Arriving in BAJA
Well, we are in Baja Mexico right now... in a small town called Vicente Guerrero just north of a town called San Quintin. We are at an amazing Christian facility that was birthed out of an orphanage... the ministry is called Foundation For His Ministry.
They have a bible school here, a hospital, more than 70 children in the orphanage, the largest fire department in central Baja, as well as many other ministries. It is a really neat place.
We are working with the Bible Institute here. The students here don't have to pay tuition and are essentially missionaries in training. They are all individually selected for their character and God's calling in their lives. Each one of them is a native indigenous Mexican from one of the more than 170 or so idigenous peoples from Mexico. They are here at this facility to be trained for two years and equipped to go back into their native communities to evangelize and disciple their peoples. They all speak their own dialect as well as Spanish... so many of their former students here are now in their native communities as missionaries and pastors, some even hoping to translate the Bible into their own language. Many of the graduates from the school face extraordinarily harsh persecution when they return home to their communities... we have already heard many stories of people being killed for their faith after leaving the Bible Institute.
SO... yeah, if you want to pray for us here that would be great. There are two different classes here... 1st year ("1st Grade") and 2nd year ("2nd Grade"). I am helping teach 1st & 2nd Thessalonians to the 2nd graders through the Inductive Method over the 1st two weeks. We teach 4 hours, from 9am-1pm Tues-Fri. This first week I tought the 2nd grade class 1st Thessalonians... tought for 10 hours. This week we will begin teaching a group of 8 or so community pastors during the evenings. I will be teaching them Bible Overview for 3 days, 6 hours total... then someone else will teach them the Inductive Method through Philemon the 2nd week. I will get to spend Friday of this week also teaching the book of Jonah to the 2nd grade class to finish our time with them. The 4th week we are here in Baja we will move south about 15 miles to teach another group of pastors Bible Overview and the Inductive Method through James... well, that' what they requested. So yeah, pray that we will be able to rest and prepare well. The translator thing is already driving me crazy but I am getting used to it quickly. Pray that the students here get the method we are teaching them to the extent where they can apply it in their own studies and perhaps understand it simply enough to teach it to others.
You can also pray for groups here helping with the orphanage. There are teams here doing evangelism in the community as well as working with children here for weeks at a time... groups from California churches and youth groups. Right now there are about 100 people here on mission trips.
Yeah, this has been a great time... internet access is a bit rough, I will try to get pictures up when I can... but it might not actually happen. Love you all
Jeremy
