As I look back over the year, we are so blessed by the opportunities God has given us to serve. As always we have kept very busy trying to serve the Lord.
We made it back to Mexico in March 2023 after Marty’s dad passed away. We are so thankful that Marty had the opportunity to help take care of him in his last months here on earth. We arrived back at the ranch in time for a mission group from Aurora Baptist church and it was such a blessing to us and just what we needed to recharge after having that tough season of loss.
We hit the ground running in March and were able to construct a playground for the small children of the camp workers just in time for Easter camp. What a blessing it was for us to see it full of young children during camp. We also helped build an obstacle course to be used by the campers for fun and to teach them valuable life skills, like patience, endurance, and teamwork.
Marty was able to work on a Ford Van for the mission in Los Lirios that they had just bought, that had many problems. This may not sound like spiritual work, but their first trip when he finished it was to Monterrey, to attend a funeral of one of their members. Most of the church was able to attend and show their support for the family. It is such a blessing for us to be a blessing to others and to see others start serving from our example.
Marty has had many opportunities to preach at Mission Bautista Los Lirios this year and was invited to go on a trip with Pastor Pablo and Brother Selerino to Puebla and Veracruz Mexico. To be honest, he didn’t want to go, this was out of his comfort zone. This was a 16 hour trip, one way in a car with two men that didn’t speak English, but with a lot of prayer and Michelle telling him to go, he went, and what a blessing it was to him.
Pastor Pablo, Seledrino and Marty
We enjoyed getting to visit with a dear friend who now pastors a church in Pennsylvania and he brought a mission group to the ranch. We really enjoyed making new friends and prayer partners.
We are very exited that we have started a discipleship with 3 different families this year. Our discipling is going very well and We are so thankful that God has given us people to disciple. It is so refreshing to see them wanting to learn more and wanting to serve the Lord. The people are eager to learn about God and His plan for us. It is so encouraging to see them start to reproduce.
We have done some projects for our friends and other locals in our village as well as installing a hot water heater on the church parsonage so that a missionary could use the parsonage.
We had the blessing of helping with a vacation bible school at Los Lirios, in August. We were able to help make some of the craft projects and also, with the help of some of our friends in Texas, supply some prizes for the kids. We want to thank all of you who have donated toys and games, they have been used for several vacation bible schools with different churches here in Mexico.
God has blessed us by allowing us to complete some repairs and building projects here at Rancho la Paloma this year. We replaced some broken windows, installed a new window in a dorm room that was lacking a window, re-weld a dorm door so that it will close completely. We have built a guard rail at the Chapel after a teenager fell off the porch of it earlier in the year and broke his arm.
Marty and Mike successfully rewired the main transformer for the camp and installed proper breaker boxes and disconnect switches.
We built and installed new doors on the Chapel bathrooms.
We have had the opportunity to help local pastors as they help people in their community. It is so humbling to see how little others have.
We are also thankful to God for allowing us to get our Temporary Residency cards for Mexico. It was not an easy process but, in the end, God came through as He always does. Huge praise is that we were able to get residency for 4 years and that includes the permits for our vehicles – which means we have 4 years without having to go thru any paperwork processes!!! With the residency, we now have a Mexico Banking account which allows us to pay our bills much easier and other benefits of money transfers as well.
And with our residency we were able to purchase land and we hope to build a house in 2024 and open up new ministry opportunities. We are praying God provides the money in 2024 for building the house.
Marty is thankful for the opportunity to preach at a Mission Conference in Los Lirios and for meeting new pastors and their families.
For Thanksgiving, We invited some of our dearest friends over, who have been a huge blessing in our lives, to share the day with us. I really enjoy Thanksgiving. It is a time to not only eat fantastic food but also take time to reflect on the past year and to see how God has blessed.
It took 2 photos to get us all on thanksgiving.
We are thankful to all of you that support us in whatever you do. It is all important and cherished by us.
5 Talents for Christ 