Greetings to all!
Hope that this finds each of you well and abundantly blessed by our loving and gracious Heavenly Father! We are continually in awe of His goodness and faithfulness to His children! Hope that you all have had a blessed Easter Holiday! What a wonderful opportunity to remember our Lord’s sacrifice, and the victory of His Resurrection!
In our last blog, we left off with a testimony from January/February of Doña María, a widow who lives here in Cacalote, and how God had very amazingly extended her life in spite of many odds. She had a window of enjoying being with her family, being able to eat again, and improving a lot, but she did develop complications again, and the Lord called her home on Sunday, March 6th. She passed very peacefully without struggle, only some labored breathing at the end, but having just heard some Scriptures being read and prayer being said over her, she slipped away quietly. Her family is doing well. She was 74 years old, and was ready to go. She had told her family 3 days before she passed that she knew she was not going to make it and was giving them some final charges about the care of some of her grandchildren she was concerned about. She will be missed here, but we are happy for her that she has gone on to the presence of the Lord.
JANUARY ACTIVITIES
The second week in January we were able to take a Medical Brigade and Children’s Ministry up to the Ixtayutla region, a Mixtec region high up in the mountains, with David and Patsy Shuford and their team. It was a great trip with many patients and a number of children in the towns of El Mosco and Ixtayutla, and many people responding to the call to salvation. We were able to see a new church construction, Pastora Carmela’s new church building in Ixtayutla, which is the county seat of this region, and has a much larger population than the surrounding villages. She has a beautiful new building which was built by faith — we know that all things should be done by faith, but she had to really believe strongly to be able to build on the side of a mountain, with almost no resources in hand, but she and her church people believed that God is sufficient, and He supplied their needs! Thank you to those of you who have given to Pastor Carmela and her work. It is definitely good soil to be sowing into!
The other tremendous blessing in January was to receive our good friends Ralph and Ann Classen on January 6th and Drs. Dave and Mary Kay Ness on January 8th. The Classens were with us for a month, and Drs. Dave and Mary Kay for two months. They are all really part of the extended team of the clinic! The Classens have come every year for about 29 years, and the Ness´s have come every year for about 20 years with the exception of the last two when circumstances prevented their being here, so it was a great reunion to have all of them back with us this year!
Ralph and Ann, as always, blessed us in many areas from the clinic to the carpentry shop to the cooking school. Ralph, as a paramedic, helps give consults to patients when needed, especially when we are in the villages and the patient load is much heavier, and spends a lot of his time making amazing pieces of furniture for the clinic. This year he focused mainly on our laundry room where there was no storage space nor work surfaces before, but now has two beautiful storage cabinets with louvered doors, two work spaces, and both lower and upper cabinets. He always does an amazing job! Ann is an excellent cook, and taught the Bible School students and others who were interested how to make homemade ice cream (yum!!) and ice cream cakes, jelly and jam from starfruit, which grows abundantly here, and some other interesting food items which were equally delicious! Ann also does sewing projects and taught the students how to braid rugs. Ralph and Ann and their church donate the funds for the wood and other supplies and also provide their skill and talent in making the furniture, the yummy foods, curtains, and other handiwork. Thank you, Ralph and Ann!
Drs. Dave and Mary Kay stayed busy mostly giving consults in the Corban Clinic on the missions base and also on the village trips. They also helped greatly on the home visits we needed to do during their time here – those were an every day to every other day activity during much of their time here. We appreciated so much their experience and expertise in seeing patients and giving guidance on the home care. They also did some consultations with specialists long distance for some patients, and Dr. Dave did some baking during his time here! He made some very delicious oatmeal bread and oatmeal cookies which he shared, and also taught several people the recipe, so maybe we will enjoy more of that!
FEBRUARY ACTIVITIES
One activity in the local Cacalote Church here during February was a special banquet for the couples of the church, and the invitation was given to couples in the community. There was a tremendous response, and a number of new couples attended the event! Dr. Enver and Karen, his wife, are serving as associate pastors now in the local Cacalote Church, and part of their responsibility is working with married couples. They are doing a great job!
