Once again, time has escaped me! I find myself running around everywhere like a crazy person and it is hard to sit down and write these updates sometimes! (Yes, Katie does run out of words or has a rough time putting them in order at times....hard to believe, hey?) The good news tho is that i have a friend that went along on the trip into the Copper Canyon and he wrote an AWESOME UPDATE and to be honest it says just what i wanted to write, but better than i could! So i requested that he "guest write" on my blog. :) His name is Ryan Thiessen and his blog is the one that i refered you to for our "tentative schedule" we had on the trip. ANYWAYS, without further ado......Ryan's words from our trip.
As you can tell by reading this post, we made it back, safe and sound with many adventures and stories of how God was at work. We traveled in a caravan of 4 motorcycles, 2 quads, and a Tahoe loaded with equipment and about a 1,000 Bibles and covered about 700 miles altogether. God kept us safe, with no major mishaps or accidents...the odd bruise and a bike or two may have taken a spill but nothing major!
I hope to get some pics posted soon but in the mean time I just wanna share a couple of neat examples of how we saw God moving. Our second night we found ourselves in the town of Chinipas, where we have been in the past. It's a hard town with no evangelical church, just the local Catholic church. Though the people are warm and friendly, we have always felt that there is a different kind of feeling in this town, with many obvious affects of the drug trade. In the past it has been hard to set up a film, not getting the necessary permission to do it in a public place. But this year, God really opened the door. Within in minutes of talking with the Comisario, the town mayor, we had not only permission that evening and the evening later on in the week when we would be on the way back, but he said he would make arrangements with the Comisario of the next town we were going to as they were good friends. And so we were able to set up in the town square. I'll share a little later how God moved the second night we were there.
From Chinipas we set out to an neighboring town called Temoris to work again with a pastor we've gotten to know well over the past years and each year I've come to appreciate more and more. He's more of a quiet, almost timid pastor but the passion he has to reach out especially to the small villages around his town is very evident. Temoris itself is located high up in the mountains, at about a mile in elevation. The first night we were there the pastor took us deep into the valley on one side of the town, not very far away but it took us about an hour to make it down the road. With no electricity we were the only attraction in town that night! I have to say I haven't seen the stars like I did that night for a long time! The next night, the pastor took is in the opposite direction down another valley, even a little further away. This was an even more remote village, once again with no electricity. It was inhabited by local natives with whom the pastor had also been working with over the past years. This was a particularly chilly evening, probably somewhere between 10 to 15 degrees and these people where showing up in barefoot sandals! (the only footwear they had...) I was sitting there in many layers, a toque, socks, shoes, gloves, barely keeping warm myself!
From Temoris we went to a town called Urique in the Urique canyons, one of the deeper valleys in the Copper Canyon area. The road arrives literally at the canyon edge and the town is at the very bottom. It's about a vertical mile from top to bottom and it took about an hour of back and forth driving to make it from top to bottom...25 kilometers to travel that vertical mile! But we were once again able to work with another wonderful pastor who took us to several villages surrounding the town and share the Gospel with them as well as hand out Bibles.
From there we backtracked and made our way to Chinipas once again where the final showing took place. The mayor had made arrangements for another showing in the town square and had also spread the word. As we were setting up, though there were people around, there wasn't the usual crowd coming together as there often was. As we were setting up, for whatever reason God had put it in our hearts to pray specifically for the men, that the men would be drawn in and come. However, at the point we had decided we would start, there wasn't a single person in the benches. But as soon as we pressed the play button, the people started to trickle in to the point where the seats were close to full. And sure enough among the children, there were more men than usual who were intently listening, some inconspicuously on the edge, others right in the center of it all. At the end, one of our team members shared and invited those who wanted to respond and there was one man in particular praying to receive the Lord as his Savior. He came up in the end as we invited those who wanted a Bible or a pair of reading glasses. When asked he came up and was asked if he wanted a pair of of reading glasses he emphatically replied that no, he had come for a Bible! Praise God for these changed lives! And now we can only pray for these new believers and for a town like Chinipas in particular, that God would raise up a church in this town!
Though we didn't give out all the Bibles, there are many more who now have a copy in their hands. Pray that the truth would grab a hold of them and change their hearts! After sharing the Jesus film in eight different locations, pray that those who made a decision to follow Christ would be encouraged and built up in their faith. Pray also for those pastors that we worked with, that they too would be encouraged in their work!
I'm hoping to get some pics posted soon so there is a little bit of visual accompaniment to these stories. Also, thanks so much for your prayers along the way...the preparation of hearts through prayer is as important as sharing the truth of the Gospel! We could see God working in many ways, and we owe a lot of that to you!
-Ryan Thiessen
Thank you to those who have been staying in touch, and reading my blog and for everyone who prayed for us as we headed out into drug cartel areas....in all honesty I knew that God had us there for a reason and I never once felt unsafe! Crazy, hey? Goes to show that the safest place to be is in the Lord's will...
Ok, this is already kinda long so I will close for now....
