Fiesta Navidad & New Years 2012/13

Sembradores de Cristo Fiesta Navidad & New Years 2012/13 “Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.” (Luke 14:21) “Quickly” notes a sense of urgency. Jesus in Revelations 22:20 also declares, “Surely I am coming quickly!” As servants of His church, we need to get more serious about going out and share the good news. It’s amazing how in this parable of the great supper, the man’s own friends were all too busy to come to the banquet. Isn’t it amazing how the “needy” seem to be the only ones in “need” for God? After all these needy were brought in the master sent the servant to the highways and hedges because there was still room. The servant was instructed to compel them to come. Again, a sense of urgency. There is room in heaven for so many more. The master told him, “Let’s fill this place!” We need to go out quickly and urge the people to repent and know Christ. The religious, self-righteous, apathetic, and materialistically “rich” probably won’t be interested. Those who are hurting & broken might be-hungry for some real food, some “bread of heaven.” There’s plenty of room at the table of the Master for those who will open their hearts to Jesus and dine with the King. I hope the church will have a sense of urgency this 2013 as it fulfills the Great Commission, going out quickly, compelling the sinners to come in and partake of the new covenant. Group blessings & challenges Thanks to all of you who supported us in prayer this past week and to all of you who sent those gifts full of tokens of love. All but 20 girl’s gifts were distributed this last week of the 250 total. God granted us travel mercies the whole trip, even a green light in the interior on the way down. Victor Rocha was such a blessing to have with us (the Elliott’s & Blanco’s). What a servant of God-photographer, driver, anything & everything kind of guy. This was Victor’s first mission trip-of many to come! The windshield wipers went out on the way to Zacatecas city on Monday. I’ve never had to drive without windshield wipers-now that’s an experience-ha! No mechanic shop was open all the way back from the city. God was gracious and helped us make it back safely, praise be His name. The next day it wasn’t raining in Jerez, however, halfway to Mt. Escobedo it started pouring again. We prayed (this was New Years Day) and out of nowhere there was a little auto mechanic shop on the outskirts of a town called Huejucar. He was closed but he came out to help us –hallelujah! Also, muchísimas gracias for agreeing with us for health for the team-all team members were healthy and full of energy to serve the Lord all week. However, a young sister in the Lord that accompanied our team to Zacatecas that Monday night got very sick. We laid our hands on her when we got back to her house and she almost fainted. She passed out as her parents rushed her to the hospital. Meanwhile, back at their house we kept praying for her, not accepting that the devil would have any victory in the matter. The Lord had told me that ALL of our team members would be healthy all week-I knew that included local folks who helped us, even if that meant for one day. We continued with the already planned New Year’s Eve service at her house with her grandma, uncle, his unsaved brother, and her sister and brother-in-law Jerry Chen. The unsaved relative decided to give his whole life to Christ that night, amen. Meanwhile the young sister’s parents and brothers were scared sick of losing their little angel at the hospital. We ended up having a second mini-service among our small team, strongly experiencing the presence of the Lord in that little house. We were pleased to hear the family come back from the hospital at around 2 A.M. Our young sister in Christ was fine; the cold weather had been a little too much for her that day. Mtn village work The first couple days of our trip were spent in the high mtn villages. We decided to visit Villa Hermosa village that Friday, a village we have now been visiting for almost 7 years. Here there has never been a man or woman of peace to step up and want a Bible study and/or church in their village. Gamaliel Blanco and his wife were with us there 4 Christmases ago when the catechist tried to run us off the volleyball court. We have now had no such issues with him for two years now. As a group we decided to also take Christmas presents to the precious, impoverished children of this village. We found some Christmas story puppets in our little warehouse in Palmas Altas to take to Villa with us. The children here have always been very attentive and interested. We have built very good relationships with the folks of this village over the past 6 yrs. Last August one of them told us that the lady in charge of the little Catholic church is now “adios” meaning we are free to enter now and preach without any worry. This lady had tried to run us off on our fourth trip to Zacatecas back in 2006. As we went out to invite, one young woman asked Gamaliel what time the service was going to be at the court. She did this deceitfully as to know what time to go and disturb the service by ringing the bell at the Catholic church. No one left our gathering, nor paid her any attention at all. On Saturday I did my traditional Palmas Altas mtn run. Near the end of this run is an altar to the idol “El santo niño.” We know there’s nothing “santo” about that idol but that it is “diabolico.” As I drew near to the area I saw that some farmers had burned their fields, right up to the plot of land that the idol is on. The Lord told me that He’s going to burn it down. I remembered how the prophets defended the holy name of our Lord burning the Baal’s & high places. I had told Victor, Gamaliel, and Jose Angel to drive out and pick me up there. They joined me in rebuking that evil spirit’s power in the area in the name of Jesus. Jose Angel explained to us that once a year the people gather there-the priest holds a short mass, and then people stick around to get drunk & festive. The Lord showed Gamaliel as he was praying that many devote to the idol practice sexual immorality and other abominations. From there I decided to take Victor to villages we don’t work in that belong to Fresnillo county. We got a little excited and decided to give some gifts we had left in the van to some children in the streets that were in two villages. We quickly told them that Jesus loved them, that He had given them the gift and wants to give them the gift of eternal life. We had to do it quick before all the other children of the village would see us and run over, knowing we wouldn’t have