This past week in Veracruz

Hello guys! I'm trying to keep you updated more so here's the official email update for our team =]

Our time in Veracruz has been awesome! It seems like this outreach is flying by and crawling at the same time right now haha. This week, we've ministered in parks, in a slum, in a prison, in a hospital and in a few schools! We saw many people come to Christ and we prayed for many others for different things in their lives. We were not able to speak directly about God in the public schools, but we did a number of our dramas and taught them about values and in a good handful of occasions got to teach them in-depth principles of God's heart, which rocked!

When we went to the hospital we found out that only one visitor was allowed inside at a time, so relatives would stay and sleep outside the hospital for MONTHS at a time waiting for their turns to go in and visit. So we went and entertained them and talked/ prayed with them.

At the prison, we did a bunch of our dramas and gave a gospel message, and then prayed for people to accept Jesus, for physical healing, and for any other problems or whatever that they needed prayer for in their lives. After that we were invited to face the inmates in 3 games of volleyball (muahaha =]) So we divided up into 3 teams and my team won the first game (just a fun side fact haha. So much fun.)

On another note, our contacts here have been amazing. They have really stolen our hearts with their love and kindness. We had told the local Church that we were looking for housing and they hooked us up with a big house for free!
On Saturday we baptized three of the students in our school for the first time which is super exciting! They have all been growing a ton and wanted to publicly declare their trust in God.

That's the main update for you guys, but here's a cool testimony that I think you'll really enjoy!

On Sunday, we did some ministry in a park nearby the very first Church in the Americas. After we did our dramas and shared the gospel, an 18 year old boy named Moses came up to us. He said he didn't know why he was there, but something told him to come. He was really nervous and was trembling as we talked with him. He told us he was in the religion of Santa Muerte (Holy Death). He had an idol around his neck and also a big one in his backpack. We talked with him and asked him if he wanted prayer. He refused at first, saying he was afraid. He said the idol gave him power and told him what to do. After a while, he accepted prayer and we prayed and took authority over the evil spirits controlling him. He then said he felt more at peace. When we prayed with him to receive Jesus in his heart, he said he couldn't repeat the words "Lord Jesus". We told him to take off the idol on his neck and the backpack he was wearing, and suddenly he was able to pray the "sinners prayer" with us. It was really cool to see the transformation. He still has lots of hard decisions to make about his lifestyle, but he said he was no longer afraid.

--Praise our God, who breaks every chain by His love and kindness!

-Jeshua

wowowowowow this is not how I expected.

Wowww sooo much has happened here!

I first want to apologize, I have not (as you have been able to see) been able to keep up this blog in a long time, especially during the outreach.

Life here has been so crazy busy.

We are currently 4 weeks into outreach, and we just switched locations to Veracruz to help a church out here. For the last 4 weeks we have been in a town called Xochimilco with an organization called MegaCities. We have been working to partner with the local churches in outreaches, teaching them our dramas and equipping them to continue going out and doing evangelism in their city as we leave. We made a LOT of great friends there who were really hard to say goodbye to. We saw around 200 people come to know Jesus during the 4 weeks we were in Xochimilco, PRAISE GOD! But 3 of the dearest to our hearts have come from these three teen guys: Omar, Chris, and Deter. They hung out across the street from where we were staying all the time and we invested in becoming good friends with them. We never pushed anything on them like the former groups who have been there before, but we invested in being friends and inviting them to things like bonfires or hearing our testimonies. We were praying for them intensely and the second to last night we were there, both Omar and Chris gave their lives to God. Omar had never even accepted prayer from us before, but suddenly he was asking for prayer for him and everything in his life and he WANTED to accept Jesus in his life. The very last night, Deter joined them and chose to accept Jesus in his heart. We're praying that God takes care of those seeds and tends to them to help them grow.

We have one video update so far: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBFwgNSi0-o, and we should have one more coming that I can post on here. Other than that, I'll record myself on my camera talking about some more detailed bits of our trip so far. Two testimonies that have been really shaping for me this outreach:

1) One Sunday morning, I got to speak at “Cristo te Ama” church about manifesting God’s love wherever you go, and how that applies to their heart for their city. I did my best to call out their loving, servant-hearted character and challenge them to use that to reach their community. When I got done speaking, I asked people to come forward for prayer who wanted to be commissioned to going out and demonstrating God's love in Xochimilco city. About 25-30 people all came forward to receive Holy Spirit to fill them and to be commissioned to go into their city purposefully demonstrating God's love to people around them.

2) One day our team was eating at a popular taco stand, and I was talking with our team's translator/ local pastor's son named Elio. As we were talking I looked over and saw a homeless man sitting down and I felt like we should go over and talk with him. Elio was hesitant at first but agreed and we walked over to start talking with the man. We found out his name was José, and he had been drinking. He has an addiction to alcohol and was being very hard on himself, saying that he doesn’t know why he screws up his life like this. I got to start speaking worth and purpose into José’s life, and encourage him along with Elio. I started doing most of the talking, but then it switched more and more as Elio gained so much compassion for this man, that he took over the entire conversation and started ministering God's love to Him. We got to pray with José and bless him with buying him some food (that he didn't feel like he deserved) from the taco stand). The best part was talking with Elio afterwards and hearing how God melted his heart for not only José, but everyone else in his similar position. Now Elio has more compassion than ever before for the everyday people of his community.

__________

again, I apologize so much for not being able to update this much more often, but I will do the best I can to fill you in on all that has happened!

Thank you all so much for your thoughts and prayers!

God's love,

~Jeshua