We are now in full swing of Carnival. It is the time of year that we avoid leaving our house much. This morning there was a band in the back of our house that started at 10AM. We are still having our bible study here at the house tomorrow night though. I am using this time to get to some things caught up on like our taxes. Oh what fun. We do have an extension because we live outside the U.S. but it always helps when we are home on furlough in May. Carnival does give us a bit of a break with church as La Roca is located on one of the main roads of the carnival we decided to use this time to attend other churches in Autlan for two Sundays. This past Sunday we went to Estrella de Belen which translates into the star of Bethlehem and were blessed to see Nahum get baptized by his dad. Nahum has been growing in the Lord and attends our bible study among other things like helping at La Roca on Sunday evenings and attends the youth group. Needless to say we were honored to see him get baptized. For those of you who know him, he is now 17 years old.
This Sunday, we will go to two different churches. Vida Abundate (Abundant Life) who we work with at various times and then in the evening a Nazerine church who we have started working together with their youth. We have seen that this really encourages these other churches. There is something about getting people together who all have a desire seek the Lord together. The Nazerine church is combining our youth groups this weekend and next. This week I will share and next week the other pastor will share. It is exciting to see this type of thing happen as it doesn't happen very often. It is a way we can uplift each others ministries. Please pray for us as we seek more opportunities like this.

As some of you know, from one of our newsletters a guy by the name of Rosendo who I have been meeting with. For those of you who don't remember, he is in his late 40's and is meeting with me weekly to do a bible study. Last week we started again after having some time of for Christmas and the holidays as he is a school teacher and was not in Autlan for most of that time. So we started just talking about scripture. He could find his book we are going through, so I thought I would just go over what we have been studying in our church bible study which is the sermon on the mount in Matthew. We didn't get very far when he said something that I had to address. We were talking about how we can leave a legacy with our kids just by how we live our lives for Jesus. He then said that he is so blessed because his mom would pray for him every time he would leave and go back to his own home. She would pray a prayer of protection and blessing. So he then said that he is still receiving this "blessings" or at least he felt he was from his mom who was in heaven praying for him. Ok, so that was something, I said was still part of the Catholic teachings. I tried to get him to see that it was really the same that "saints are doing for us right now". He doesn't believe in saints but he didn't see the correlation between the two. Saints are one thing but this is your mom asking God to continue to bless you. So I needed to address according to scripture. I brought him to Luke 20:27-38 where the Sadducee questioned Jesus about resurrection with a women who was married to 7 different men who had all died. Which one would be her husband in heaven? Jesus responded with:
Jesus answered and said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; 36 nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. 37 But even Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are raised, when he called the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. 38 For He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him.” (NKJV)
So that got him thinking. Then I brought him to Romans 8:26-27
26 Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. 27 Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
The lights came on. He said "ahhh. I see what you are saying. It is not my mother praying for me but the Holy Spirit." It was one of those moments you get to see the word of God work in the heart and mind of someone. Before he thought something and after reading scripture he now thought something different. My heart was so happy to see Rosendo receive the truth of scripture. My pray is that there would be more people like Rosendo who are willing to be corrected when they may not be thinking

    As we have said in previous years, around this time of year things get a bit busy around town. The amount of men working on the street in front of La Roca are to many to count. It is one of the streets that carnival is on. If you have followed our blog over the years, you will know that it is only 10 days long. It is 10 days of various bull fights, rodeos, and big name Mexican bands that come into town along with streets filled with various different kinds of tequila booths. We have the privilege of living on the street where the bull ring is located. What I mean privilege is that, I have at numerous times, where I had to go to the little corner store for something or tortillas from the tortillaria, and witnessed the last bull from the bull fight that is still alive but barely. The raise their heads but with their tongues hanging out of their mouth. So that is just one of the aspects of carnival. The town is getting prepared for this event which is at the end of February. We often will buy our groceries before hand so that we limit the amount of times we actually leave the house during the week. The streets all get painted the yellow where you are not allowed to park to help the amount of visitors that are in town. I am very happy to see that we now have the begins of our sidewalk in front of La Roca. It had been dirt for over the last two months which at one time it was a six foot trench in which they laid planks of wood down so we could cross over it. The don't put in cement sidewalks, but a cement checkered tile. It is quite nice when you consider that every single section of sidewalk had been done by the person who owns the house in front of it. It is diffidently makes for an interesting walk down the street when you never know what you will find. I remember when we had Levi, and trying to use a stroller. Forget it. It was quite difficult. Some side walks like the one on our street there is not enough room to get the stroller between a house and electricity pole. All this to say there is a lot of preparations going on for carnival. It it will be nice to have the street finally finished and have one of the smoothest roads in town. : )

