Life on the Vine: August Update
Friends and Partners in Ministry, we have made it home to Piedras and have hit the ground running!
Leaving town in May while school was still in session and making it back in August just a week before classes start again makes it seem as though we had no "summer"! Aleana spent the first few days playing for hours with every friend & toy she had almost forgotten about! How excited we were to be back alongside the Lord's work here and encouraged to see the growth God has been bringing these past 3 months to VBM's outreach programs! We still are averaging 15-20 youth in our thursday home group that meets and our youth have now opened another new group that meets in a fairly large privitized neighborhood in town on tuesdays which had 12 attend this week! VBM's Outreach in Cenizos neighborhood with Roman and Karla continues to minister to and meet the needs of 35 consistent children. We were able to do a special saturday outreach there with some friends from near Houston and received 75 children who were blessed with bags of school supplies. Another VBM special saturday outreach in the "2000" neighborhood received 110 children at Sylvia's home. Thank you to Friendswood Community Church and Faith Community Church over near Houston who blessed each child with bags full of school supplies while we shared with them a meal and the good news of Christ. Thanks also to our missionary friends The Mercers in Quemado Texas at the Cornerstone Children's Ranch. They received LOTS of good used donated school supplies and called us to come out and fill up last week! PRAISE GOD for His timely provisions!
God led us to take up a special offering for and pray over a mother and her teenage daughter. Her son Javier and brother to the daughter is 18 and in the hospital in the final stages of lukemia. He can no longer be cared for at home and was being sent the next day to Monterrey (5 hours away) for special care unavailble in our smaller city. They were both heartbroken and cried out to the Lord for comfort and direction. They both accepted Christ that day. Please join us in praying for Javier. Sylvia continues to visit & pray with the mother and daughter when they come home on the weekends.
Our local congregation Nueva Creacion where we attend church has seen substantial growth during our absence as well! Averaging 200 in attendance, there are 21 new families and the 12th year church anniversary was just celebrated as God brought an encouraging and annointed word to us all weekend. Gilberto our Pastor & Alex have now been friends for 23 years! As well the church's christian school has just started back another school year with 110 in enrollment. Over the summer there were changes in the administration & staff at the school. Please pray for the new team of teachers, directors and staff at the school as they teach and minister to the children & their families. Pray for all teachers in the now 5 christian schools in Piedras to come to know Christ in such a deep and personal way that it greatly impacts the children they are charged with to teach this school year.
VBM's land for our future youth and children's outreach facilities is paid in full! Alex has been investigating prices on materials needed for the various upcoming stages of constructionon the property. As God provides the necessary funding we will be able to "title" the land ($800) which will then allow us to survey the land ($500) which then allows us to take these items to the office of "rural planning" to petition for the necessary building permits ($5-700). We are trusting in God to meet all of our needs according to His riches in glory! As we look for ways to grow our ministry support to meet this need , please agree along with us in prayer for God to raise up the needed monthly partners so our other programs are not afftected (Outreach & Scholarship needs).
Elliott has now been walking since June and running everywhere! We are enjoying him a great deal! Aleana just started school and goes from m-f from 8-2 at the Baptist David Livingstone school. She came home the first day and said "guess what, I have A LOT ALOT A LOT A LOTA LOTa new friends!!!!!!!" We have been invited to speak and share at the school since our annual teachers conference in March and are excited that Aleana has the opportunity to go to school and to be so close (across the street from us!). In September look for our "Year in Review" report from our annual board meeting held in Tennessee this summer back in July.
Clinging to the Vine, La familia aburto: Alejandro, Diana, Aleana & Elliott
Vine and Branches Ministries Piedras Negras, Mexico