Hello Church, Jeff Smith here,
Just wanted to let you all know that we arrived home safely Sunday morning around 11am, about 12 hours later than planned due to delays at the Atlanta airport. Thanks for all your prayers for our travels home.
I also thought I would give you a short wrap up for the week. We had on our team 3 doctors and one dentist. They saw a total of about 135 patients, children and adults, in 3 days. We held 3 clinics in the towns or rancheros of Caliche, El Jaugey and El Jaral. We handed out the Gospel of John to all who entered the clinics.
Please pray especially for a family in the town of Caliche that we have been building a relationship with since last July. At the end of the day in Caliche we asked the mother of the family, Clemintina, if she would be interested in holding a Bible study in her home. She said yes but she would need to talk to husband, and as we were talking he walked up from the house. We were able to share the gospel with him and ask him also about the Bible study, they both were very interested an told us they could have a Bible study in their home any night but Saturday. Along with our partners at the Emmanuel Church in Leon we will try to get this started as soon as possible. This is very exiting because this could be the start of a house church, if it the Lord's will. Please pray for the harvest of the seeds we have been sowing.
It's hard to express in the words of this blog just how much progress we have made in this very dark and lost place in Mexico. But the Lord is opening doors and we are right where he wants to be. Please pray that we will see a New Testament church started in this area and that then they will multiply into even more churches. That is is the desire of our hearts, to bring more into the Kingdom of our Lord.
Thanks for all your continued support of our Acts 1:8 challenge in our uttermost. Please continue to pray for these people, that the Lord will open their eyes and remove the dark clouds that seem to be over this area. Remember that it all has to start with prayer and it's the most you can do, not the least.
On mission with Him,
Jeff Smith
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Medical Missions Union de San Antonio, Jalisco, Mexico - Wrap-Up
Friday, March 07, 2008
Medical Missions Union de San Antonio - Friday
Hola Lynwood Bautista Iglesia,
Things have went very well this week and we have been able see to the Lord at work and have felt the prayers coming from all of you prayer warriors at home.
Yesterday, we went to visit the city of San Juan de los Lagos which is home to the shrine to the virgin of San Juan de los Lagos. This is basically a temple where the people worship a doll/idol that the people believe brought back to life a 4 year old girl who died in a circus show in the late 1600s. Each year approximately 8 million people from around Mexico make a journey to this temple. The whole towns economy is based on this idol and the millions of people that come every year to visit. For some people, they walk from their hometowns and it can take up to one month to complete the journey. Outside of the temple, multiple vendors are selling small baby doll idols, rosaries, and crufixes and other goods. Inside the temple, we got to see idol worship firsthand. These people are lost and need to hear the gospel of Jesus. When I was standing at the front of the temple watching the people bow down to worship this doll, all I could think of was Ephesians 6:12, that our struggle is not against flesh and blood but the against the rulers, against the authorities (the priest of the temple), against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. This was the best way I could describe the inside of the temple as they have the location of the doll at the front at center and the crufix of Jesus off to the side. Continue to pray that God will work a miracle in this region of Mexico.
Remember us in prayer as we travel back to Cape Girardeau. We will see you on Sunday.
Hasta luego,
Senor Miguel
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Medical Missions Union de San Antonio - Thursday
Hola amigos de Lynwood,
Yesterday, we set up our medical clinic at El Jaral. We were indoors at a building that is used by the government to have a health clinic every month. This ranchero was much more spread out than the ranchero that we visited the day before. We saw 18 patients total. We had to walk about 1 mile to get the key to the building, when we got to the persons casa, she was not there but her teenage son was there and after we talked to him he agreed to go with us to open up the building so we could have our clinic. As always, God continues to provide when we trust in him and continue to pray. The teenage boy that I mention above was somewhat rough, he had several facial piercings (some were definitely homemade) and dressed like he wanted to be a gang member. It was suprising to me that in this remote part of Mexico that we would see someone like but we should remember him in our prayers. He did not give us any trouble during our clinic. The view was beautiful from our clinic on the hillside.
Today, we are going to visit San Juan de los Lagos. We will get to experience first hand the lostness of the people of this region as they worship the virgin of San Juan. Some of our members who have been previously describe this experience as Jesus needing to come and run off the money changers from the temple.
Te hablo pronto,
Senor Miguel
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Medical Mission Union de San Antonio - Wednesday
Hello Church, El Jefe here,
Yesterday we went to EL Jaugey and set up our medical clinic. We did not have a building to work in at this ranchero. So we set up tents, and all three doctors worked together side by side under our portable canopy. We were outside yesterday and it did get somewhat windy but we survived. We saw 25 patients. We visited with our contact in this community named Julia. When she came into our temporary clinic, I asked her if she had any medical problems and she replied "I am just too old," we all had a good laugh. She was happy to see our team again.
Please continue to pray for our team today including our translators (Rene and Felipe) as we go out into El Jarel to have another clinic today. Pray for the opportunity for us to present the gospel to the people of this community. Pray that our presence will continue to be salt and light to this region of Mexico. The people of the community are asking other residents about us and we know that the Lord is going to reap a harvest in this region.
Tu amigos en Union,
For the El Jefe, Senor Miguel
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Medical Missions, Union de San Antonio, Tuesday
Hello Church,
Thank you for being patient.
We arrived in Union de San Antonio Saturday afternoon and our travels went well. We went to church Sunday morning with our partner church Emmanuel Baptist Church in Leon, GTO. We had a wonderful time of worship with the people there. We purchased our medicines for the medical missions that afternoon. We organized our medicines and got ready for the week the rest of the evening. (And of course we had ice cream)
Monday we went to a community named Caliche for our first medical mission. As soon as we got of our vans we were met by the mayor of this town, and he asked how could he help us. We told him we wanted to set up a medical clinic out by the park. He suggested we use some rooms that he knew of that were open. This was great, because it was very windy. These rooms were directly behind the local Catholic church and were actually property of the Catholic church in this town. After setting up our clinic, we had a slow start but after the first hour, everyone started to come to see us. When we were finished, we saw 95 people.
We visited with a local family that has shown interest in our message and could potentially be a family of peace and the beginning of a bible study in this community.
Today, we are headed to Jaugey for another medical clinic. Please continue to pray daily for our efforts because we definitely saw God´s hand at work yesterday. We have visitied this community previously, and we hope to have an opportunity to share the gospel message directly with the people of Jaugey today.
El Jefe
Jeff
Saturday, March 01, 2008
What were you doing at 1:30am?
The Mexico Medical mission team left Lynwood parking lot @ 1:30am Saturday morning off to the 'ends of the earth'!
Please pray for them this week as they minister in the surrounding ranches of Union de San Antonio. Team members are: Jeff Smith, Blaine Russell, Mickey Roper, Vonnie Robison, Byron Aden, Michael Clippard, Steve Smith, Suzi Smith, James Hoffman, Linda Hoffman, Ermalee Smith, Ted Guffey, Kim Fuller, Bob Stillwell, Cheryl Stillwell, and Hank Mellone.
Check back through-out the week for updates from the field on their progress.
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