Please pray for a buyer or solid renter for our house. On Sunday April 11 there will be an open house from 1pm - 3pm. Pray that God will provide a buyer! Or that God will provide a renter.

Sometimes It's Like That...

We've found that we can never be too sure of anything in our life and ministry in Mexico. The old saying don't count your chickens before they hatch definitely applies here. Sometimes however chickens hatch you didn't even know you had, or...something like that. The last few weeks have been sparse in terms of people because of the Holy week vacations, school being out and the normal no call no shows, so we were surprised when tonight at 9:30 as we were winding down, we received a phone call from a group we had met in Marimba Park in the beginning of March. "Can we come over to study with you?", they asked! An hour later when they arrived God gave us the opportunity to answer/try to answer their questions about religions, creation, the Bible, etc. We are encouraged for the opportunity and their interest in continuing to meet to talk and to be friends!

Please pray for: Our ability to answer tough theological questions, especially as we have to do it speaking a second language.

God to open both the heart and mind of Itzel, Jesus, Jonatan, Romeo, & Rubi to know Him.

Future opportunities to talk with and spend time with this group.

More chickens! haha

CONAMIES in Puebla

Saturday March 27 through Tuesday March 30 we will be traveling to Puebla to attend this year's National Conference of Student Ministries (CONAMIES)! We are excited to be going with 4 others from our group here in Tuxtla! Please be in prayer for the following:

TRAVEL - The trip is around 8 hours driving! Safety, no breakdowns, and good times :)
TEAM - That this will be a unifying and spiritually motivating time for our group.
ATTITUDES - Pray that with the long drive, close quarters & rustic setting that we (especially Mark) will maintain great attitudes throughout.

Thank you for your prayers!
Mark

Tuxtla Shout Out

Praise God for an awesome short term team that was with us last week from Harrisonburg,VA! We had a great time, made lots of great contacts and were blessed to share Christ with many people and pray with several of them to receive Him as their Lord and Savior!

We have a team from Richmond, VA with us this week. Please pray for theirs and our safety. Pray for their health and that we will continue to build strong relationships with students on campus, have great opportunities to share the message of salvation and see God's awesome work of bringing the lost into His kingdom.

Mark & Abby

Month of Miracles

We are praying for a Month of Miracles!

Here are some prayer requests that God has ALREADY ANSWERED!

• A house for the Gonzalez family (Mariana, Gonzalo, Lupita, Gerardo & Deysi) - their landlord told them that they absolutely had to be out of their place by Saturday. We went looking yesterday and found a house that is easily accessible with public transportation, has 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, kitchen, dining room, a huge living room and a back patio for only $3,000 pesos ($230) per month. They are excited about hosting our Sunday evening worship at their place (which will be more centrally located and bigger) than ours! Huge praise!
• Our Pastor Dave and his wife Shirley in VA have found a buyer for their house and will be making the move to Tampa, FL just in time (God's timing is perfect!) to help take care of their newest grandson who was born this weekend.
  
• Healthy Baby. . ,my doctor's appt yesterday confirmed that Rachel is coming along just fine, and I am in good health - praise the Lord!
• We have a team member! Deysi will be helping us out part time with church planting operations for at least the next six months!

Now for the miracles we are still seeking God for:

• Growth for on-campus Bible Studies and Sunday Night Church Services!!!! We are feeling discouraged by the lack of results we are seeing at this point, and we know that many more students need to be reached.
  
• Jobs for Mariana, Gonzalo and David - three core members of our group are really in a tight spot needing work. They have been looking - pray that something great pans out!
• Our house in VA to sell! Coming up in April our renter will be moving on. . .we need to sell or find a new renter to be able to stay here in Mexico and finish our term.

Thanks for praying with us!! We appreciate it!
Abby & Mark

Psalm 118
Let all who fear the LORD repeat: His faithful love endures forever. In my distress I prayed to
the LORD and the LORD answered me and set me free. (v. 4 -5)

The LORD is my strength and my song; he has given me victory. Songs of joy and victory are sung in the camp of the godly. (v. 14-15)

I thank you for answering my prayer and giving me victory! (v. 21)

Some Upcoming Events - Tuxtla

Today we are heading to UNICACH at 2pm for a Bible study on campus. A big prayer need there is for a classroom that we can use to meet in. The first week the study was well attended but the following due to LOTS of wind and dust the area we wanted to meet in was not usable.

Saturday we are heading to a home for children about an hour and a half from Tuxtla in Arriaga. The home is run by missionaries Bill and Tammy, they have a huge vision and are reaching many people there. Pray for our safety as we travel, pray for our group as we work together and pray that we will be a blessing to Bill, Tammy, their ministry and the children we are in contact with.

Sunday as usual we will have our church service at 6pm in our house. Pray for the Holy Spirit to bring those who have been invited. Pray for the worship, we have purchased a drum and hope that someone in our group will be able to learn to play it. Pray for Mark as he speaks about remaining strong in the face of opposition.

