Chris Away Again

Chris left yesterday afternoon to attend a missionary medical training course in NC. It is a 12 day, intensive course that teaches you first aide and emergency medical type care. He will be in class 8am-5pm , have an hour break and then lab from 6pm-10pm. Please pray for Chris to have energy to learn and the ability to retain everything being taught to him. Pray for Malachi and me as we are home. Chris will finish the class on May 31 and arrive home late that night. We then leave for Oaxaca, Mexico for language school on June 12.

On Saturday, May 26, some good friends are coming to visit. Steph Smith, one of my best friends, from our sending church NJ and Belinda and Mark Faulkner, missionaries with To Every Tribe who have been in Papua New Guinea. It will be so great to visit with them and have some familiar faces around while Chris is away.

Last Trip

This morning Chris is on his way with the CPCP team of students to E.Z., Mexico. This is their last trip to the village this year. Please pray for safety in traveling, a fruitful time in the village and for future direction in ministry to that village. The team will return on Wednesday, Lord willing. I would appreciate your prayers as Malachi and I are home by ourselves. It's never quiet the same with Chris gone!

Dad's Back with 'New' SUV

Chris arrived back home around 9pm on Friday night with our 'new to us' Ford Expedition from CA. It is a 2001 with just under 90,000 miles on it after making the trip here from CA. It seems to be in great shape and we are really happy with it. Thanks for praying with us for a vehicle. Please pray our 'old' 98 Ford Explorer will sell soon.

1st Night Out

Tonight was the first time we went out with out Malachi since we brought him home two months ago today. Chris and I went out to Target to pick up a few things and then stopped and had some ice cream at    Dairy Queen. It was weird being out without him. Our good friend Steph stayed at the house while Malachi slept. I think I texted Steph about 4-5 times checking in.

I would appreciate your prayers over the next few days as Chris will be leaving tomorrow morning to fly to CA. He will be purchasing a, 'new to us', used Ford Expedition for us and driving it back here to Texas. He will not be home until late Friday night. He has only been gone one other time for a day trip to Mexico. I am a little nervous about being home for four days with out him but I do have friends around here to help out if I get tired or overwhelmed. Hopefully Malachi will cooperate, especially in the middle of the night!

"Q" Trip Update

Yesterday I received a phone call from Chris from the village. At first I was worried because I didn't expect to hear from him while he was there. In fact, I wasn't even sure if he had access to a phone. However, what I was anticipating to be bad news turned out to be really great news! Chris called to share how great the trip is going and how God is working in wonderful ways through this medical/dental clinic. The people in the village have received the team really well and it seems many friendships have been made. Yesterday morning the team was given a written invitation to come back and do another clinic! Praise God! The leaders seem to be open to us coming back there again and working in this village. Chris and I are very excited for the door that seems to be opening up for our future work there. We thought it would take a lot longer to gain their trust and acceptance but it seems that God chose to do this in just a few short days. Please continue to pray for a team to go with us!

Chris and the team are packing up their stuff today and will head back to Oaxaca City to spend the night. I hope to hear more details from Chris tonight. They have a three day drive back to the states and we expect them to arrive home on Saturday. Please pray for safe travels.

Blessings,
Michele

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.-Ephesians 3:20-21

Trip to the Village of "Q"

Hey Everyone!

Chris left yesterday morning with the team here at To Every Tribe for Oaxaca, Mexico. He will be co leading a team to the new group we have been scouting this year, the "Q" People. They will be having a Medical and Dental Clinic for three days in the village.

Please pray for:

-Safety on the roads and easy passing through checkpoints
-Team Unity
-Freedom from Satan's attacks
-No troubles with vehicles
-A Welcome into the village and long term invite to live in village
-Rapport with the village leaders
-Strength for the clinic workers
-Opportunities to minister personally to people
-Grace when our plans don't work out to lean on God's perfect plans

Please pray for Michele as she will be staying behind. She will be staying at the Apartments over the nights, where all the other wives and families live. Please pray for strength for her as she enters into her third trimester and to be able to help out the wives that are staying behind.

Our prayer is that this trip will begin to open the doors for us to move in one day soon to live and work and plant a church in this people group who have no Evangelical Christian churches and no presentation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

Thank you for your prayers and support!

For His Glory!

Chris & Michele

Psalm 96:3 - "Declare his glory among the nations,his marvelous works among all the peoples!"

Heading to Oaxaca

Hey everyone!

We are taking a bus today, Dec 27th, out of northern Mexico to Oaxaca, Mexico. We will be down in the area for a week and a half or so. Please pray for the time we are down there visiting believers, encouraging them, finding housing for February visit and connecting with some pastors to find some unreached people groups in southern Oaxaca.

