Gospel Facilitators Summer Zac 2012

Sembradores de Cristo Newsletter August 15, 2012 Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” Plain and simple folks. It was written and necessary that the Son of God would suffer, die, and rise again. Now for us as His children/servants it is written and necessary that we preach repentance and remission of sins in His name to all nations. No matter what the cost may be, we are to do it. It is our commissioned duty. We have just finished another week of doing just that here in the black heart of Zacatecas with Evangelist Kevin Cole (PK). The message PK preached at the revival was a simple one: Christ was born of a virgin, He lived a sinless life, He did miracles, He was crucified for our sins, He rose again, and He is the ONLY way. PK has been coming with us now for three years. God led him to us through meeting his daughter at an outreach in Cd. Acuna. He now has a ministry called “Gospel Facilitators.” He is preaching revivals in the Philipines and aiding missionaries in Hong Kong in getting the Word of God to mainland China. He is also going to help found a Bible school in India. Fortunately, (hallelujah) he also has felt the strong call of the Holy Spirit to Zacatecas. In his ministry, he connects with missionaries and pastors on the ground in foreign countries who have a kingdom perspective (not an “I” perspective, my church, my ministry, etc.) and he aids them with teaching, evangelism, and crusades. We thank God for PK’s life & ministry. He has become part of the Sembradores family. This past week PK brought three powerful brothers, one of which has been here before. The pastoral conference in Zacatecas city a couple of weeks ago went very well. It was a joy and honor for my wife and me to be able to assist the conference once again with translating and children’s ministry. The director allowed us to bring Brother Ruben and his family with us which was a great training experience for them both. At the conference I ran into an old friend from Jerez named Jerry Chen. We had met Jerry three years ago at an outreach and had lost contact since. Jerry is a precious brother who runs a music school as a ministry in Jerez and also helps with his local church. He has a tremendous vision for Zacatecas that we will be glad to help out with in any way we can. We will share more about that with you in the future. Village ministry The first day of the mission trip Ruben and I took the men on a hardcore hike of pretty much an hour of all straight up climbing. Zacatecas has some pretty amazing mountains to go and adventure. In case you’re interested we can organize one of those hikes for you-no tourists, no forest ranger, just open range! This particular one is a real good one, huge rock formations that make the Garden of Gods look like mini mounds of clay. At the end you can see one of our villages, Parral, Jerez, and all the way to Zacatecas city (it’s high point at 8500). The summit of this hike is around 9000 ft. Enough of that fun non-spiritual stuff-ha! Our first night, Wednesday, we went to join Pastor Nacho and his service in a village named “Plan de Carrillo.” For a few years Pastor Nacho had shut the doors to the church due to lack of attendance. Jesse and I always made it a point and this summer Brother Kevin to visit him, pray with him, and encourage him to get back in the game. Hallelujah! Not long ago he opened the doors of the church again and is holding services twice a week. Two weeks ago, Ruben and I went and preached at the church and it was so full that there was not even standing space. At the end of last Wednesday’s service we blessed the adults with rice and beans and the children with backpacks. You should have seen those smiles (you will soon.) One thing PK likes is blessing these folks with rice and beans. Thank you to all of you who read this newsletters and helped PK and team come on this trip. Because of the last three years of drought, the price of beans has skyrocketed. Because of your gift, these people will have a meal for the next few weeks. Plan de Carrillo is one of the most impoverished villages in the area, as impoverished or more than Parral. At the end of the service, Brother Jeremy performed his exciting fire dance, which entertained the people a good while! On Thursday we were able to do a final service for the summer in Parral. We did it at the “Huizachito” tree like old times and saw a lot of the people who hadn’t come all summer come and rejoice with us in the name of our Lord. It was good to see Gabriel come back as well. It was a powerful service. The power and presence of the Holy Spirit was manifested and there was much tears and joy. There was much repentance and restoration during that service. Revival Monte Escobedo Where do I start? How about, it was amazing, it rocked, it was incredible! Of course it was because God was in it. God showed up. He heard our prayers and saved lives and even touched some with miraculous healing. That Friday morning before we headed out from Palmas Altas to Monte Escobedo we went to pray for Sister Angelina’s very ill mother in a nearby village. Diana and I had been very busy and hadn’t been able to make it out to her house to pray for her. The prophet Joel had clearly said that in the last days old men would dream dreams. Well, in this case, it was an elderly woman. You can choose to believe what I’m about to tell you or not, that’s up to you. The night before she had dreamed that 5 white men would show up at her house to pray for her. Indeed there were five of us: PK, Jeremy, Herb, Matthew, and of course myself. Wow! The Lord touched her and she has now been resting much better, praise the Lord for that. The first night of the revival, Friday night, we had an attendance of 79. Not bad for Monte Escobedo, a town seated right in the center of idolatry of Zacatecas-a town that was still declared 100% Roman Catholic 8 yrs ago. When PK goes to the Philipines where there is a great hunger for God he’ll have at least 500 the first night. As Ruben and I went out to put up bulletins about the revival around town we were blessed to run into a lot of the people we hadn’t seen all summer but that had come to the auditorium during previous outreaches. Every business and locality gave us the favor to put up the bulletin, hallelujah! There were approx. (God knows the real number) 5 salvations that first night. That Saturday the Lord allowed us to share the gospel with a man that knew English at the plaza. Conviction from the Holy Spirit came over him and he started confessing how he wanted to change, how he wanted to leave his drinking habit. He