I pray this update finds you well and encourages you as your prayers and words of encouragement have greatly encouraged me.  I update again from Arizona. about halfway through my summer here and it's been a hot, tiring summer, but God has been faithful consistently to grow me even through uncomfortable and challenging circumstances.

For an update on church stuff, it's going well.  There were a few things I wanted to get involved in this summer and the Lord has been extremely faithful to provide me with many opportunities in my church.  I've been going to a small group on Thursday nights with adults and we're studying through 1st Peter along with the sermons on Sundays.  It's been really encouraging to hang out with other believers and dig into the Word.  I really wanted to be invested in by others this summer while home and I have really enjoyed the fellowship with other believers and have them invest in my life.  I also joined a college-age small group on Tuesday nights and that's been sweet too.  There's a couple people from high school that came in there after they graduated from the high school ministry and it's just been encouraging to talk with others the same age as me about our love for the Lord.  There's a couple people that I've talked to about New Tribes and about coming to school so please pray for Kyle and Lorraine.  They're a young married couple who love the Lord and I got to share about New Tribes with them and they said they were going to look it up.  I've also been serving on Saturday mornings, helping clean the church campus.  It's nice to be able to give back to the church that is walking alongside me as I move towards full-time church planting among unreached people groups.

As for my construction job, that's going great! That's the hot and tiring part of my summer as it was 117 degrees yesterday!  The picture below is of the first house I built with these guys back in the last week of May, it's had some work done preparing it to be stuccoed.

 Also yesterday I had a funny thing happen.  One of the guys went to work on another house and got pulled over by the cops and had his car impounded because he doesn't have a US license.  So my foreman asked me to go pick him up.  Except he forgot to tell me that the guy had tools and a ladder so I'm in a Cadillac Sedan picking him up.  This is what we looked like driving 5 miles down the road.  I told the guys it's what I learned in Tijuana haha.

 

Along with all the things I'm involved in, God has been teaching me incredibly through my work with my co-workers.  It has been incredibly frustrating and humbling to say the least.  I've been encountering a Catholic worldview mixed with apathy.  I'm desiring to see the gospel come to bear in these guys life but as I speak truth or consistently share the gospel I'll get responses such as "I know I'm going to go to Hell, and I'm okay with that" to "The holy water in the church saves right?"  And these responses are sad and every day I'm pleading with God to please open their hearts to the grace of God that meets man's depravity.  So please pray for them, their names are Victor, Cesar, Luis, Carlos, Sergio, Jaime, and Geros.  But one morning before I went to work I read this is 1st Cor. 15:58 "Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain."  In the context, Paul is responding to the idea that there will be no bodily resurrection for believers.  Paul answers this question thoroughly and in essence says that because Christ rose from the dead bodily, we all will experience a bodily resurrection and receive our glorified body.  We have a future hope that far exceeds this world's.  I read that and was SO encouraged that all God is asking me to do is to remain faithful with the ministry of reconciliation that he has given me, He will do the rest.  He is control and has simply asked me to be a faithful steward.  Because I have the hope of eternal life in Heaven and others do not, I need to remain steadfast and immovable, knowing that my position is in Christ not in my earthly circumstances and therefore continue to abound in the work of the Lord, knowing full well that it will not be in vain.  How encouraging is our God?

Prayer Requests:

1.  Please pray that I would be daily seeking the Lord, seeking His wisdom, and seeking to know Him more.

2.  Prayer for my co-workers, that in my life they would see the life of Christ and that they would have ears to hear the good news of Christ.

3.  I have a meeting on July 6th with my missions pastor so please pray for a fruitful meeting, where our relationship continues to grow and deepen as we discuss future partnerships, finances, and missions.

4. Pray for my small groups that strong partnerships would continue to develop and that by being in those groups, I would be encouraged, challenged, and stretched.

5.  The world:  over 2 billion people that have never heard of Christ and won't hear if the Church continues to remain unfaithful with reaching them.

