Mini Mission Trip!

While the mission team from San Diego and Michoacan was here (see post below), the Horizonte Churches in Queretaro (our church) and Sta. Rosa (a town to the north of QRO) had an outreach event for the peole who live in the neighborhood of Horizonte Sta. Rosa.  About 30 people from Horizonte QRO came out, and a lot more donated food - free food always attracts people! - for the event.  About 180 children and adults came to the event in Sta. Rosa.

Clown show and songs for the kids!

This was the first time that many of the Horizonte QRO folks had been to an evangelistic outreach.

Behind the scenes balloon-making!

Marco, the Sta. Rosa pastor, shared the message of salvation in Christ.  Afterward, five people accepted the Lord!

JP and I wondered how many of the 180 people in attendance were from a church.  We asked Pastor Marco, who recognized the people from both churches, and he estimated that HALF of them were non-believers from the town!  That was encouraging because many times "outreaches" end up being events for the people of the church and hardly any non-church people come.  So this was different, and of course the five who accepted Christ made the whole things worth it, as well as the fact that now all those people at least know where the little church in Sta. Rosa is, and will hopefully come back!

I was also encouraged to see people from Horizonte QRO come out and help in so many ways - from making food, to leading songs and games, to being clowns...  There were several who had never been to an event like this before and really didn't know what to expect, but came anyway.  Ramses, one of the clowns, is the only Christian in his family and had very little idea what the event would be like, but did an excellent job with the kids!  Ruben, Cristina, and Adriana and her teenage boys are attendees of Horizonte who hadn't really been involved in anything except attending on Sundays, but they came and saw what an outreach is all about and jumped in to paint faces, serve food, make balloons, and pretty much help with anything! 

We hope to do a similar outreach in the town of Cadereyta (kah-dare-RAY-tah), where the mission team from SD/Michoacan went last week.  A lot of  people in Cadereyta are even hostile toward Christians, so we want to be able to help that church in any way possible!  We were so encouraged by what God did in Sta. Rosa, where Christians are not well received either, and trust that the Lord will work in Cadereyta too!

Y SU casa Tambien!

So, like the very day that I posted last about using our house in any way we can to bless others, we found out that there was some people coming from San Diego CA and Michoacan MX for a few days.  So two ladies stayed in our house! 

Robin, Diana, and I in the Centro

The team of six came to visit three churches in the State of Queretaro, to encourage, help out, and find out what each churches' needs are.  They came to Horizonte Queretaro, and the Horizonte churches in the small towns of Santa Rosa and Cadereyta.

Part of the team in Queretaro Centro

These guys were a blessing to us, and helped out in even little stuff that needed to be done.  They were an encouragement to us as a church, and mainly to the church staff!  The three from San Diego are basically doing a road trip going to various Horizonte churches through out the country.  Three others are missionaries in Michoacan.

They left yesterday to go back to Michoacan for a while, then the Californians are off to Mazatlan and a couple other places before heading home!

The team (minus Diana who's taking the picture) and some Horizonte folks: (back) Zac, Me, Cinthya, Tanto, Pepe, Sal, Chepe, Sinai, Marlene, (front) Robin, JP

Nuestra Casa es Tu Casa

Our house is YOUR house! 

It's very common here in Queretaro, that when you talk about your house, you say something like, "Yeah, at my house... which is also YOUR house... we like to... blah blah blah..."  Or if you tell people where you live, you say the address and then, "That's where your house is for whenever you want to stop by." 

We really DO want our house to be used by others for blessings!  We generally have a good deal of activity in our house... which is also YOUR house...  hehe!... in the evenings.  We have people that we disciple over for Bible studies, JP's famous guys' movie nights with friends, JP's teachers come over for dinner, sometimes we have youth meetings and/or planning meetings in our house.  We're also getting a rather large stash of STUFF for youth group piling up. 

I LIKE this!  It's DIFFERENT for me!  Since I'm from the United States, I was always acustomed to having people over when it's PLANNED.  And that was never very often. 

Here, we frequently have friends (most of them being guys from the "guys' movie night!") stop by the house "conveniently" at lunch time.  The polite thing to do is invite them to eat with us.  Even though we weren't expecting them.  And being the good mexican wife that I am, :) I always have more food on hand for when this happens.  The mexican kitchen should never be without: rice, beans (already cooked!), limes, home-made salsa, tortillas, and eggs.  With these items you can extend a 2-people meal to a 6-people meal in 15 minutes.  We generally have a good 3-liter bottle of coke hanging around too. 

Now we're excited for Thanksgiving too!  We've lost count of the number of people we've invited, and aren't sure who's actually going to come and who won't make it (it IS at 3pm during a work-day).  I figure we'll have somewhere between 6 and 25 people...  just need to make sure that we have someone bring one roasted chicken for about every 5 people who come.  (We do chicken instead of turkey... way easier and cheaper!)  And maybe say it's a BYOC day (Bring Your Own Chair!) 

JP showing off last years' banquet for 9:

So come on over!  We'll hook you up with some food and 2 square meters of floor space to sleep on!  :)

And you can help us out with this the huge pile of youth group STUFF that we acquired recently - these three HUGEEEEEEEEEEE bags of chips (they're about of third of what was there before the "Santo Relajo" event!), pingpong equipment, 50 hot dog buns and 6 kilos of hot dogs crammed into the freezer, and a vast array of random youth-game stuff. 

Santo Relajo!

Last week we had a pretty much amazing event at Horizonte Church - Santo Relajo!  (doesn't translate well in english, but it's like "holy mess")  This was an outreach event for youth.  Many of the Horizonte youth invited non-Christian friends, and we had quite a few young people from other Christian churches come with friends as well.  We had 70+ young people at the event, which included live music from *Sweet Emily* - two girls from Horizonte are the drummer and a singer in the group.  We had a super-mega-abundance of hot dogs, chips, hot chocolate, and cider for everyone, provided by the women of Horizonte and families of the young people.  We played lots of crazy games, and had a bonfire with the biggest marshmallows I've ever seen.  And most importantly, Pablo - a youth leader from another church in Queretaro - gave a message of salvation for those who might never have heard about Jesus' saving grace.  FIVE young people accepted the Lord that night!  We want to make sure to keep in contact with them to help them grow in their new faith!

Our invitation to Santo Relajo  (my pictures didn't turn out well, it was too dark...)



We're also planning a large Christmas party together with several other Christian church youth groups in Queretaro on December 18th.  It will be held at Horizonte, and will also be an evangelistic event!  We're excited about the partyyyyyyy!!