had witnessed some terrible things committed by the Catholic Church and pretty much hated religion-(sound familiar) just like our Lord did. At the end of the service on night 2, various people came forward and gave testimony of how God had healed them. Two had had earaches and were healed, one of a stomach ache, one of chest pain, and one of pain in her waist. There were 105 with 10 salvations. After the services on Friday and Saturday we had a great time of fellowship with the American missionary team and the local Monte Escobedo church team. For the first team we had ushers and greeters that were from the local church. That time of breaking bread with the believers is so essential for health of the church. Jeremy did and extended version of his fire dance and we were able to bless the children that are part of the church with their backpack and school supplies. Before the service and fellowship time one of the brothers had taken us to a nearby waterfall and cave where one of the brothers happened upon a coiled up rattlesnake-yikes and praise God for His protection! The last night we jumped to 185. Before service we had gone to say hello to one of the sisters and then found her mother there with much need for prayer. In fact, Elvira prayed that morning that we would come over early before the service to visit and pray for her mother-something not planned with our extremely busy schedule. Wow, how the Spirit works! Her mother had been suffering from much depression and spiritual attacks. We had barely started praying when we saw the Jalisco state police come in and take three men, one being a major boss from a drug cartel. One of our team members was in the van and hadn’t seen them so we quickly called him and all went inside while the officers took care of business-woo! Ruben’s wife, Carmelita, shared a powerful testimony that night of how much abuse she had suffered from her father. I almost cringed in my seat when she started bringing the heat, telling people to stop believing in the saints and the priests (that are just men as she put it). I was waiting to see people march off after she said that and to my surprise they stayed locked in on what she was saying instead of getting upset. She straight up told them that they needed Jesus! Amen. All of the adults got a bag of beans and rice and the children a bag of candy. It was harder than ever to give my farewells to the team. Diana and I love these sheep that God has delegated us to teach and care for. We really need to be here full-time now folks. Please help enable us to do that by partnering with us in financial support. Huichol Indian outreach Three years ago Diana, the kids, Jesse, and I had the amazing opportunity of going up to the Jalisco mountains and visiting a Huichol community. The Lord told us we would have that opportunity again and ever since then we had prayed for that day to come. We are working with one Huichiol woman that sells her jewelry at the plaza in Monte Escobedo. PK fought and fought to be able to change his and Herb’s flight out from Monday morning to Monday night. We slept for about 3 hrs. after the outreach and got up to drop off the other two at the airport. We saved the rest of the beans and rice and backpacks for the Huichol Indians and Pastor Ediberto’s church. I called him and he surprised us with sending a Huichol believer with us from Fresnillo. Brother Samuel had been waiting for a bus at 6 AM that never showed up. Well, what do you know; here we were going through Fresnillo three hours later. Praise God! “Keaku” is a greeting similar to “How is it going?” He shared his testimony with us on the way and tried to teach us a little Huichol-yeah right (lol). Alcoholism is rampant among the men of the tribe (a tribe of some 45,000 strong). He had been saved three years ago and lost his job at the local Huichol cultural museum since he now refused to give money and personal participate in the paganistic fiestas and pilgrimages. From the airport to the town where Pastor Ediberto lived was 3 ½ hard driving hours through the mountains. To the Huichol village from that town was another 1 ½ much harder hours-dirt roads and half roads, 100 ft. drop offs, you get the picture. Pastor Ediberto knows some of the Huichol language and two other tribal languages. He worked with the Tepehuan people for 18 yrs. One day one of them got tired of him shared about this “Jesus” and tried to hang him. The Lord loosened the rope and he escaped alive. Woo! That’s my kind of missionary contact my friends. Pastor Ediberto is the real deal. The road up the mountains was one of the most amazing we had ever seen, all the green, trees, mountains, and canyons. On the way up, Ediberto and Samuel explained to us that the village we were visiting was one of the few that the gospel was allowed to enter. Usually the tribal leaders are either shamans or very influenced by other shamans. The shamans had kicked Ediberto out before since his “Christian” people weren’t giving money or time to the paganistic rituals such as the sacrifice of bulls. The people were just precious. All the Huichol language I had tried to learn on the way up escaped me the moment I stood in front of those precious creations of God. PK again gave a simple message of salvation. He spoke in English; I translated to Spanish, and Samuel into Huichol. Awesome! The people were very orderly when we passed out the rice and beans and candy to the children. PK acted like he was the “piñata” and I the kid hitting it, him hurling out the candies. Fun, fun! In this village there is future opportunity to come again now that they have seen us. Samuel told the people to remember our faces and know that we don’t do evil but good. There is great opportunity to do VBS’s, sports camps, evangelism, and much more. Samuel would like to see a church be raised up there. In another village they burned the property and excommunicated the people out before they got the opportunity to raise up the church. I am pumped out about working there in the future. I’m not going to lie, the road is hardcore. It is very long and painful. Maybe some of you would like to go with me, you never know. Prayer requests Bible study in Laguna Grande-the Lord would give Ruben wisdom to lead the Bible study and favor with the group from Monte Escobedo and Laguna Grande Our trip back to the U.S tomorrow Potential house and building for church that we are looking at renting in Monte Escobedo Love in Christ, Brother Benjamin Elliott & Sembradores de Cristo family Sembradores de Cristo 603 E. 17th St. Del Rio, TX 78840 Owwwbenja@yahoo.comwww.sembradoresdecristo.com (830)719-9731