enough for Monte Escobedo and the church at Jerez. That evening we had a great service with Pastor Nacho in Plan de Carrillo. We invited the folks of Monte de los Garcia to the service but no, negative, they said they would come and did not come. It is very apparent that they are not interested in following the Lord. In Plan de Carrillo the enemy is dividing the Christians. Again, as in November, Pastor Nacho was very discouraged since most of his people had left for the other church. We encouraged the few that attended to be faithful to their pastor and congregation. Work with “Todas las naciones” church In the last newsletter we mentioned the blessing it was to have visited and preached at the church “Todas las naciones” of Jerez. We were able to visit again this past Sunday. The church is full of “niños” since the children’s home attends that church. It was a blessing to bless these precious angels with Christmas gifts. We also had some jackets left over from last year’s visit that we distributed to the men and women of the church. The Lord gave me a special blessing that day. Before service I went around the corner to a local cyber cafe to check my e-mail and ran into a familiar face from Palmas Altas. A little girl that had once lived in Palmas but now lived in Jerez was there and eager to see us. Unfortunately she, like many youth of Jerez, is allowed to run wild on the streets without any supervision in the daytime. I invited her to church-made sure she went and asked permission-ha. It was a blessing to bless her with a Christmas gift. The church accompanied us this past Friday to Parral village. Sister Amber and Brother Tony along with Jerry and Michal brought us some 30 helpers, mostly youth. Since Parral is a small village, we sent half one way to invite and the other half the other way. God brought in believers from Palmas Altas, Monte Escobedo, El Cargadero, the church in Jerez, and Parral together to glorify His name in this beautiful village. We had a “fiesta cristiana” that evening with tamales, Christmas gifts, special music, and even a drama. My wife and I improvised the “heart skit” that we hadn’t performed in more than two years-good times. The Lord led Sister Ester, Gamaliel wife, to pray for Ruben’s mother-in-law who wished to receive Christ. Ester later told me she was nervous since she had never led a sinner’s prayer with anybody before but saw that I was busy praying for somebody else and didn’t want to bother me. She spoke of the indescribable joy she experienced. I thank the leaders of “Todas las naciones” for allowing their church members to join us in going out to the streets & highways of the surrounding villages and towns. The church has also decided to support us by going to do services in the church of Monte Escobedo once a week during our absence. Praise God! He is unifying His Jesus team to make His kingdom come in every corner of the earth, in our case-Zacatecas! Monte Escobedo We spent three days in Monte Escobedo doing the first three services at our first church building. I remember being disappointed this November when those who had been faithful during our first two years of working in Colonia La Pradera had stopped coming to Ruben’s Bible study and didn’t come to our meeting. Most of those folks just avoided us when we went to look for them. Back at the motel we spent time in intense, unified prayer for His church at Monte Escobedo. The Lord told me that He was going to bring new blood into the church, folks who really love Him and want to work. Out with the old and in with the new sometimes, right? Since it was raining so much all we could do was pray and drive around to make a presence with the van the first two days. We prayed for divine appointments with lost souls and with folks who had attended our past events at the auditorium. As I was inviting folks on Wednesday I ran into a familiar face in a pharmacy from a previous event in August with PK that shared her testimony with me. She started with, “You guys are the ones that came in August, right?” She shared that her friend had invited her and that she didn’t want to go. She had been suffering from severe depression and that night that she went she felt the depression lifted during the music and hadn’t felt the same since. She told me she was a single mother that had felt she had nothing to live for but her treasured son. She got excited when I told her that the church was just around the corner and even more so when I invited her to be part of the team. She came both nights after that and even helped us pass out the gifts. Her friend, the pharmacist, had been listening to our conversation and felt the desire to receive Christ. Another man had been healed of eyesight in one eye also in August. He came all three nights; in fact, I remember him going to every previous event at the auditorium. People will not deny what God has done for them. The motel itself was a blessing, despite it being a little pricey. It is right around the corner from the church. The Lord blessed us unexpectedly with a room that had a kitchenette-kitchen and stove-since there is now no house available to stay at with Guadalupe Villarreal in Laguna Grande. The second day of services Brother Gamaliel preached and made the invitation for all to come forward to receive prayer. Many were touched by the Holy Spirit during that service. Depression seems to be a tool of the enemy particularly in Monte Escobedo. I prayed with two ladies and a man to receive Christ for the first time. The third day I decided to make the announcement as we invited and evangelized to spread the word about the Christmas gifts since such few children had went to the services the first two nights. That helped us fill the church on Thursday. We had about 97 people come, some 76 children. The Lord allowed me to share the gospel with the owner of a hardware store that morning. The Lord moved him to share with me that his wife had left him and that he now lives with a young mistress. The Lord led him to ask me what I thought about that. I did and he was penetrated to the heart by his sin and prayed for forgiveness to the Savior of all. Happy new year folks. I hope you have enjoyed reading this newsletter concerning the Lord’s work. You can be expecting the trip pictures soon. Blessings to all in the name of our Lord, Brother Ben Please consider partnering with us by supporting us on a monthly basis. Love ya’ll, Bro Ben & Sembradores de Cristo family Tax-exempt giving % Sembradores de Cristo Esperanza Del Rio Community Church 603 E. 17th St. Del Rio, TX 78840 www.sembradoresdecristo.com Phone: (830) 719-9731