in the doorway and Sandy invited them in. It turns out that one of these ladies wants to become a Christian but is somewhat disoriented. Sandy was able to chat with her and invite her along to church with us.

A friend's tattoo artist, Javier, came along and was impacted by the word of God. More to come in his story.

Overall, the we had fun playing some good music, but it's not about us. The glory is for the all-powerful and loving God. It's all about Jesus.

New Conexion

Nathan (1988) acoustic gig at Conexion

Last Thursday night we launched Conexion. An opportunity to explore faith in Jesus Christ and hear His message.

We will hold Conexion every two weeks on a Thursday night in the cafe. I'm excited because I am making time to get out there and share in the talks at Conexion.

Our first Connexion was titled Faith and Religion and we talked about how God wants our heart not religious actions. There was a good response from those who attended and we are praying that this format will grow and develop into a relevant connection point for those who don't yet know Jesus Christ.

Phil sharing at Conexion

Conexion Vertical

Here in the first Conexion Vertical for 2012, Pablo is sharing from the word of God what it means to be a church, as Jesus designed it.

It's cool to see how God is growing and using this ministry to reach young people and how RenovArte can support this emerging ministry to glorify God.

Some photos from our first anniversary

November 15 marked the first anniversary of RenovArte Cafe. Wow, what a ride!!

God has done amazing things over this past year and all the glory and praise is for Him.

This is just a sneak peek at the celebrations.

The new sign

We are about to complete our second week in the NEW RenovArte Cafe space - God is great!!

One of our urgent needs after the initial fit out of the local was for a new sign. There was an existing sign for the restaurant that was in the local before us that advertised tortas, hamburgers and tacos, but we really needed to have RenovArte Cafe to let people know that we are there. Several times this week people have come in asking for tortas and the other day someone asked Sandy what flavours of hamburgers we had!

We were looking at various options and I called a Cheistian friend who has a design and signwriting business asking him for a quote. He asked me the size and then said "send me the design, it's been paid for!"

"What do you mean?" I exclaimed.

"The One who provides for you has paid for it!"

God always provides.

On Wednesday they installed our new sign and it's fantastic. We were able to make use of the structure and illumination of the existing sign and put a new covering on it.

Now people don't ask us for hamburgers and tortas, they go straight to RenovArte Cafe.

RenovArte Renovation Special

God is moving and so is RenovArte Cafe!

Phil, God has given us the opportunity to move RenovArte Cafe to a larger premises with better exposure to the student community.

Why the change?
The RenovArte Cafe ministry is growing and we are excited about making more connections with university students and developing the relationships and activities we have started. We have also started hosting a weekly outreach Bible study called Connexion Vertical each Thursday in conjunction with another developing student ministry - last week 13 students attended and three made a decision to accept Christ. The new bigger premises will give us the opportunity to continue growing these outreach events and better develop the ministry.

What is the plan?


Whilst we have been praying for some time, the opportunity to move came up very quickly and we needed to act fast. We have secured the new premises which was previously a small restaurant and we are currently cleaning, repairing, painting and fitting it out in true RenovArte style. This involves quite a lot of work (see photos below) as the restaurant was in very dirty condition and had not had adequate maintenance. We continue open to the public in the present premises whilst the renovations are underway. We hope to complete the renovations this week to be able to move this weekend (15-16 October) and open on Monday in the new space.

What is the need?
Most importantly, we need your prayers. Please pray for the following:

1. Strength and endurance for Phil, Sandy and Romi as a family and all those that are helping us


2. For the volunteers that are lending a hand


3. For wisdom in decision making around fit-out decisions and negotiations with the building owners


4. The new ministry opportunities that this move will provide


5. For financial provision for the additional expenses of renovation, moving and ongoing rental

We also need additional financial resources to meet the needs of the fit-out and rental. We pray that this new premises will be a huge blessing - the students that regularly come to the cafe are excited about the change and are even volunteering to help us. This is a sign of God's grace and what He is doing through this ministry.

God bless,
Phil and Sandy

Aussies in Mexico

I'm starting to get my Aussie slang back, bit by bit. I said that our pastor lives in "woop, woop" yesterday. It catches you by surprise, but it's moments like these that I remember that I'm still an Aussie.
We currently have Janice Collins and Adam and Naomi Jones visiting with us from Sydney Australia.
We are having a really fun time sharing with them what God is doing in the cafe and also showing them some of the sights of Queretaro. I think it's all worth it when Adam starts smiling and giggling like a kid about how good the latest Mexican meal was and how he didn't like Mexican food until he arrived here.

It's been a full on week with some unexpected occurences that have pulled us in all directions but God is faithful and He is sustaining us moment by moment.

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie... do I hear an...
Oi Oi Oi!??

A couple of days rest in the sun

Missionary life is busy. This year we have felt the weight of serving many hours in the cafe and trusting God to work through us. We love what God has called us to do and it's a joy to go to the cafe each day and see what He will do through us in the lives of young people.

Sometimes though, we do need to take a break and recharge our batteries. This week Romi went to a Christian kids camp. It's her first time at camp and we are praying that she will really enjoy it and learn lots. Sandy and I escaped to the beach for a couple of days to RELAX and rest.

It was great!

We can't tell you how much these few days away have refreshed us ready for the next semester of ministry. We slept a lot, ate a lot and had some quality time as a couple.

We are currently on the bus on our way back to Queretaro and the responsibilities that await us there, but we are ready to take good grasp of what lies ahead and serve diligently.

Thanks Lord for a great break and new strength for what lies ahead.

The RenovArte experience

A quick update on life at RenovArte.

The Market

A couple of times a week we go to the market for supplies for the cafe, our home and bits and pieces. This week we have been to three different markets for various supplies.

The Cruz on Monday for trays for the cafe and a yummy breakfast of tamales. The Tepe on Thursday for mangos for the cafe, some fruit for our family and a breakfast of freshly prepared fruit juice. We have also found cheap second hand clothes in the Tepe that costs about $2.50 per piece so Sandy was able to get some new jeans and a blouse.
The big banger was Friday in the abastos (supplies) market. This is the biggest Market in Queretaro and is the source of wholesale trade. We were able to buy 5kg of strawberries for just $6.50 and 5kg of blackberries for $11.50. These are our main ingredients for our natural fruit smoothies.

Here are a couple of photos from the Tepe.

The view from the back of the bus

I just thought you might be interested in the diversity of people here in Queretaro. I'm in the bus and just snapped a quick pic.

He's got the whole world in His hands.

Random.

RenovArte News 4 April 2011