Every year we deal with the same thing, do we celebrate Thanksgiving and if we do when? If you stay off of social media or the internet for that matter, you wouldn't even know it was Thanksgiving. Life is normal here. There is no one to ask you what are you going to be doing for Thanksgiving. No one asks you if you are heading to a different state to visit with family. No one to explain how on Thanksgiving you visit one side of the family and the following month during Christmas you visit the other depending on where they live. This is how we would handle the holidays when we lived in Minnesota. That was 9 years ago. Now we are the only Americans living in Autlan with the exception of a single lady who works with the baptist church in town. Over the years we would have a meal together with other missionary families. Now, if we don't put the time into it, it is a holiday that just passes by. Even now as I sit here in my office there are so many of you preparing for the holiday feast. We do plan to celebrate on Saturday when it is more convenient, especially when we have our weekly bible study as well as possible meeting with a few people today.
       
         During our discussion about whether we should celebrate with a traditional Thanksgiving meal, one thing that effects our decision is the fact that our kids don't eat the food very well. Our kids look American but their taste buds are very much Mexican. One of our favorite meals is beans and chorizo (Mexican sausage) and tortillas. All of them will scarf it down in no time often asking for seconds. Last year at Thanksgiving, we gave each kid a plate of turkey, potatoes and gravy, yams, green beans, stuffing, and even cranberry's (something you rarely find). Anna is the only one who finished her plate while the others asked "do we have to eat this?" We would smile and tell them "This is what everyone else on this day are eating. It's good for you to try things that you normally wouldn't eat."

       Just to give you another idea of what it is like in our home, this morning Jessie mentioned that with the temperature starting to get cooler, it might be a good time for chilly and that is when Levi than yelled "yeah chilly dogs, yum!!" Then we explained to him the chilly is like a bean soup that you eat. "OH. So we can't have chilly dogs then?" What else do we expect a six-year-old missionary kid to think? This is life in a different country.

I hope you have a good day celebrating with family and friends remembering all the things we are grateful to have.  My prayers is that God would reveal to you His blessings and provision in ways that you normally wouldn't think of. Be blessed on this day of Thanksgiving!

       As a church we celebrate communion or translated Santa Cena meaning holy supper once a month. Each time, we celebrate, I briefly explain what communion means to us as believers and why we do it. I try to explain it similarly each month but give different reasons so that I am saying the same thing every month. As a pastor, you can explain something in so many ways but never know for sure if the congregation comprehends what you are trying to express.

       The women of the church are going through a study call Abundant Life on the basics of Christian faith. They do a chapter every week on various topics like baptism, obedience and why we read our bibles. This week they got to the chapter about communion. Jessie thought this would be pretty simple topic to discuss because we read from various passages like 1 Cor 11. Boy was she wrong. The women began to dive deeper into the topic and asked a lot of questions about it. When you grow up listening to a priest who says the wafer and juice actually transforms into the real body and blood of Jesus, speaking biblically what we as Christians believe about communion and what the bible actually says about it was clearly needed. All around us people believe the wafer is actually physical body. This is such a foreign idea to me. But if you consider that your religion is not based on your own study but on what a priest tells you, why would even question what this man who speaks for God say. He speaks on God's behalf so he would not be lying?

      I have said repeatedly "Don't just take my word for it. Test what I say. I can make mistakes. The bible is the final authority. Study it for yourself. Don't just believe something because someone tells you."  So I ask you, why do you believe what you believe? Is it because you have heard good preaching? Have you studied on your own, what the bible says or do you just take it from because some teacher said. I am dealing with this very thing in studying Romans 8:28-39. We are studying it as a church during our Thursday night bible study. We started Romans a year ago in September. We have gotten to Romans 8 and have slowed way down taking one or two verses per study. The truth that is packed into the chapter take years to study. I feel as though I am just scratching the surface in our bible studies. But what I want is for the people who come to see we are not making anything up but searching the scriptures to see how they connect with other parts of the bible. My desire is to see milk drinkers become self-feeding meat eaters.  I am off to study more on Romans. Have a great day.

I believe there are times in life, when you feel the weight of what God calls you to do. As many pastor's deal with this issue, it continues to be a never ending issue in the lives of so many you work with. Ask just one question: Who is your father and what is his relationship with you? This brings so many different answers. It has been clear for many years in the time we have been here in Mexico, this one of the most difficult things we deal with. Young people who have never had a dad. There are good times of joy and laughter, but with it comes the pain and frustration of correction which not always easy to do. As I say this, I will be leaving shortly to deal with this very issue. I think the biggest problem with having no father figure in your life, is the lack of correction and rules. I am not saying that rules are everything but when you have lived your hold childhood with no one telling you it is wrong to be lazy all the time or coming home anytime of the night, there comes a time where this will have to be addressed. The most difficult thing is how this young person perceives this correction as an unloving action. In their mind frame, to love them means leave them alone to do whatever it is they want to do. "What would cause someone to restrict me or cause me to feel uncomfortable with doing something that is supposedly wrong?"

I ask you does it feel good to receive correction? It says in Hebrews 12:11 (ESV) For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
At the moment of correction, if it is the first time does it still produce the same thing? I would say that there needs to be a clear definition of what true love is before the correction is implemented. I share this with you, to pray for wisdom, godly wisdom in dealing with someone has not been corrected for a very long time. It makes me ponder of the times in the gospels where Jesus confronted the pharisees on how they were living calling them white washed tombs. What would have been like for one of those men to repent and say, "I am tomb full of dead bones trying to convince everyone around me that I have it altogether." No discipline seems pleasant in the moment but painful later yielding fruit of righteousness.