Dear Fellow Laborers, 

Summer is a busy time for us here in Mexico.  Besides all of the regular ministries, we also have Bible clubs, Mission’s groups from the U.S., and this year, the World Cup.

As many of you know, this June, the World Cup kicks off in Germany.  Soccer is huge in Mexico, and we are trying to take advantage of this by distributing World Cup tracts.  Some of the families in the church are also excited about passing them out.  These tracts contain the entire World Cup schedule, with the gospel plan and an invitation to a free Bible study on the back.  So far we have distributed approximately 16,000 tracts.  For the most part, they are very well received.  (Have you ever had groups of people come to you begging for tracts?!) We know of one man who received one of these tracts 8 years ago, and is now in the process of starting a church.  So far, we’ve had one person call interested in a Bible study, but when she found out that the studies were not Catholic she was no longer interested.  We also plan on using the World Cup as an evangelistic activity by showing Mexico’s opening game live at the church using a video projector on June 11^th, with a gospel presentation during half time.  We may never know the full impact of these tracts, but our prayer is that God will use them for his glory.

Our church went through a rough time recently.  It seems to happen around Easter every year.  On Easter Sunday, most of your churches were probably very well attended.  Here in Mexico, it is usually one of the worst attended services of the year.  There are several holidays to celebrate here during April and May, all of which take time and money.  These cause extra stress on families, and as a result, fewer people come to church.  We were also down in our small group attendances.  But God is faithful, and it seems that our people are starting to pick things back up once again.  On Mother’s Day, we had a year high attendance of 53 people including some first time visitors.  We can not get discouraged by the ups and downs.  We are reminded that this is God’s work, and He will complete it in His time! 

We have been having some very good Bible studies with some new believers.  We hope that we can have a baptism later this summer.  We also continue to try to develop evangelistic relationships with our neighbors.  Recently, we had a new contact with one of our neighbors.  We are hoping to follow up with them soon.

Next week, we will be hosting a mission’s trip from Florida.  We will be taking them around to see different sites as well as ministering in Bible clubs, Youth ministries, tract distribution, and other ministries.

This July, there will be national Presidential elections in Mexico.  Because of this, there have been political protests recently. A few weeks ago, there were protests here in Texcoco and the town next to us, Atenco.  Major roads were blocked, policemen were kidnapped, women were raped, and others were killed.  It was resolved when the government sent 1,000 police officers in to relieve the problem.  The following week, there was another protest blocking the major highways out of Mexico City.  More protests are expected to happen between now and the elections on July 2^nd.  One of the candidates in the election has been compared to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

In family news, Susan is 6 months along now in her pregnancy.  This has been harder than the other pregnancies for her.  However, the baby is healthy, and there have been no complications.

Joshua is doing very well in school.  He is reading very well now.  Caleb likes to pretend to do school and do whatever Josh is doing.  They both are enjoying a small garden that we managed to plant in buckets on our back patio.  Josh was thrilled this week to pick his first five green beans!  They both keep us laughing with their perspectives and enthusiasm for life!

For those who have been praying for our friend Tracy, thank you.  We hadn’t received any updates in a long time, but just today, we heard that she has been having some new problems internally and they haven’t figured out why yet.  She was moved to another hospital a couple of days ago.  We really appreciate all your prayers for her and her young family as they continue to struggle right now.

Praises

1. New Contacts
2. Success of Mother’s Day activity
3. People getting exciting about serving

Prayer Requests

1. World Cup Evangelistic Activities
2. Mexican Political Situation
3. Susan’s pregnancy
4. Tracy Oberbeck (Comstock) as she recovers

In Christ,