Even during the downpour, Pastor Asisclo and another pastor poured cement columns for our garden ramada. They used 6 meter tin roofing for the mold for the columns which when they took them off have a unique look to them. I like it! Those close to the house were relatively easy as they took their hand made ladders to reach up to pour the cement down. But those that were not close to anything became a challenge. Finally they tied two ladders together with a piece of wood between them for an free standing ladder. I should have taken a picture of that.
They will go tomorrow and cut the trees for the main cross beams. Our garden class room is 30 feet by 32 feet but really not a rectangle. When they carved out the garden area I told them when they came across large boulders to curve around them so the back wall is sort of a long "S" shape. At the top of this area is a mature tree that overlooks the garden. Then we planted, before I left Mexico, all kinds of tropical plants and flowers and I was pleasantly surprised when I came back to a full jungle but colorful look. We had planted vines to curl up the columns but I will need to buy new plants for that as they aren't quite where they should be. The trailing vines and flowers though do protect the side of the mountain we cut out and I pray that with all the soaking rain we don't have a landslide in my garden.
One of our supporters in Prescott, Arizona has donated greenhouse poly to cover the whole ramada. Our first professor, Roberto Morales has gone to the states this week and will bring the poly down along with four or five garden tables. I pray he has had a safe journey up with the hurricane and all. He will bring it back down right away so we can install that over bamboo slates spaced a couple of inches apart so the vines can grow through them. Pastor Damien from Huatulco is buying the bamboo for us that one of our supporters has helped pay for along with the columns, etc. They will have to bring it up in a three ton truck. We will varnish the bamboo with clear acrylic so it will last longer in this kind of climate.
Our next Pastors Bible School class is scheduled for September the 11th through the 14th. Garrett Jackson one of the few Americans we plan to use as teachers will teach this class. He was director of the Bible School in Baja for many years and both he and his wife taught classes. They have the same vision we have for training and equipping the indigenous pastors so we will have healthy Spirit led churches. He will teach the class on hermeneutics but we will call it Understanding and Interpreting the Bible. Since most Indigenous pastors speak a dialect as their first language and Spanish is their second language they need to first learn what the Spanish words mean in the scripture. Most of these pastors only have a third grade education in a public school. (Yes we now have a high school in Lachiguiri but it has only been open three years.)
The youth are anxious for another event. School started earlier this week but they want at least one spiritual event a month. We ran out of Bibles so need to purchase more. The revival of the youth was birthed from much prayer and fasting on the part of the women from all three churches in town. Some missionary friends living in Squaw Valley California who worked in Mexico before they married gave us copies of Dr. Haviland's Creation DVD series and I have given them to the three churches so they can use them for their youth to counter the evolution teaching they are getting in the schools here. I believe God will use the young people of Lachiguiri to spread the gospel to many of the surrounding villages here in the mountains and beyond. Our final editing of our Bible School classes will have the same type format as Dr. Havilands DVD's with graphics, scripture, video etc.
Baltazar, a graduate of the La Ventosa Bible School from Lachiguiri finished his internship for pastoring the end of July and planned to come back to Lachiguiri and work with our Children's ministry and youth ministry throughout all our 27 communities where we have missions but he hasn't arrived and his parents are worried. He has not contacted them nor is he in the village he was pastoring. We are concerned. Please pray we will hear from him soon and that all is well.
So many things are planned for the next coming months. A Children's fiesta, the La Ventosa Pastors Conference, the many projects of the recording studio, including taping the scripture in Zapotec, children's music, puppet stories, editing the pastors school classes ,etc. We need your continued prayer and financial support. You are a part of this team. Thanks so much. You can see a couple of samples of our audio recordings on the www.ampbs.org site. Click on downloads. It will ask you to log in. Type in Agape in username, then type in Mission for password. Be sure to capitalize the M in Mission. Then click on Login. We have several samples. One is the puppet story "The Turtle Story" I wrote this little story. It is voice acted in Spanish and you will notice sound effects. It needs some more editing because we didn't have the correct sound monitors but this is just a sample. We will also add Israel telling the story of Jesus Calming the sea in Zapotec from our scripture translation in Zapotec. Again we added sound effects. Then we have the first lesson of our Bible School Class taught by Dr. Roberto Morales on the Integrity of the Pastor in audio only.
Please continue to write letting me know how you and your churches are. Your e-mails are such a blessing, especially since I am spending more time back in the village. Being cooped up inside the house all this last week or so, I spent one day pulling out old letters when I first came down and felt the love of my many friends knowing that you are praying for me. E-mail is faster.
God bless,
Sheri
You may send Mission support to:
Agape Mission Projects
5126 W. Olive Ave. # 183
Glendale, AZ 85302-4209
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