One of our callings from God is to take the gospel to places in Mexico where it is seldom heard. We did that Saturday, May 14, 2016 when we went to Las Joyas, a tiny remote village in a beautiful valley between towering mountains. They have neither a church nor pastor. It is just thirty miles from Galeana, but it took us over two hours to get there.

We had been talking to Patricio about going to Las Joyas as he was doing the cement repair work at the ministry house. He did not think our Ford Edge could make the trip. I (Stephen) told him if his rear-wheel-drive Ford pick-up could make it we could too. He said okay let’s try it. He is a key assistant minister at Pastor Hernandez’s church. We loaded Tonyia and I, Martin, Anna and Gensis in our vehicle along with food and water enough to feed forty people.

Patricio, wife Bellia, sons Jesus and Abraham, daughter Monse, pastor Hernandez, plus one more adult and three more kids from his church all loaded in Patricio’s aging Ford truck. That was ten people in his truck to make the long difficult trip. One section of the drive took us one hour and we just traveled five miles! It was narrow roads, steep grades, switchback turns and some travel clinging to the edge of huge mountains.

We left Galeana about 8:30 AM and arrived after 10:30 AM. Patricio immediately started to work on a cooking fire. We greeted the elderly women who hosted the event and two of the ladies went door-to-door to invite everyone to our service. About thirty people, many of them children, showed up at the same time as a rain shower. We moved into a tiny adobe hut and began praising the Lord.

Pastor Herandez is a very good musician and as he started playing his acoustic guitar the room filled with the sweet sound of songs praising our savior. There were many little ones so three  children who had traveled with us came forward and taught the Las Joyas folks (and Tonyia and I) how to sing “Jesus Loves You” in Spanish. There were Bible readings, testimonies, lots of prayer and I delivered a short sermon.

Patricio told us there would be a lot of children, so Tonyia made up small gift bags with candy, balloons, bubbles and a little toy for each child – they loved them. We fed everyone the chicken, potatoes and tortillas we had brought and Patricio had cooked.

I cannot express how blessed we are to be able to shine a bit of light in some of these dark places. One woman came to us asking for prayer as she had to travel to be with her Mother who had cancer and was in a Monterrey hospital. She had seldom left the tiny village. We gladly prayed for her and gave her some Pesos to help pay for travel.

We drove back another way Patricio thought was better – it was not. The first five miles had not been traveled on for months and took over an hour, but the forest and clear streams were unspoiled and beautiful.

It was a long hard day of travel, but it was a great day serving the Lord! (Check out some more of the photos we took below.)

We just completed one of the largest projects needed at Casa Cristana El Alfarero (the ministry house). We repaired the concrete roof over three big sections of the building. The house is very old and cracks had developed that allowed moisture to penetrate the ceiling and even the walls in places.

To complete the project properly we hired Patricio who is an expert concrete contractor and a pastor to a congregation in the mountains. He did the layout using carefully placed strings as guides. He also did the trowel work. His 16 year-old son, a teen-aged friend, translator Martin and I (Stephen) were the four labor helpers to get the cement mixed and delivered for the trowel work. Everything was done by hand. It is a very different approach to anything I had seen in the US.

Virtually every building in the area and most of Mexico is built with concrete. Walls are constructed with concrete blocks and finished with stucco. There are solid concrete pillars with metal rods every so many meters in the walls and a solid cap on top to help support the roof. The roof is made with a solid 10 or 12 centimeter concrete and metal rod slab. Some roofs are flat with a slight pitch and some are more obviously pitched. Windows and most doors are metal frame. There is almost no wood used.

For our roof project a specific grade of gray sand was delivered along with 10 bags of cement. To mix the concrete a border is made in part of the sand with the cement shoveled into the middle and water added. Then the real labor begins. Men on shovels start mixing until a slurry of the mixed concrete is achieved. The slurry mix is then shoveled into buckets and passed from one to another until it is poured in front of Patricio who spreads it with his trowel or board and using his strings as guides.

The work took the better part of two days. I have to admit I have not done that much physical labor in a while but it was a lot of fun. We talked about the Lord, the Bible and just cut up a lot. I was the oldest laborer of the group and my fellow workers often made comments about the number of Tylenols I would need that night to sleep. There was some truth to their kidding, I was sore.

In addition  Patricio brought his two younger children one day. We had bought some play equipment and I let them use it. I even taught them how to throw a frisbee and shot a few hoops with a basketball. I told Patricio to bring the little ones again as it gave me someone to play with. They made the comment that I was old enough that I was becoming a child again.

The end result of all our labor is that all the biggest jobs are complete at the ministry house. The roofs is fixed, the windows are all in, most of the house has been painted, the plumbing is almost complete (we still have to change two broken toilets) and the propane is in place.

We have already used it to begin hosting a Wednesday night dinner party for individual pastors and their families to learn more about the needs of Christians in the area. Pastors are beginning to talk about a possible revival at the site and we are considering some kind of ongoing youth and children Christian teaching activities.

Also, Tonyia is planning a special women’s event toward the end of summer.

Please pray that we will continue to know how the Lord wants us to use  Casa Cristana El Alfarero. All of this is for Jesus and His Kingdom. Praise the Lord!