God is so good!

Thank you all so much for your prayers for my Christmas Gathering I hosted last night. Let me just tell you, God is SO good. I was hoping that maybe 3 or 4 ladies would come and we had 7 not including me and another missionary friend! We had so much fun eating together, talking together, laughing together, playing games together, and my friend Jessica presented the gospel and what Christmas means to her. While no one prayed to receive Christ last night, she presented a powerful message and the Bible says that its words will not return void. I was looking for an open door to get together with this group again and the ladies actually brought up to me about having an English class in my apartment! I said okay, how about once a month and they said no, once a week! This is going to be a real challenge for me because we are often out of our part of town and busy with teams but God is so good in that He has provided this opportunity to meet with these ladies weekly. I am praying that through these English classes I will be able to further share with them the gospel and God's love.

Although sometimes times are tough, we are reminded again and again that we are exactly where God wants us to be for this season of our life. We thank you so much for your prayers dear friends and ask that you continue to lift us up to the Father as we are working here in Mexico. For me - as I am trying to juggle our groups and reach out the ladies in my apartment building and for Travis as he is juggling school, the groups, and is trying to find ways to reach out and build relationships with the men.

Thank you again dear friends and May God bless,

Danielle

God is so good!

Prayer request

Dearest friends, please pray as I prepare for this Women's Christmas Gathering on Friday night. There are so many things that need to come together. Please pray that the message of the gospel will be clear and that the ladies hearts and eyes will be opened to the truth. Pray that ladies COME and that they feel warm, welcome, and at home here and that they want to come BACK and here more about Jesus.

I can feel the enemy attacking on all fronts. Pray for me that I won't let Satan's many lies stand in my way. Pray that I won't be stressed ( yes, I realize a miracle must occur), that I won't be discouraged, and pray that I will be strong and take courage for many many years ago in the city of David in a little town called Bethlehem a SAVIOR was born!

The party begins at 7:30 pm on Friday evening ( this is 8:30 EST).

Much love,

Danielle

Alot to talk about . . . .

We have had so much going on I haven’t had time to blog. Here is an update of what we have been up to for the past few weeks.

We had our last English Club of the semester with the College Students at UNAM and had 2 new girls come. They are very interested in coming back and we hope to see them next semester.
Travis parents came for a visit and we enjoyed our time visiting with them and were able to do lots of touristy things we don’t have the chance to do very often. Also, our home church,

Brainerd Baptist bought 52 pairs of shoes for some children that a local church is trying to minister to. We had the privilege of going shopping with the pastor and his wife and mother in law to pick out the shoes for the kids. It was such a fun experience. Now they are all stacked in our living room waiting until their special Christmas program on December 20th to hand them out.

This past week, two of our sweet neighbor little girls brought us a dessert that they ( and I am sure their mom) had made us. It was so precious it almost made me cry!

Snow sledding in Mexico? That's right. In the Zocalo which is the cities square they have a huge ice skating rink set up as well as a snow hill, place to make snowmen, a snowball fighting room, and a snowmobiling course. Talk about fun!

Friday night, we had the opportunity to go with a local church to deliver Tortas ( a sandwich with beans, ham, mayonnaise, cheese, and jalapenos) and coffee to a local hospital to the people waiting outside the hospital to be seen or on family members. The church group had a small service and we were able to talk to several people about the gospel and one lady prayed to receive Christ! It was a really neat time and we hope to do this again.

Saturday of this week was the Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe here in Mexico. People travel on foot or by bicycle from all over the country to pay homage to the virgin and to celebrate her. They literally walk for miles and miles and weeks and weeks carrying pictures or statues of Mary in their arms and on their backs. We saw people everywhere on Friday and Saturday and there were fireworks going on all night long. It was so sad for us to think that people have such dedication to such a void religion. We can only pray that they will find the one who truly desires such respect and honor – Jesus Christ.

Today is Travis’ final for his Ethics class. He has been working so hard and studying away. I am so proud of him because he has worked hard and made A’s on all his papers for this semester! Please pray for him today as he takes his final. Also pray as he is gearing up to take TWO classes next semester – it will be a lot to juggle with our busy schedule.

This week will be busy meeting with pastors, getting things together for our teams in January and planning for when my parents come to visit. We are also working on filling up the empty dates on our calendar for next year. We have many teams coming next year but are praying for God to bring us even more. We want more teams so we can help more churches grow and tell more people about Jesus!

This Friday evening, December 18, I am having a “Christmas Gathering” for my neighbor ladies and some of my friends here in Mexico. Most of these ladies are not Christians. I am having food, a game or two, and my friend Jessica (whom is also a pastor’s wife here in Mexico) is going to come share what Christmas means to her with a specific evangelical thrust. Please pray for this gathering. Pray that ladies would come and that their hearts would be open to hearing the gospel and getting to know Travis and I better so that we might share more with them. Pray also for Jessica that God would give her the words to say and that she would present clearly the gospel in a very nonthreatening way so that they might not be turned off to the message of salvation but very open to hearing about the only One who brings hope and life.

Thanks so much for all of you who have blessed us with your prayers, encouragement, gifts to us and to our ministry, and gifts to Lottie Moon. We are so thankful for each and every one of you and could not be here if it were not for you.

