August update from Chiapas!

It's hard to believe we've already been here in Chiapas for a month. A visit from a university group from Mexico City interviewing family members of those who have been incarcerated for the Acteal massacre since 1997 confirmed God's call to us for part of our time in Chiapas. We are working with various groups to try to reconstruct what led to the massacre to gain a better understanding which hopefully will lead to peace and reconciliation (Please see paragraph below).

We also had a visit from Mariana, one of Angelica's nieces, who is leading our Center in Puebla. She was inspired to start the Center from her visits to Chiapas and we hope this visit will serve to reinvigorate her passion and energy. Pedro introduced us to a pastor of a local church in an indigenous community who is interested in bringing our courses to his church. Pedro and Dan attended the annual conf. of Presbyterian educators here in San Cristobal which also enabled us to make more contacts for our blossoming school. Finally, Dan, Angelica and Jacob have visited different churches each Sunday as well as a Christian pre-school that we hope will be Jacob's first formal educational experience. All this together with making our rental house into our family home. We are so thankful to God for opening this door for us to serve and are excited for what He will do through us as we open ourselves up to His will.

We are praying that more of you who read this blog will want to partner with us not only in prayer but also with finances. We need to raise another $500/month to enable us to cover our living and ministry expenses through the end of the year.

Rent for our house which also includes an office, library and classroom for our school: $250/month
utilities: $150/month
travel expenses: $150/month
promotional material for school: $50/month
living expenses for our family: $250/month
stipend for school coordinator: $150/month

Thank you for your consideration of partnering with us in this vision to support national missionaries/ministries serving the indigenous local church of Mexico. Once again our sending agency receiving donations is:

Palm Missionary Ministries, Inc.
1315 Camp Sano Ave.
Coral Gables, FL 33146-1165

Dios les bendiga!

(After posting this I found a recent devotional by Richard Hays on "Reconciliation" which is the ministry God is calling us to in Chiapas and here is an excerpt:

"The interesting thing about the word “reconciliation” in ordinary Greek usage is that it is not a “religious” term. That is to say, it does not appear in cultic contexts where people speak of seeking to appease God by offering sacrifices, nor does it have anything to do with cleansing guilt or receiving divine pardon for sins. Rather, it is a word drawn from the sphere of politics; it refers to dispute resolution. So one could speak of the diplomatic reconciliation of warring nations or, in the sphere of personal relationships, the reconciliation of an estranged husband and wife. (Paul uses the term that way in 1 Corinthians 7:11.) So the key insight here is that even where Paul uses the verb “reconcile” with God as its subject -- a remarkable paradigm shift -- he is speaking about overcoming alienation and establishing new and peaceful relationships. We can see this clearly in Romans 5, the other key passage where Paul uses reconciliation terminology: “. . . while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son” (Romans 5:10). God has taken the initiative to overcome our hostility and alienation from him and to restore us to peaceful relationship with himself."