July 3, 2009

Sembradores de Cristo July 3, 2009

Buenas tardes! I have a lot of awesome things to share with you. First, I would like to praise the Lord for His provision, protection, and blessing this past week with our New York team. They are now safely home and Lord willing getting some much needed rest. Thanks again NY team for all your help and great teamwork this past week! They came prepared to minister and to serve. They were a great blessing and encouragement to each and every one of us here in Zacatecas and impacted many lives for the kingdom. The Lord is fulfilling the great commission through our ministry here. We are making disciples according to Matthew 28:19 and preaching the gospel to every creature according to Mark 16:15. God is allowing us to both make disciples in Monte los Garcia and Guadalupe Victoria and evangelize new areas. Each and everyday the NY team was here we experienced the Lord´s move in different and dynamic ways. The Monday before the team got here we went to El Cargadero to ask for permission to do a VBS. The authority figure denied us the permission and very rudely let us know that they were Catholic and did not allow the freedom of other religions. I reminded him nicely that according to federal law there we were guaranteed freedom of speech. He was angered by that and basically said that he knew there was nothing he could do to stop us. The Lord had prepared us for this and so we felt compelled to go up the mountain to a small village called El Parral to ask for the same permission. Praise the Lord! It was granted us.
El Cargadero-Diana and I found a loophole to get to the kids of El Cargadero with the love of Christ. We realized that all public schools are under federal jurisdiction. We went with the group in faith to El Cargadero asking the teaches for permission to do their drama based on Lifehouse´s song Everything. We assured them that we would not preach but just share the drama and some candy. Praise the Lord! The teachers agreed. The Lord used Pastor Kevin Cole from the team to give a short EDUCATIONAL message about the drama which was well received. A young girl came up to my wife after the drama and asked her. Are you all Christians? Praise the Lord! She told us where her house was and we visited her house finding out that they were the only Christians in the village and had been persecuted by Miguel, the cathecist, for their beliefs. In fact, he is a distant family member of theirs. Hallelujah! There are Christians in Miguel´s family. He has pestered and persecuted them greatly just as he has us. However, the local priest does not like him and has tried to keep him away from El Cargadero-praise the Lord! In fact they have a church there in El Cargadero which was eager for us to do a service. On Saturday we came back and di did a service for them. We also did some evangelism seeing a few receptions to Christ and also some rejections. We went back on Monday to do a piñata and teach some volleyball. We were all impressed at how well-behaved the kids are in El Cargadero. It was a true joy working with each and everyone of them.
El Parral-Going to the village El Parral was a hit. The people there are hungry for God. In fact, some had received Christ but have not received any spiritual food. We had children, young people, and adults there. The New York team came prepared to do games and VBS´s which ALL the people got involved in, even the men. While we were there, a lady asked us to go to her house and pray for her son Arnulfo. Turns out he was from Denver, CO and had received gunshot wounds in his left leg from gang warfare. We prayed for him, shared the gospel, and he received Christ. Everyday we went a team to him to read the gospel of John while the rest of us were doing the VBS´s. Besides sending a team to read the Bible to Arnulfo we also had a team that ministered to an older man that lives in front of the tree gathering area where we did our VBS´s. This man is in his 80´s, never married, living in a one room house. We felt in our hearts to clean his house. It rained and poured which did not allow us to do the VBS´s one day. On another day, the Lord allowed the team to finish the VBS´s and then it poured. On Saturday there was a political party using the tree gathering area so we decided to go out with the evangecube and evangelize. Two of our teams shared the gospel outside of two bars. It was amazing. We were sharing the gospel to these guys while they drank beer. It was an incredible experience. In my team I had sister Cayleigh Cole who was their team leader. While we shared the gospel one particular man kept interrumpting with questions. As he asked his questions I realized that the Jehovah´s Witnesses had hounded him before. I asked him to hold his questions till the end so that he and I could discuss them with the Bible. He respected that and the men sat down their beers, took off their hats, closed their eyes and received Christ. The other evangelism teams had similar experiences. After the prayer Juan and I got out the Word and discussed such things as salvation, eternity, and end times. Praise the Lord we were able to straighten him out and he is no longer confused about such things. The people in Parral are eager for more and were asking us when we would return. We will be reorganizing our schedule to be able to make a weekly visit there the rest of the summer.