Please pray for our safety. We trust our sovereign God in everything. Nothing comes our way unless it is from His hand and what is best for us. ALSO, He hears and uses the prayers of His saints, His children in much of His work. So, I ask, please pray much for safety and for great work to be done in this small trip for Kingdom purposes!

“The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but he trembles when we pray.” - Samuel Chadwick
"The prayer power has never been tried to its full capacity. If we want to see mighty wonders of divine power and grace wrought in the place of weakness, failure and disappointment, let us answer God's standing challenge, "Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not!'"
- J. Hudson Taylor

May our great God and King be glorified in our lives and in this trip!

Thank you for all your prayers and support!

For His Glory!

Chris & Michele

1 Peter 1:3-5
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time"

Back from Mexico

Hey everyone!

Thank you so much for all your prayers and love! We returned yesterday, Friday, from our two weeks in Oaxaca, Mexico. We went into the mountains in Western Oaxaca where our team is at. We brought in two doctors and a nurse and well as a dentist and all of the students this year that learned how to find, clean and fill cavities. It was a VERY busy time! We saw over 500 people from 6 villages in this area. I was able to help the dentist with training the students and assisting them as they did their first hands on dental work on the people. Gerry, the dentist, spent most of the time extracting teeth. Michele helped at the sign in table with writing down information and helping to send the people to the doctor or to the dental area. It was busy seeing those 500 + people and hearing what they needed.

Please pray for the team that is down in that area (Chris Berger, Jim Blomstrand and Reuben & Debbie Ibanez and their two kids). They are hoping to get into this village to live regularly and help teach English as well as live and preach the Gospel to this dark area! Pray they get in soon. The village leader and President has given the team an invitation to come live and teach English to the village. This is the first step!

Please continue to pray for us. Michele and I really enjoyed the time in the village and being back in Mexico. Please pray for a team to be formed with us to go down to Oaxaca and for wisdom and direction and how to work in the village in that area as well as looking for another area that is unreached to begin working with. We will be heading down for a week Dec 27-Jan 7 as well as 4-5 weeks in February - March.

Thank you again for all your love and prayers and support!

Seeking His Face

Chris

Going to Oaxaca

Hey everyone! Thank you so much for keeping up with us and reading what we are able to put on this post. I am sorry that I do not write as much as I should. I need to be more disciplined on this!

I just wanted to let you know about a trip we will be taking from this Monday, 11/8 to 11/19 into southern Mexico. We will be going to the state of Oaxaca, Mexico to a group of people called the C-O-I-C-O-Y-A-N. I write it with the marks between letters for the safety of the people in that area not searching and finding this post about themselves. It helps keep the team we have on the ground there from being confronted about them being a "work" or any other danger.

Michele and I will be helping to lead the school down to this area to help the team on the ground already. We will be having 4 days of Medical and dental clinics. Please pray for the doctors and nurses as well as the students using their skills learned in the dental training. Please pray for safety on the roads as well as unity in our team!

Pray for the salvation of the people in the village we will be going and the surrounding villages. May God be Glorified in this area. He WILL be great among the nations and in this village, God promises that!

Malachi 1:11 "For from the rising of the sun to its setting, my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the LORD of hosts"

We go to the unreached people because they have no understanding of the Gospel and ability to know of our one true God. We Go for God's Glory and for the people. If we have this great hope of salvation, this great gift from God, how can we keep it to ourselves? If we truly are Christians, we can't! We do this for God's Glory and so that the people can find joy in our great God and praise Him and worship Him as they were created to do! Jesus came to serve and make known to the people about the way to the Father and we are called to follow and do the same. God has people in every Nation and we go to be used by Him.

John 10:16 - "And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd"

Please keep praying for the work in Mexico and specifically for this trip into Oaxaca to help this team and help the people!

For His Glory!

Chris

Know the culture and language!

This week there has been a couple speaking about church planting in different cultures. They worked in Chiapas, the state next to Oaxaca in Mexico, for 40 years. It has been a great week so far listening to them and having some time to speak to them alone.

Something To Every Tribe Ministries teaches much on is learning the culture and language before you can go into an area and speak into the lives of the people. If we want to convey the message of the Gospel so they understand, we need to know them well. Michele and I have been growing in understanding of the Spanish language and culture.

The following video is a joke about what it is like to speak in American phrases and how other cultures don't really have translations of our ideas. Enjoy this video but also please pray more and more for Michele and me as we are learning and growing in understanding of the Spanish language and Mexican culture!

Enjoy!

Chris

Jesus is Worth it