After posting new pictures, I came across one that I thought I would share here.

When ever you attend an event, in a small town you will always bump into someone you know. Jessie's exercise class had a Christmas party. Everyone was invited to come with there husbands. (Only women attend this class). We arrived to the party about 7:30 to find this table set up. I was interested in meeting the people Jessie has been with for an hour of the day. I was only guy there for quite some time. We sat down across from two older ladies maybe in their late 40's early 50's. I didn't do a lot of talking that night but the lady across from me if she remembered Oscar from my English classes? He was one of my students from the first year I taught English here back in 2008. I said sure, I remember him. His dad, named Oscar as well, had tried to run for President of Autlan this past year. So I did remember him. She said, I am his mom. Wow, it just go to show how connections are made in a small town. It was also evidence of just how long we have been here. We just past our 6 year mark at the end of December. Time goes by so fast here. Maybe that is just the way life is at this stage of the life. We are grateful to have opportunities like this to meet people and hopeful one day bringing them to Christ. Jessie has a had opportunities to get to know some of these ladies. She will at times sit down after the class and drink traditional Mexican coffee with them. Little by little and step by step our hope is that our lives glorify Christ wherever we are. You never know what God will use to bring someone to Himself.

I know everyone has their favorite sermons. I, Andy, have enjoyed a guy by the name of Matt Chandler from Village Church in Texas. I was especially encouraged by a message by him about our lives being focused on Christ. If you have time check it out or download it on itunes. Itunes have been a real blessing for us as a way to get "spiritual food" outside of our circles of ministry. I have included a link below. Have a blessed day!

http://www.thevillagechurch.net/sermon/the-counterintuitive-life/

    On Mondays, we have a "day off". Being our busiest day of the week is Sundays with church in the morning from 9 to anywhere from 1 or 2 PM depending on the week. So early on when we first got to Mexico, we were given wise advice from our ministry partners to choose a day of the week that we would dedicate to not have any planned ministry. As a family it is one of our most important days of the week. We go do various things like run errands together or just go to the park for a few hours and play together.
    Yesterday we ended up going to the beach. It was a great day. The waves were very calm so that was really good for Levi. Levi has had a bit of an issue with getting into the water. He is really into controlling his environment right now. With time and warming up to the water he ended up jumping over the waves and having a great time, which a far cry from the last time we went with which he wouldn't set foot in the water without screaming at the top of his lungs.
    On our way back after spending the whole day there, we headed back. It is only about 70 miles from Autlan, but you have to go through the mountains to get there. If you check on Google maps, you can see just how vast the mountains are. As we were on our way back, there were trucks with their flashers on. Now this one thing we have really come to love and appreciate from the Mexican culture. When ever there is some sort of danger ahead whether it is a car stalled or there is a slow moving trucking going through the mountains, the drivers will flash their lights who are going the opposite direction. So as we started slowing down as traffic started to slow down. We ended up at a dead stop. The trucks in front of us started turning their lights off and then their engines. So we did the same. We got out of the car to see what was going on. It look like on the opposite of the mountain there was some lights like a tow truck or construction truck was working. So we waited, waited and waited some more. About 1 hour and half later we were moving along. As we started moving we made our way along the road and made it to the point where we saw the truck and we saw that there was rocks on the ground. There had been an accident which a truck had hit the side of the mountain which knocked some of the rocks down blocking the road. We made it home in 4 hours in place of the normal 2 hours. Oh the adventures we have.