A Faith that Saves

If you listened to Rachel Barkey's testimony, you know how very well she articulated some important points of the Christian faith. Go to http://www.deathisnotdying.com/ to download the audio or video of her talk if you haven't heard/seen it yet.
Rachel died on July 2, 2009 but her witness still lives on. Thank you, God, for allowing me to hear Rachel's testimony and thank you that she knew you so intimately.

Busy, busy, busy

We have had many things going on in the past 2 weeks. Jaynie continues with homeschool (we are over 2/3 done with 4th grade!) and Jose Luis has been going to help different people with different things. Today, he went to his mother's farm to help weed the corn fields. When he is home, he has continued to revise the script translation for God's Story and is so very close to finishing. We have been working in the gardens - our base has a greenhouse with tomatoes, chiles, cabbage, cactus, swiss chard, and squash. Outside, we have strawberries, lettuce, summer squash, green beans, and sweet corn. Near our house, we have planted snow peas, sweet corn, and "Tecomari" beans (huge mostly purple beans that look like big cockroaches or waterbugs when they are cooked!).

This past weekend the Christians in San Luis Majimachi held a party/revival and invited the people from Rowerachi (the photo above is from Rowerachi looking into the canyon) to attend. This involved several trips to Rowerachi on a horrible road (to invite the village, to pick up the people, and to take them back home). We had been told that only 10 or so would come - the or so turned out to be 30 more for a total of 40! At the service on Sunday morning, there were over 100 Tarahumara people and we had a great time of praise, worship, and sharing of God's Word.

Also, for almost 2 weeks I have been sick with what was diagnosed last Wed. as pleurisy (the second time in 6 months!). The antibiotics are working and I am finally feeling better.

Snapshots from the Revival party in San Luis Majimachi

Here are some photos from last Sunday, July 12th:

I am playing and singing with the children who attended the service.

The ladies are taking the meat off of the bones for the beef soup that was served to all who attended the service.

What a great smile!

These ladies are looking at pine needles that one woman brought to sell. The Tarahumara women are famous for their woven baskets made with pine needles.

Rainy season

Living in the Sierra Tarahumara has its advantages. One of the most pleasant aspects is the weather. Although we are further south than the USA, we live at almost 8,000 feet above sea level. We do not have all of the seasons as are experienced in the States. Winter is pretty much the same, except that we begin to have freezing temperatures in September and will continue to dip down below freezing at night well into May. This said April & May are our hottest months (even into June) with temperatures rising into the 90's F. This is when the oak trees lose their leaves and forest fires are common because of the dry weather. In early June, we had a forest fire begin quite close to our base. Jose Luis took a photo of it. Praise God that the rains came at the right time to put it out.
However, once the rains come in June, we will cool off with highs in the low 80s in the morning and dropping into the 60s in the afternoon with the rain and into the low 50s at night. This year the rains began in mid-June which is great. Now, though, the weeds are winning the battle in most corn fields. So the Tarahumara people make their home-made corn beer, invite the neighbors to come drink and help them weed their fields. Just imagine a group of drunk people using hoes or just their hands to weed the fields - it is amazing that they don't pull up the corn with the weeds. The following photo is from the group of neighbors (you can barely see them in front of the pine tree in the middle) who came to help my mother-in-law with her field after they first imbibed quite liberally of the corn beer she made.

New links

I have added links to 3 websites. I would recommend that you check them out. The testimony of Rachel Barkey is very challenging and encouraging - I hope that you will at least listen to the audio of her testimony found at http://www.deathisnotdying.com/.

Impossible!

I can't believe that 2 months have passed since my last post - so much has happened and it will take a lot of space to cover it. So, here is a summary and highlight photos. May passed with lots of work - Jose Luis working with the translation committee on Bible translation, Jaynie working on homeschool after 6 weeks off, and I seemed to keep busy working in the kitchen of our YWAM base, trying to keep up with housework, helping/teaching Jaynie in homeschool, and supporting Jose Luis as we visit San Luis de Majimachi and Los Manzanos. We also hosted a reunion of DTS graduates at our base - it was so good to spend time with some of our very dear friends (who are Mexican missionaries oversees) and to share testimonies of what the Lord has done in us since our DTS.

At the end of May we went to help translate for Mary Jean Powers as she taught at different locations in the state of Chihuahua for 2 weeks. During this time, Jose Luis was able to make great advances to translating and revising the Tarahumara script for the film "God's Story".

We returned home to Creel for the last 2 weeks of the DTS, which ended last Saturday, June 27th, with the graduation ceremony. We had about 120 people in attendance and the YWAM director for Mexico gave the message. We have also worked in the gardens around our house. Jose Luis planted 2 rosebushes and 3 mums for my birthday!

No flu here

What a week! As you probably know, the nation of Mexico is in the midst of a swine flu outbreak. I am so thankful that this disease has not been found in our area. We see the photos of people in Mexico City wearing masks and avoiding crowds. We live in such a different place! Although, Jaynie was all for participating in the nation-wide school closures until May 6th, I told her that it did not apply to our school. Today, I went into Creel to run some errands with Jaynie. Now mind you, Creel only has about 7,000 inhabitants – it is a small town surrounded by hills, valleys, forests, and mountains. Here is a view of Creel from the cliffs at our base (this is basically the view from my kitchen window). It shows the southeastern side of town.

So, on our trip to Creel, we went to the one and only bank in town, the post office, and 2 grocery stores. We stood in line at the bank (very normal) and no one wore a mask or avoided greeting each other. Then, we went to the post office; the manager of the office (it is a one-man office) was wearing a mask. He is always super-precautious. That was the only one we saw during our trip to Creel. At the grocery stores, there were many people, but no signs of illnesses or panic.

I just wanted to let you know that we are well. Please join us in praying for all of those who have been affected by the swine flu in Mexico and in other parts of the world.