Monte los Garcia-The hard rains we experienced did not allow much extensive ministry in Monte. On Thursday night we moved our gathering into Luis´s corn grinding store-we were packed in like sardines! On Sunday morning we were able to meet a guy who had been in a gang in the USA and had been deported back to Mexico. He told us he had been living out of a car for awhile. Please pray for Raul´s salvation. Next week we will be doing a Baseball/VBS camp in Monte and the last day do a special hike to a cave which Luis will be leading. Luis continues to shown signs of spiritual growth. Last night he came to the svc with his own Bible for the first time.
Guadalupe Victoria-The team came prepared to do a volleyball camp with the youth of Guadalupe. It turned out that it rained almost every time we wanted to use the court. That didn’t stop the NY team nor the locals from at least scrimmaging. Our people were faithful as usual to our normally held services. Each Bible study group-kids, youth, and adults seem to grow each week at times losing some while gaining others. However, we are seeing who are the true and faithful. There are three certain kids that always bring their Bibles. The drama was a real hit in Guad. The court was packed. The men were particularly in a good mood that night because they had won their baseball games that day. They came down with their beer and at first were a little rowdy disturbing our Bible study groups. The most rowdy one got serious during Pastor Kevin´s message and received Christ. He got so excited that during the piñata he organized everything. The seeds we have sown in Guadalupe these 3 ½ yrs are reaping and reaping. This Tuesday we invited some of the youth to accompany us for a hike day. During that hike we managed to take the wrong road, get stuck twice in the mud and make it up a mtn road that was either on the verge of being completely washed out or full of rocks. All of the NY team and Guad youth pitched in helping get La Ballena through all of that. It was all worth it when we made it to the top and saw God´s glory. Pastor Kevin and I gave messages to the team during which I encouraged my Guad youth that God has a calling on their lives and a special place in our ministry, to utilize their talents for Christ.
Villa Hermosa-We weren´t going to go to Villa Hsa with the team but God had other plans. One day Brother Jesse got lost in the rain with La Paloma and ended up in Villa Hsa. They prayed over the village and felt like God wanted them to go back. I explained to the team what the situation was with Miguel and they strongly felt the Holy Spirit´s leading in going there. What happened there will never be forgotten by any of us. On our way Miguel saw us driving by. The roads were very slick, basically mush and La Ballena slided right into a water-filled ditch. We were stuck. The Lord sent a guy on a Burro who said he would go get a tractor to pull us out. Guess who came around the corner, Miguel with his speakers blasting. He drove by without offering any help to us, of course. Praise the Lord! God used the mud/ditch for us to know that he was coming. If we would have been there before his arrival, he would have taken advantage of the situation to blast his speakers over our little amp during the drama. We ended up doing the drama in the street instead of the volleyball court since he was still there. I had Pastor Kevin stationed and ready to go with the video camera. Once Miguel saw the video camera he ducked around the corner with his truck and cowardly parked out of sight with his Christian bashing music blaring. While there I noticed a miracle. Nobody was listening to him! The people reacted well to the drama/ministry and there were smiles on their faces as Brother Kevin made them balloons. Half of our team went to the volleyball court while the rest visited with the adults/children. Miguel finally came down and Jesse started taking pictures while another filmed. Miguel said, ¨No mas fotos.¨ Jesse said, ¨Mas fotos?¨ and took more. He went and parked down by the volleyball court with his music and nobody even gave him a glance! His pestering that day was recorded on video and can help to be used legally to press charges against him. More than anything, the people once again saw that we love them and more importantly that Christ loves them. Our prayer for Miguel is that he would receive Christ, but that if he refuses salvation that the Lord would shut his mouth.
Jerez-The Lord led us to go down to the city of Jerez to do the drama. We did it at the main plaza area and about 200 people total stopped by to watch it. Diana and I even did the heart skit as an opener and we did the group´s drama twice since more and more people kept coming. We shared the gospel and at least 5 people responded to the message. The Lord even provided a local pastor and believers to be there and be able to help point them to a local church.
Your prayers were felt this week Brothers and Sisters. Many new souls came into the kingdom this week! I hope that you are admonished, edified, and blessed by this report and are encouraged to continue on serving the Lord in your ministries with humility and passion. Love in Christ, Ben Elliott & the Sembradores de Cristo Summer 09 team

Our need to be here full team is great-I hope that you can see that. Please pray about supporting us monthly so we can get here and disciple our people full-time. Even $25/mth would help make up the difference.
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