Blog 34 01 Mar 2016

School News

La Noticia de la Escuela

My current students learning English as a second language have been "Zooming" (an app for Face-Timing) with some of my former students learning Spanish as a second language.  When the Spanish teacher asked my current students if her class was learning Spanish faster than I was, they declined to answer because I was sitting with them.  I guess that was their answer.

In foreground, Gospel Light Spanish Class
Barely visible on TV screen, Mt Hebron Christian Academy, ESL, Secondary

 Church News

La Noticia de la Iglesia

Pastor Tommy Ashcraft (Jon's Dad) announced on a recent Sunday night that he will be shifting his ministry to more of that as an evangelist and will no longer serve as Pastor of Mount Hebron.  He announced this eloquently and you can read the English translation on the church FB page.  Pastor Ashcraft stongly encouraged the church membership to consider voting for Bro. Jon as his repacement, as he had been much in prayer over the decision.  He encouraged them to do so, not because Jon is his son, but because of his faithful service here for many years as the assistant pastor, and he believes him to be the right man for the job.  On the following Wednesday, every single member of the church voted to instate Jon as the new head Pastor.  Both that Sunday night and that Wednesday night were very moving services; I feel blessed to have been in attendance.

This was the first official week for Pastor Jonathan Ashcraft.

Soulwinning

Sembradoras

  

On Friday, February 12, we went soulwinning in the "downtown area" {plaza} of Santiago which is our little town south of Monterrey.  Several streets converge in the center at a small park area.  Many ladys were helping at the work-day for the conference, but the eight of us who went out saw nine saved.  Jenny led a lady who had a little boy the same age as her twins while they were seated on a park bench. 

This past Friday, the 26th, we visited on a little street with a few side streets.  We met some nice people, but the four people in our van only had one conversion this week.  A total of eleven ladies went out.  We were down in attendance mostly due to illness.  A virus went  around for a bit, touching Jenny's and Jessica's families, and others also I am sure.

Other Interesting News:

Otra Noticia Interesante:

I would also like to mention what a blessing it was to have Jon's sister Tammy Gonzalez and her family here for the conference.  Tammy and I went to Hyles-Anderson together many moons ago, and now she and her husband Henry are missionarries to El Salvador.  It was nice to "catch-up" and spend some fun times together. Their oldest is attending Hyles Anderson this year; they have two other teenagers and a six-year old. Tammy went out soulwinning with us while they were in town, and of course, Bro. Henry with the men. 

Side Note: Bro. Daniel Parker uploaded more pictures of Monterrey and the conference on Sunday (including at least one of me eating).  If you want to see them, you can find his FB page through my friends list.

Prayer Corner

1. Pray for Mt Hebron Baptist Church

      ~ Bro. Jon and his new responsibilities
      ~ Mrs. Jenny and her new                            responsibilities.

2. Pray for Mt Hebron Christian Academy

      ~ for Hna. Lily and baby
      ~ for the Kindergartners
3. For those who are ill; and for me to stay       ~ healthy :) (slefishly)

3. Pray for me to learn Spanish

      ~ for me to be able to lead

         someone to the Lord this year

It means so much to me to know that you are praying for me!

Blog 33 23 Feb 2016 Conference Hilights

Conference Highlights

Puntos destacados de la conferencia

{literally: "points outstanding from the conference" ~ "highlights" translated to "lights above"}

A few pictures of the conference.

First, just the enormity of the conference.  The first night there were easily 1,500 in the auditorium, including nearly 75 on the stage with the choir and musicians. 
The total attendance was well over 2,000.

4-6 Year Old Morning Class

The children had their own sessions.  There were also sessions designed for the  youth, including afternoon "workshops" just for PK's (Preacher's Kids).

Hna. Laura y Hna. Jenny

Hna. Jenny

The room for the ladies' sessions was beautifully decorated and furnished with snacks by Hna. Laura and her helpers.  We had many wonderful speakers.  

Mrs. Debra Wynn

Mrs Barbara Davis
intrerpreted by Hna. Jessica

Mrs. Brenda Ashcraft

Mrs. Debra spoke from Daniel 1:8 and encouraged all those who work with children to train them to choose the good while they are still young.

Mrs. Barbara Davis (interpreted by Hna. Jessica) gave ten ways to pro-actively discourage disouragement from overwhelming us.

Mrs. Charlotte Lowe

Mrs. Brenda had different ladies represent ladies in the Bible with lessons we could learn from each.

Mrs. Charlotte Lowe, who served for many years as missionary to the Jews of Spain, gave us principles from the life of Esther which should be emulated.  Bro. & Mrs. Lowe now work to help other missionaries to Jewish communities of Spanish speaking countries.