Mark & AbbyLast Sunday's Valentines Day (Dia de Amor y Amistad) Activity

Praises!
Last night we had a balloon sale to raise funds to go to a conference in Puebla in late March. After a slow start, we eventually sold out of our product, and we are going to try to sell some more globos tonight!!

Bible study on UNACH campus was very well attended this week - we saw some new faces and the study itself was dynamic and well-received. Praise God!
Please pray for these upcoming events!
Bible study on UNICACH campus TODAY at 2pm!!

Sunday night worship/Dia de Amor y Amistad Fiesta - we are inviting a lot of people to come out on Sunday night for a Valentines Day special worship night with games, food, message, etc. Pray that it is well-attended and that we can connect with new guests and really bless them.

Mark will be having an important meeting with David (a core member) today. Pray that the meeting goes well.

This Week...

Pray for some new contacts and events we have going on:

1.      Salvador is a former teacher of my daughter Mary Kathryn.  She talked with him about spiritual things after he had expressed his disenchantment with the church.  He attended Audrey’s concert last Friday where I found out he’s a Christian.  We are meeting tomorrow afternoon (Saturday) to talk about life, spirituality, church, and (possibly) discipleship.

2.     Eli is student at Tech de Monterrey.  She talked with an American exchange student about the spiritual life and indicated she’s open for more conversations.  We plan to get together this week on her campus for coffee.  I need another girl to meet with us.  Pray for our conversation and for another girl contact.

3.     Adoniram is a Christian young man who has not really followed Christ during his first year here in Queretaro.  I’ll meet with him on Wednesday for his second session of A Solas Con Dios.  He’s also led worship several times in La Búsqueda and El Buen Árbol church.

4.     Ingrid started a prayer group on the Tec de Monterrey campus several years ago with us and is still meeting.  I’m meeting with them on Wednesday at 1:30 to pray, get to know them, and see about forming a La Búsqueda – Tec de Monterrey on campus.  Adoniram and Esperanza are planning to help in this new venture.

5.     Arely is a student of Diseño Industrial at the UAQ.  I’m meeting with her on Thursday at noon to pray together.  She wants to invite some other friends to pray with us about forming a Grupo de Oración in this facultad. 

6.     Arely (the one above), Arely (another one), and Alejandra are meeting with Laura for discipleship using Experiencing God this afternoon.  They don’t seem to be doing the work, so she’s gonna have to talk kinda hard with them.  I had to write a similar email to Eduardo today.  Pray they respond well. 

7.     We are planning a retreat for jovenes next weekend-February 12-13.  The theme will be Amor y Amistad.  We’ve become more and more concerned about marriages going wrong because engaged couples mess up because they chose poorly during the noviazgo.  We want to teach not-yet-comprometidos about marriage, engagement, and dating, so they’ll start the process well.  Pray we’re heard.

8.     Sunday afternoon, we’re doing Skype pre-counseling with Carlos & Kate.  Pray for wisdom.

Wow, kind of a busy week.  But…God’s good!

Steve & Laura

Preparing the Soil

The first on-campus Bible Study at UNACH will be this Wednesday at 1pm, so we are heading back to the campus today around 11:30 for evangelism. This will include Rocking Philippians 2 with the students, looking for opportunities to share the Good News with them and doing more surveys and handing out the "prize bags" we put together.

Pray that this will be a productive time and the the Holy Spirit is before us, with us, and after us at work in the students lives.

We are also going to UNICACH today. A university we have yet to visit. We have a contact there who wants to start a Bible Study and we will be helping him hand out invitations and talk with students at 2pm today.

Pray for the new door to be flung wide open as part of God's plan for us here!

Praise God for a really good church meeting on Sunday night! We had most of our core group in attendance and a few visitors! It was also especially good because our friend Rod is here and his percussion skills made the worship so much better.

Evangelism Today!

Please pray for us as we do evangelism on campus today. We are going to be giving out some goody bags with pens, lollipops, erasers, Bible study invites and message sheets to students at UNACH. The on-campus Bible study starts next week. Pray that God will lead us to students who are open.

Prayer Request - TUXTLA 1/21/10

We've had a good week of preparing for the up-coming semester and re-connecting with students. Today we visited the UNACH campus to look at having Bible studies in the library. The space looks great;
Pray for this to be an open door for us!
We have our leader training time tonight (CDL) at 7pm.
Pray for Mark as he prepares to teach this Sunday about the Sabbath from Mark chapter 2 & 3.

Deysi, Abby, Lupita, Lili and Lupita hanging our in Chiapa de Corzo.

Prayer Request - TUXTLA

Pray for:
Motivation and our ability to reconnect with last semesters contacts, especially in the next two weeks as things can be slow before classes start again.

Our first meeting of the new year, this Thursday (the 14th). We will be planning for the upcoming semester and engaging in discipleship with our core members.