The second week in February, we had the opportunity to take Medical Brigades and Children’s and Youth Ministry to three coastal towns with a short-term team whose group is called “God Town” because of the transforming work they have done and still do in an area of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The team worked with the children and youth and evangelized while we saw many patients in each of the villages. These were villages we have never taken medicine into, and they were very responsive. One of the towns is “La Boquilla de Chicometepec”, and there is a church plant just starting in this town, so we were able to work alongside the family who is beginning this work, and also alongside a ministry team that went from the “Fountain of Grace” Ministry on the mission base. Many lives were touched and many responded to the Gospel. During the three days, the medical team saw a total of 275 patients, and there were 123 decisions made to receive Christ. Praise the Lord! Please pray for the pastors following up in these towns, for fruit that remains in each of these villages.
UNEXPECTED BLESSINGS!
A few weeks ago, I (Laura) received a word from one of the ministers in the prayer meeting with us that God was going to bless the clinic with more medications, personnel, and medical equipment that is needed in the work of completing the vision of reaching more villages with the Gospel, and helping in the process of planting churches in unreached villages. Within approximately one week, we received, completely unexpectedly, a donation of a used but in very good condition ultrasound machine! It is something we have desired for a long time in our clinic, and once received a donated one, but were unable to get it across the border to bring it into Mexico. We are super excited to have this service to offer to patients! Dr. Enver is studying and practicing to be able to do quality ultrasounds right here in the clinic. We are very grateful to Dr. Roberto Fonseca, a Mexican physician who is in one of our churches, for this very generous donation!
Then on April 7th, we received a visit by Ruben and Enrique Iglesias, two brothers from the Mexico City area who were introduced to us by Pastor Marco Barrientos, who own a medication distribution business, and are very interested in helping to provide needed medications for the Corban Clinic. Praise the Lord! They had already sent two shipments before their visit, and are making plans how they can donate medications to the clinic on an ongoing basis. What an answer to prayer this is! We are very grateful to Brothers Rubén and Enrique and their business, Era Farmacéutica, for making this possible!
OUTREACH IN LA BOQUILLA DE CHICOMETEPEC
We visited La Boquilla de Chicometepec again on April 21st, along with a ministry team from Fuente de Gracia (a healing ministry that takes place each Tuesday at the Missions Base), and worked alongside a group of Bible School students who are staying in La Boquilla for a month of missions service. We saw 91 patients, and many of these received Jesus as their Savior, and allowed Him to begin setting them free from many spiritual strongholds.
We will also be visiting the town of Yaitepec, a Chatino Indian village, on May 12th and 13th. There is also a new church plant happening in Yaitepec, and we will be working with Pastor Margarito, one of our pastors for many years, who has just begun having services there in Yaitepec. We are expectant about what the Lord is going to do there, and appreciate your prayers for that outreach!
OTHER LOCAL MINISTRY
A couple of months ago, a young man I will call Germán (I didn’t ask his permission to use his real name in the report), who is now 36 years old, but who we met when he was a 5 year old child here in Cacalote, returned from the U.S. after living a number of years there and really going through a lot for a young man. He had already suffered a number of things, some a result of the lifestyle he lived during the earlier years of his time there. But then when he tried to get away from that lifestyle, he suffered a bullet to his spinal column, and came back to Mexico in a wheelchair. His prognosis is very good because he has some movement in one leg and sensation in the other leg, and our prayer and faith is that he will regain use of both legs.
He is under the Clinic’s care right now because of a decubitus ulcer (bedsore on his lower back from pressure that he couldn’t feel, and then infection). He had a surgical cleaning of the wound in a hospital about 2 months ago, and now our physician, Dr. Enver, is doing wound care for him and seeing great improvement. It has given us opportunity to visit and talk with him, and he has begun attending the local church here almost every Sunday. He is coming along and seems much less depressed than he did at first. Please pray for him, for healing, for encouragement, and that he will grow spiritually and persevere in his walk with Christ.
Multigrade Building Project
Dave has sent out some separate reports on the Multigrade Building Project, and we want to thank all of you who have contributed to that project! The K through 12 Christian School and the Prepa (High School) on the missions base are in great need of more space for classes, so construction is now underway to put a second floor on the Multigrade School Building which will greatly increase the classroom space for this next year and will enable them to serve many more students! Thank you so much to all of you for your gifts and your prayers for this endeavor.
May God bless each of you mightily! Thank you so much for your prayers, your encouragement, and your gifts! We love and appreciate each of you!
In His Service,
Dave and Laura Nelson
Roca Blanca
Oaxaca, Mexico