Mrs. Carrie Suhl gave her testimony.  Shortly after they arrived in Mexico as missionarries, her husband Truitt died in a car accident.  Her decision to stay on the field with their infant son speaks volumes.

Mrs. Carrie Suhl

The evening services were also encouraging, mostly preached by the husbands of those ladies pictured above.  It was harder for me to recap those as the men spoke much faster than the ladies.  After the reading of the verses, I was pretty lost. However, just the fact that this great number of Christian leaders were gathered for the purpose of strengthening and renewing their committments to the furtherance of the Gospel was more than encouraging.  

Pastor Daniel Parker,
Heritage Baptist Church, HS, AR

It was nice to see my "home" pastor, Bro. Daniel, from Hot Springs.  He took tons of pictures, so if you would like to see more, check out his FB page from my friends' list.  
Side note: My Pastor won five young men to the Lord during men's soulwinning on Friday night! :)

Soulwinning

Sembradoras

On one day of the conference everyone in attendance loaded up on vans and busses and went soulwinning!

This was definitely an exciting sight to see!  

Weather Update:

It was bright and sunny for the majority of the conference with the temperature mostly hanging around 85* for the week.

Prayer Corner

1. Pray for Mt Hebron Baptist Church

2. Pray for Mt Hebron Christian Academy

      ~ for Hna. Lily and baby
      ~ for the Kindergartners

3. Pray for me to learn Spanish

      ~ for me to be able to lead

         someone to the Lord this year
                                            

It means so much to me to know that you are praying for me!

Blog 32 09 Feb 2016

School News

La Noticia de la Escuela

 

Our Pre-School teacher, Hna. Lily is expecting a new baby! She has been put on bedrest for the remainder of the semester.  So, we will all be pitching in some extra time with the Pre-Schoolers during the week.  Hna. Jenny, Hna. Haydee (Samy's Mom), and I will be teaching them, while Hno. Jon and Hno. Ivan will work extra with the Elementary and High School students.  I am excited to be spending some of my time teaching the pre-schoolers to read!!

The Hope of The Future!

Preschool is called prescolar in Spanish.
Kindergarten is called kinder.

Elementary is called primaria.
Junior High is called segundaria.

High School is called prepa or prepatoria.

(Embarazada is the spanish word for "pregnant.")

Church News

La Noticia de la Iglesia

There will be many delegates here next week! 

Things will be very busy around here!  For this reason, I will be waiting an extra week to post to my next blog.  Look for some pics of our guests and of the services on February 23.

Soulwinning

Ganando Almas

Our group went to visit Ana, who recently had surgery. Ana attends sembradoras every Friday and keeps the nursery on Sunday night.  While we were  there, one lady asked her how many years she had served in the nursery -- 35! This dear lady told Jenny that she had kept Jon in the nursery when he was a baby.  Mount Hebron is full of faithful men and women like this.  Many of them were led to the Lord and discipled by Jon's dad, Pastor Tommy Ashcraft. 

After a nice time of visiting and prayer, we went soulwinning on her street.  My neighbor, Jessica led a lady to the Lord who had two small children.  Yobana promised to come and visit our church.  I have included a request for this in my prayer corner as it isn't often we come across someone whose family is not so steeped in Catholocism that they agree to come to church so readily.  Pray with me that Christ, not Satan, will prevail in the lives of this young family.

It was nice to have Jon's sister Tammy join us, also.  She and her husband are missionarries to El Salvador and came early for the conference.

Fourteen of us went door-to-door this week; the seven ladies in our van won seven.

Language

El Idioma

While still progressing through Rosetta Stone, I am also memorizing the verses in the Romans Road.  We have made it a mutual goal for me to win someone to the Lord in Spanish in the year 2016.

Prayer Corner

1. Pray for Mt Hebron Baptist Church

      ~ Pastor's Conference Feb 15-18

2. Pray for Mt Hebron Christian Academy

      ~ for Hna. Lily and baby
      ~ for the Kindergartners

3. Pray for me to learn Spanish

      ~ for me to be able to lead

         someone to the Lord this year
4. Pray Yobana and her family come to church
                                            

It means so much to me to know that you are praying for me!

Blog 31 02 Feb 2016

School News

La Noticia de la Escuela

Hno. Ivan and his son, Ivan.  (In Spanish, pronounced, "Ee-von") Hno. Ivan teaches PE for all grades, as well as science and math to the Spanish-speaking children.  His wife, Hna. Laura (of baked pineapple fame!) teaches Bible.
Something interesting here in Mexico, is that instead of "Junior" a boy named after his dad is called "Pollo" like "Chickie" (think of Johnny in West Side Story).  
So, this is Hmo. Ivan & Pollo. 
 In school, though, I call him Ivan.