MINISTRY GOALS 2010 - Huffman

Goals for the Huffman's 2010

1) By the end of Feb. 2010 Aletheia Church in Tuxtla will begin to meet in a location other than our house, fostering independence from missionaries.
Importance 5%

2) During the 1st semester of 2010 we will mentor group members through modeling, weekly bible studies, teaching at large group gatherings, and one-on-one or small group discipleship.
Importance 20%

3) By the end of the 1st semester of 2010 we will train the church plant to function independently in the areas of teaching, worship, hospitality, and evangelism, discipleship and financial management, reaching the "Assist" phase of the MAWL approach to leadership development.
Importance 20%

4) Twice a week during the 2010 school year we will enlist national partners to participate in on-campus evangelism in which they will develop proficiency in building relationships, using apologetics, sharing the message of salvation, and inviting students to receive Christ and attend Bible studies and church services.
Importance 20%

5) Once a month the church will develop and fund a project that will engage the Tuxtla community by meeting physical and/or spiritual needs of a particular group.
Importance 10%

6) At least twice a month we will engage college students in Tuxtla through activities that may include music, food, sports, movies, parties and trips in order to build relationships and camaraderie and gain new contacts.
Importance 5%

7) We will implement a follow-up strategy for contacts that includes prayer, phone calls/texts, emails and personal visits in order to see at least two new visitors at bible studies/church services each week.
Importance 20%

8) After completing goal 3 we will in the 2nd semester of 2010, implement the "Watch" phase of the MAWL approach, continuing to mentor and support leaders.
Importance 20%

Our Goals' "Next Steps" this week

25%	TRAINING PROJECT	Write one day (Tuesday)
20%	CONTACT LIST	Meet 2 Contacts; English Club (next wk 1/22)
15%	WEEKLY GROUPS	Talk to Arely about starting a group at the UAQ
10%	ENGAGING URBAN TRIBES	[nada esta semana]
10%	NEW STREAMS	Look closely at North Greenville document and email;   contact Rudy?
20%	NEW CHURCH PLANT DEVELOPMENT 1 - EL BUEN ARBOL HOUSE CHURCH 2 - BETEL YOUTH CHURCH 3 - ALETHIA CHURCH - CHIAPAS	Set up meeting with Eduardo;  get in touch with Adoniram

2010 Goals for the Youngs

TRAINING PROJECT - 25% Train 5-8 20-somethings in basic church planting principles using a postmodern training style (Training, Ch Planting, Mobilizing) Written materials reviewed and prospective church planters meet with Mike.     April 30, 2010 Project completion     July 31, 2010

CONTACT LIST - 20% Build a list of 25-30 non-Christian 20-somethings with whom I am actively engaging with the gospel and then discipling.  Maintain a log tracking the progress you are making with each of these contacts. (Disc/Evan)      June 30, 2010

WEEKLY GROUPS - 15%  Develop 8-10 groups consisting of at least 75% non-Christians which meet regularly for Bible study, prayer, and/or discipleship on 2-3 different campuses and one in our home.  Students will lead these groups.  Participants in these groups will be new contacts for El Buen Árbol or beginning a new church.     December 31, 2010

ENGAGING URBAN TRIBES - 10% Design and develop methods to evangelize, disciple, and plant churches targeting the critical networks of urban tribes such as the “emo” population, musicians, street performers, and others. We will be praying for and working toward Persons of Peace in order to move into these critical networks.  We will use individual conversations, survey work to find out what the needs of this group are, then bible studies, prayer, and eventually training of others to reach them.     April 30, 2010

NEW STREAMS - 10% Identify and engage 3-4 new "streams," or "critical networks," of 20-somethings; i.e. nursing students, sports students, etc. with the ultimate goal of beginning new churches within these critical networks.  These may overlap with "Weekly Groups."  (Disc/Evan, Ch Planting)     May 31, 2010

NEW CHURCH PLANT DEVELOPMENT - 20% 1 - EL BUEN ARBOL HOUSE CHURCH (10%) Train the leaders in basic church planting principles.  Continue to mentor and equip them to take over the ministry of this new church plant by July 2010. 2 - BETEL YOUTH CHURCH (5%) Teach and support the leaders of the Betel youth church through on-going leadership training seeing them to the place where the youth church is planted and autonomous. - by June 30, 2010 3 - ALETHIA CHURCH - CHIAPAS (5%) Support and mentor Mark & Abby Huffman through regular contact (at least every 2 weeks through Skype, phone calls, emails, etc.) and at least 3 face-to-face times (Queretaro, Mission Meeting, Chiapas) - on-going (Training, Ch Planting, Mobilizing)     December 31, 2010

Posting Here

To Mark, Abby, and Laura,

Once we're all registered here as administrators (I'll find out how), we can put up up-coming events and individual appointments for "arrow" prayers--quick prayers to the Father from wherever we are. We can write a short blurb about an individual we're meeting with and the struggles we want the other teammates praying about.

One of the first postings should be our 2010 goals in a condensed form. I'll try to do that soon--tonight?

Each of us should "subscribe" to this blog too, so that any comments or updates go to our emails. Then we won't have to remember to access the site for the most recent info; it'll be sent directly to our emails.

I think this will be a great way to keep up with each other's ministry, but also to provide that prayer support Mark and Abby mentioned had been lacking. I know it'll be a help for me.

Steve