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

Colombian conference

We are just on our way back to Mexico after the iT Latin American conference. We had a great time getting refreshed, encouraged and sharing with others. God is doing great things in this region and we are humbled to be a part if His work.

We are stopped over in Miami and quite tired so we are going to gave a snooze. More later.

Rock in RenovArte

Since opening the cafe, one of our goals has been to connect with the arts and music students from the university in particular. We want the cafe to be a place where they feel at home, can be themselves and through forming a genuine friendship with them, we can show them what Jesus is like.

On Friday night we got RenovArte rocking with two bands from the fine arts faculty in the UAQ. Wolf Season opened with some alternative rock and Buffalo followed with fast, melodic rock. It was loud, it was fun and we made a significant connection with a bunch of students. They even got me up on stage to play a song with Buffalo on the drums.

We are seeking to share Jesus in relevant and real ways to these young people and I think it was cool for them to feel the vibe of the cafe and see how one of their gigs can rock without alcohol.

We are excited to see how live music develops in the life of RenovArte Cafe and we already have more events planned.

Watch this space!

Valentines Day at RenovArte Cafe

Valentines Day at RenovArte was full of surprises!

God always invites us to trust in Him and sometimes puts our faith to the test. We had put a lot of time and effort into preparing something special to celebrate the 14th of February, known here as the day of love and friendship. We got up extra early and went for more supplies followed by arriving at the cafe and decorating.
We enlisted the help of Denise to cut out hearts as Phil didn't pass cutting out classes in kinder.

We were all ready but we lacked one vital thing.

People!

We had been praying for this day that God would allow us to share and celebrate His love as well as the love shared by friends and family on this day. But we had very few customers come in during the morning and early afternoon. We were also a bit anxious because we had invested in the decorations and financially we needed to sell some coffees to keep things ticking along.

Phil went down to give our flyers.

To make things even worse, our friend who we had booked to sing romantic songs live pulled out on us.

By 6pm, we were all a bit tired and ready to shut early. But God had other plans.

The cafe began to fill up with young people.

First two of them arrived, then another, and another until we had rearranged the furniture to make room for them all.

We also had a few couples come in for a romantic coffee.

We were able to serve those that came with a smile, a good chat and encourage them. We also had a strong day in sales which in practical terms for the ministry really helps. God once again caught us by surprise and reassured us of His protection, provision and calling in the ministry.

This morning I arrived and there were some friends from Student Life waiting for me to open. God is good.

Please keep praying for us and the ministry and we we hope that this Valentines Day you remembered the source of all love - God. God is love!

-Phil