Church News

La Noticia de la Iglesia

As we are preparing for our large annual conference everyone is busy, busy, busy.  There are extra music practices, extra cleaning times, and extra work of all kinds!  My help with this basically consists of watching the children of those who are doing the actual work ~~ aren't you glad to know that some things never change?

Even the snack shop is getting a makeover

There will be many delegates here, including several who have graduated from our Bible Institute, and many other Pastors from Mexico and Central and South America.  Also, my "home" Pastor, Daniel Parker, from Heritage Baptist Church in Hot Springs, Arkansas, will be attending.  

Mrs. Carrie Suhl will be passing out Beams Bibles to many of these national pastors and missionarries during this week of training and encouragement.  Many of our institute students and other young people (and myself) will be helping her count and box the Bibles that have been requested by these delegates, and fulfilled by many of you who give to the Beams ministries.

Soulwinning

Ganando Almas

This Friday, I was partnered with Mrs. Carrie Suhl, who led two older men to the Lord. We passed out 12 tracts while inviting others to church. My neighbor Jessica was able to pray with a young man as he accepted Christ.  When she took out her Bible, some of his friends passed by and made fun of him for listening to the church lady.  He was a little hesitant then to stay with her, but she asked him if his so-called friends would be standing with him one day when he stood before the Lord, accountable for this decision. He stayed, listened attentively, and trusted Christ! PTL! 

The seventeen ladies in our church van led sixteen souls to the Lord. 

Roberto y Carlos

Sembradoras Todos

Language

El Idioma

While still progressing through Rosetta Stone (almost completed the first disc), I am also memorizing the verses in the Romans Road.  In addition, I am using the DuoLingo ap on my phone, which says I am 26% fluent in Spanish -- maybe there is hope!

Weather Update:

From my sidewalk

From Jon and Jenny's second story

Snow on the mountains! 
It was 76* the next day, though.

Prayer Corner

1. Pray for Mt Hebron Baptist Church

      ~ Pastor's Conference Feb 15-18

2. Pray for Mt Hebron Christian Academy

      ~ for finances

3. Pray for me to learn Spanish

      ~ for me to be able to lead

         someone to the Lord this year

It means so much to me to know that you are praying for me!

Blog 30 26 Jan 2016

 New Year, New Pics!
Nuevos Fotos 

 Almost everyone was present.


A little fun during recess.

Soulwinning

This Friday, I was partnered with Jenny and Jessica, who each led two teenage girls to the Lord. We passed out 12 tracts while inviting others to church. The seven ladies in our van led ten people to the Lord; six other ladies were in Mrs. Carrie Suhl's van. 

While out visiting and looking for "lost sheep" we also ran across a few goats ~ literally!  While trying to get this pic, one of them chased me.  Fortunately, right next door to the yard with the goats, there was a nice, upscale dress shop.  We waited there until the goats were sufficiently distracted.  

Right across the street from these two houses was a young boy playing with about twelve cute little puppies.  Jessica was right next to the fence talking with the boy when a LARGE pit-bull came barrelling out of his doghouse.  She backed up almost as fast as I ran from the goats. 

Cuisine

I have been recently made aware of the fact that there are only so many "new" dishes.  While I would like to report that I am still really enjoying tacos, tamales, burritos, and quesadillas, I will not keep this as a weekly feature, but rather add it when I have opportunity to report a new or unusual meal.

Weather Update:

I have been seeing a lot reports of snow along the East Coast and into Kentucky and Arkansas, therefore I hesitate to tell you that it is bright and sunny and in the 70's and 80's here.  In the evenings it has  gotten as low as 45* but I haven't really needed much more than a small space heater.

I am loving Mexico for so many reasons!

Language

El Idioma

While still progressing through Rosetta Stone, I am also memorizing the verses in the Romans Road.  We have made it a mutual goal for me to win someone to the Lord in Spanish in the year 2016.

Don;t miss the mountains in the background!

Baby Lucas

Lucasito

Lucas is sitting up on his own now and pulling on everything
he is able to reach, which is usually someone's hair!
Speaking of hair, his looks sometimes brown, sometimes blonde, and sometimes red.  Only the Lord knows and time will tell.

Tommy and Jonathan
Tommy y Jonathan

The twins turned 4!
They are growing up so fast.  They enjoy school; they have "graduated" to a new Sunday-School Department; and they especially love riding their bicycles! Their "Grammy"
{Jenny's mom} got them new bikes for Christmas.  They go very fast, and I predict the training wheels will be off by summer.

Prayer Corner

1. Pray for Mt Hebron Baptist Church
      ~ Pastor's Conference Feb 15-18
2. Pray for Mt Hebron Christian Academy
      ~ for finances
3. Pray for me to learn Spanish
      ~ for me to be able to lead
         someone to the Lord this year
It means so much to me to know that you are praying for me!