God bless,

Travis and Danielle

Quick Update . . . .

Quick update . . . .

This past weekend, we attended a college ministry conference. It was a great time of worship and listening to what other ministers to Mexican youth and college

students had to say about college ministry.

Today, we had our last "English Club" of the year. We had two new students join us and had a great time fellowshipping with them. Please pray for us as we are continuing to try to build relationships with the college students here at UNAM and encourage them.

Ciao for now!

Blessings Abundant . . . .

Wow, it has been a long time since I have posted. We have had a lot going on but not a whole lot extremely exciting.


Tonight, Travis and I just got back from a long long day trip to meet with a pastor at his church whom we will be working with in the future. Currently, I am checking out Christmas music on I-tunes and gearing up for the season, listening to Tony Bennett " I'll be home for Christmas" and having a pity party because I will NOT be home for Christmas neither will I be heading out for some Black Friday shopping deals the day after tomorrow. Blessings abundant - both our parents, my brothers, and one dear friend will make it down to visit and we will be having Thanksgiving dinner here with all the other missionaries tomorrow but it just isn't the same. Then, I started having pity parties about all sorts of other things. It was then that I decided, in honor of the season, to make a list of all the things I was thankful for specifically here in Mexico and share them with you.

So, here it goes.


We regularly experience a language barrier - This may seem to be a discouragement instead of a blessing. At times it is. However, I am looking to the positive side of things today and opening myself to a new realm of possible "joys." We do speak Spanish. It is not perfect Spanish with a beautiful accent but it is Spanish. However, some days I feel like all I want to do is SCREAM because I can't communicate as fast or as much as I want to - this is the tough part - However, this is probably a good thing. I have to really think about each word I am saying which makes it a lot easier for me to catch myself before saying unkind words or making derrogatory statements - blessing and a curse - what can I say? I am thankful.

We get to eat authentic Mexican food - Many of you may think you have had the real deal. You may suppose that Amigo's restaurant counts as authentic Mexican cuisine because it is run by hispanics or some of you may even consider Taco Bell on your list of international cuisines. However, until you have tried Irma's Chiles Enogadas, Lolita's Enchilada's Suizas, Hilda's rice and beans, or fresh tortillas straight off the griddle with lime, salt, and a dab of salsa - You have no idea what the real deal is - and I feel sorry for you. In Mexico City, we get to eats lots of yummy ( and fattening) Mexican food and boy do Mexicans know how to cook it up right!

We live in a city filled with beautiful history and culture - Just tonight as we were driving out to the church we were visiting, we passed the ruins of two huge Mayan pyramids, a couple of several century old churches, and a sign pointing us to where some ancient aquaducts reside. We are priviledged to live in such a city where every day is a learning experience as we get to see many parts of history and participate in learning a new culture.

We get to recognize daily how blessed we are - It is so easy being from such a great and wonderful country filled with all kinds of wealth to never realize the true meaning of "having little" or "roughing it." It is so easy for me to think that I am doing without when my hot water doesn't work or when they don't have canned biscuits at the grocery store. And then God directs us to a home that has no running water at all or where the people are struggling on a daily basis just to have food on the table. Some of the people here in Mexico are among some of the poorest I have ever seen. We have been in multiple homes that have no water, no real floor, no real . . . ANYTHING! Many many many times, I have felt compeled to complain about our situation to my husband and he ( and God) gently remind me of how much we have and how blessed we really and truly are.

The blessings just keep going on and on but this is all I have for now. Please pray for us this week as we are away from our families during the holidays.

The week with Brainerd . . . .

Last week our home church, Brainerd Baptist came all the way from Chattanooga, Tennessee to work with us here in Mexico. We worked in three little pueblos outside Mexico City. It was such an awesome week! We had nightly “revivals” where the Hispanic pastor at Brainerd, Carlos, preached each night. We had VBS nights for over 250 kids total throughout the week and did Bible Stories, crafts, games, songs, snacks, and movies. We did “gospel saturation” during the day and gave out gospels to the people in the community. We went to the homeless ministry and fed over 400 homeless men and women. We saw several come to Christ and made several good contacts in the community for the churches to follow up with. We were loved on by the people and walked away feeling like we were the ones who received the greatest blessing of the week.

There were also some firsts for groups we experienced personally with this church this week . . .

- Hiked through the woods in the dark to get to the church we would be working at

- Spent the first night of our stay in the dark when the power went out

- Held VBS one night in a home that you had to hike through the woods to get to. The home had no running water – the toilet was flushed with a bucket and the shower was a garbage can filled with water

- Trekked up and down MOUNTAINS to deliver gospels door to door

- Crammed 16 people into our 8 passenger van to go to lunch one day

- Were prepared and ate all kinds of wonderful Mexican food until we couldn’t eat any more

- Stayed an entire week under the generosity of a Mexican lady in her home

- Learned to “praise dance.”

- Watched Veggie Tales and Hermie movies over and over again in Spanish

- I held a one week old baby at the Homeless shelter

- And the list goes on . . . .

We had a wonderful wonderful week and we cannot thank Brainerd Baptist Church enough for sending this group down to work with us or the group enough for coming! We love you BBC!