Tour of the Mountains

As many of you may have read we had a very powerful earthquake a couple of weeks ago. I had headed back up to Lachiguiri as there were a few things I wanted to get done before Garett Jackson, the director of our Bible College for remote indigenous pastors showed so we could go to mountains with Baltazar to introduce them both to the pastor and churches we cover in the mountains and set up dates for Baltazar to take the pastor's school to the remote areas.
The earthquake seemed to go on and on and got stronger. I am a Californian so at first I just thought oh, another earthquake and continued with what I was doing but soon I realized it was not going away so I finally headed for the door frame where it is supposed to be safest. It is part of the same San Andres fault I lived near in California. This one was felt all the way to Mexico City, Oaxaca City, all through the mountains where we go and clear down to the state of Chiapas. But there were no deaths and very little damage. One small adobe outdoor kitchen crumbled in Lachiguiri and one unoccupied house in one of the remote villages we went through.

Our plan was to share our plan with the churches and pastors throughout the region and set up dates for classes. Baltazar who graduated over a year ago at the La Ventosa Bible College will be working with the classes. They taught him well at La Ventosa, as he is so willing to work. Even though we were going on dusty dirt roads he came early just to wash my car. You only have to show him what you want done one time and the next day he already has the car packed and ready for the next day's activities. He is always pleasant. What a God send!

The first day we drove through an area we are putting off scheduling until after their coffee harvest. We stopped and chatted with some of the pastors and found them receptive. Then we passed over to the Mije area and scheduled our first class in Coatlan which will start this next Tuesday. There were four churches with a number of leaders who will be taking the class. From there we drove on to San Jose where there are two intern pastors wanting the classes. Since they were closer to Santa Isabel we hoped to link the two towns together for classes. But the main pastor in Santa Isabel is in the middle of building a new sanctuary and he wants to wait so we are trying to contact the pastors in San Jose so they can attend in Coatlan. But then San Jose is also expanding their church as they have grown to double their capacity even without a regular pastor here. Everywhere we went the churches have grown. Revival is prevalent throughout our 27 communities here.

We spent the night at the pastors home in Santa Isabel and they asked Baltazar to preach that night. Both Garett and I were surprised at what a fantastic speaker he is. And he kept his sermon within the cultural context of our indigenous people. We then scheduled classes for four missions around Ixcuintepec. We drove back down to San Miguel in time for their youth service. Baltazar preached again. The next day we visited all the surrounding villages spending time to just fellowship and decide where the classes should start. Some of the pastors will have to travel at least a half hour each way but it didn't seem to be a major problem. So we now have scheduled classes up until our next pastors classes in April in Lachiguiri that we record and video tape.

Garett and Joel are now starting the editing of Mario Enrique's class and we hope to have our first videos ready soon too. Both Garett and I will be spending more time getting our updates for the classes on our web page. Garett is also translating our pages into Spanish. We also see a need to have more workers like Baltazar available and a plan for how other missionaries can use our program with their remote villages. True, we are learning as we go but God is guiding us and helping to put it all together. This is a vision God gave me almost ten years ago.

There is so much more going on but will try to bring you up to date on these other things as they happen.

Keep this project in your prayers. We so thank those who have caught the vision to help support this project. God always seems to help with the extra expenses through those of you who both give regularly but also others of you who have started giving here and there. Without each of you being a part of this ministry we could never accomplish our part. We are a team, you and I, including those of you who can only hold us up in your prayers. Prayer is our most powerful tool. Oh yes, we gave away 48 Bibles on this trip and could have given away at least that many more. We only give out Bibles to those who have never had a Bible before and the pastor must give us a list of those receiving them and their signature. We are able to buy them in volume so far at $4 dollars each.

Thanks,

Sheri Burk