My first Tuesday morning at that feeding station was the Children’s Day celebration and almost 100 mothers and children were present for the program. I was amazed! I went home and told Richard what I had seen that day and asked if he would help build a shelter for shade over the area (see previous blogs). Since that time, the program has continued to grow. There were almost two hundred women and children there two weeks ago!
Cabo English Church always tries to have a close-by, established church work with the feeding programs and provide discipling for new converts. Tierra y Libertad had been established several years ago by a previous minster but had to be abandoned due to ill health. For this reason, there was no local church near the feeding program. Our faithful friend, Pasto Carlos, actually pastors one of the closest churches to Tierra y Libertad. We asked him to pray about the possibility of starting a church plant in the canyon area, in order to work in conjunction with the fledgling work. After serious prayer, Pastor Carlos said he felt led of the Lord to start a church in the area. In fact, several of the families at his over-crowded mother church live in the area.
Richard and I felt we would like New Life Outreach to purchase the two lots next to the feeding station for the new church plant. We prayed over the lots, went to the Ehido (Mexican Indian) land office with Pastor Carlos, as well as continued to try to see if the owners of the two lots were interested in selling. Even up to the time of Hurricane Odile, we had had no success in purchasing the lots. As soon as things started to settle down from the hurricane, I told Richard we had to make sure we went to the land office with Pastor Carlos again to make sure someone else would not buy the lots. This time the Lord spoke to my heart and said, “It’s not time yet.”
The Monday before Cristo es el Camino’s 5th Anniversary special, Pastor Carlos called to tell us that one of the sisters in his church had two lots in Tierra y Libertad (supposedly near the feeding station) and that she wanted to sell. Pastor Carlos met Richard and I at the lots in Tierra y Libertad the following day. The lots were actually kiddie corner from the feeding station and on the main road leading to the station. Pastor Carlos then explained that just the week before, one of his main men, Uwaldo, asked when they were going to start to do something at Tierra y Libertad. The excitement from the Lord rose in all of us, and two long sessions at the Ehido Land Office gave us the deeds we had waited for–but for the lots the Lord had picked out! Just for trivia, I had the experience of being a legal witness on a Mexican document, complete with a picture of my driver’s license for one of the deeds!
Pastor Carlos’ men have already cleaned the lot and Uwaldo plans on starting a Sunday School program on Sunday mornings at 9:00 a.m. within the next two weeks. He is then planning on inviting the people from Tierra y Libertad (after Sunday School) up the hill to Cristo es el Camino. Eventually, they will keep adding services until they have a full church program.
If anyone feels called to invest in this project, just contact us and we will give you an idea as to what is needed for this work!