Summertime in Arizona!

Hey there!  So I finished up my first year at New Tribes Bible Institute and man it flew by!  I absolutely love it, and it's a great place for me to grow in the grace and knowledge of God through knowing His Word.  We finished up with classes on the Bible Basis for Missions which, though I already am convinced that missions is something every believer needs to be involved in, was so good to revisit the biblical basis for the Church.  We also had a class on 1st Corinthians which was really challenging and humbling to see in the lives of these Corinthian believers the incredible tendency that we have to walk in the flesh if we're not walking with the Lord.

For the summer, I'm back in Arizona with my mom and stepdad and I'm super excited for what the Lord has in store this summer.  I'm working full time here, 40 hours a week for a contractor friend of my that goes to my church.  I'm working with all Mexican men which is pretty sweet because if you know me you know I love Mexico and speaking Spanish and so it's been cool working with these guys and having to communicate with these guys in another language.  It's been challenging though because I desire to share the gospel with these men because they need to know Jesus, but the Mexican culture is a lot different than here in America.  They are a lot more respect oriented and therefore as an gringo trying to learn how to build houses, I need to earn their respect and prove myself or else they won't listen to anything I have to say.  So that's been humbling, realizing I need to work my butt off for the gospel's sake so that I have the credibility to speak Truth to them.  I'm also planning to join an adult small group from my church this week, so I could use prayer for that.  I'm desiring to branch out and network to get to know more people, specifically adults in my church and build partnerships with them as I continue on to overseas church planting among unreached people groups.  I'm also wanting to join a college aged small group this summer and be poured into spiritually both from them and from the adults in my adult small group.  I have a meeting in July with my missions pastor and am looking to meet with both my senior pastor and with the man in charge of the small groups at my church, in order to get to know as many people in leadership at my church as I can.  So there is a lot I need pray for this summer as I seek to walk by faith with the Lord and trust him to make this a fruitful summer.

Next semester I'm taking over the prison ministry at school, where we go in every Thursday night and have a Bible study with the believers in jail.  We're going to be teaching through the book of Ephesians, Lord willing, and so I'm studying through it this summer and it's been really encouraging.  Paul spends the first 3 chapters discussing the position of these Ephesian believer in Christ before he exhorts them and that's what has been so encouraging to me.  In Ephesian 1:3-14, this is what Paul says we are and what we have in Christ:  every spiritual blessing, adoption as sons, redemption the forgiveness of sins, the riches of grace lavished on us, a glorious inheritance, we're the praise of his glory, and we have the Holy Spirit, the guarantee of our salvation and eternal life.  He goes on to say that although we were dead, in Christ we are now alive and are seated in the heavenlies with Christ.  How gracious is the love of God, just look at what he has made us in Christ!  Paul makes a lengthy discussion of all that is true of believers in Christ even before he makes any exhortation to these believers in chapters 4-6.  In 4:1 he says "therefore".  He harkens back to all that he just said and he says, because of your new position in Christ and in the Church and because of all God's done for you out of the abundance of his grace, walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.  Let me just encourage you in how the Lord has been encouraging me:  That a walk of faith, a walk worthy of the Lord is always first and foremost grounded in what God has done and who we are Christ, not by what we do.  Christ's work has made us righteous and has made us new and on that basis Paul consistently urges us to walk as Christ walked.  Take some time to study and understood the depths of God's grace in Christ, only there can we walk in a worthy way with the Lord.

Prayer Requests:
1.  Please pray Ephesians 1:17-19 and 3:16-19
2.  Pray for my time in smalls groups this summer, that the Lord would help me build strong initial partnerships with people in my church.
3.  Meetings with leadership within my church, for fruitful relationships to continue to grow with them.
4.  That the Lord would continue to humble me and teach me that I need him every single day, and every moment of every day.
5.  For opportunities to come about to share with the men I work with every day.  That they would see that I work my butt off for more then money, but for the Lord.