On Monday morning, October 1st, our new Presidente (Mayor) of the Municipality of Los Cabos, Armida Castro, conducted her first Patriotic Ceremony in the San Jose Plaza.

To give a little background on the election:  the Mexican people—desperate for change—voted in an extreme leftist-socialist president for the country.  He is commonly referred to by the acronym of the first letters of his four names: AMLO. AMLO represents the political party MORENA and is the first president of Mexico from that party to ever be elected. AMLO’s people flooded the poorer areas of Mexico encouraging people to vote, as well as reportedly paying people to vote for him and the MORENA party. From what we’ve been told, this is one of the factors that led to the loss of the election of our former mayor, Arturo de la Rosa, and the victory for the MORENA party in Los Cabos.

As a ministry, we will be in continual prayer for Presidente Castro, and will also be offering our services to her administration in any way we can. Pastor Carlos and Isidoro were actually the first people in line for an appointment with la Presidente for the opportunity for us to congratulate her, present the availability of Avanza sin Tranza for her administration, and to offer our services to her in any way we can. We have also been in contact with the new Director of Education. He loves the Avanza Sin Tranza program and is sending the material we gave him to every one of the principals of the ninety schools he oversees. We are looking forward to working with him, as well.

Please spend much time in prayer for Presidente Armida’s team as they establish this change of government in Los Cabos. There are many decisions to be made before she is officially sworn in on December 1st.

We just recently returned from Transform Our World’s 28th Global Conference, which was attended by over eight hundred delegates from over thirty countries from around the world. It was held this year at the Marriot Santa Clara Convention Center near San Jose, CA. Ed Silvoso, at age 73, offers programming throughout the conference that is the conference equivalent of the most engaging extreme sport. The participants leave spiritually charged and inspired for another year in the trenches in their particular sphere of influence. TOW’s tag line is, “Ordinary people doing extraordinary things with God.” The conference videos are not yet available online, but if you would like to sample some of the inspirational videos available on the TOW website, check them out at: https://transformourworld.org/transformationondemand/

I can’t possibly even begin to fill you in on all the magnificent testimonies of what God is doing around the world, so my only hope is to peak your interest with personal highlights. The opening night speaker was Loren Cunningham, the 83–year-old founder of YWAM, who is still flying from country to country, leading the ministry in great exploits. We heard Loren for the first time last year at the conference and we can’t hear enough of his amazing testimonies from around the world. We’ve known of YWAM for over 30 years, but we had no idea of the impact that YWAM and Loren Cunningham have made in world events. Last year, we heard him give an account of a current national event that only God could have arranged and that we’ll never forget, but since we heard it at one of the un-taped meal sessions, I’m not allowed to share it here. The next time you see me, if you ask me about Loren Cunningham, I can share this tremendous “God story” with you.

The emphasis at this year’s conference was the impartation of the anointing of the Holy Spirit to the conference delegates in order to enhance their results for transformation in their many different spheres of influence. We were blessed to receive many prayers of impartation from brothers and sisters from around the world, but one such prayer left me with a lasting memory. This impartation came from the very large delegation from Hong Kong, led by retired Judge Barbara Chan, YK Chan and Pastor Wong. When they got up to report what they, as one of the oldest and strongest moves of transformation with TOW, could impart, they gently declared, “We carry humility,” and they−with many influential delegates−certainly did! Humility was an amazing ‘God empowering” attribute to choose to impart to the delegates from other parts of the world.

The next moment that was especially meaningful to Richard and I was to hear Pastor Norberto Carlini from Resistencia, Argentina. Pastor Carlini was, and still is, one of the foundational pastors of the powerful revival that swept over Resistencia in the mid-1990’s. This revival was largely due to the (then) relatively unknown evangelist, Carlos Annacondia. Ed Silvoso was a part of that move. Cindy Jacobs was called to the area in the early days of her ministry.  These, along with a handful of believers we have just ‘come across’ in Los Cabos, were all called to the area during this time. Ever since working for an entire year to host the Carlos Annacondia Crusade in Los Cabos, we have been amazed at what God used Carlos Annacondia to do in Resistencia and the change it made in the brothers and sisters who were a part of that move of God.

Ed had Pastor Carlini come to the conference to share what has happened in the city since God began to change the city. Ed asked for the privilege to translate for Pastor Carlini and the power of the presence of the Lord flowed between them like fire. That was at the morning session, with a teaching luncheon following—with Ed again translating for Pastor Carlini. It was during the luncheon that Richard and I rushed over to tell Pastor Carlini about Carlos Anacondia’s crusade in Los Cabos in 2016. We then told him we knew of the unction of the Holy Spirit on the Argentine pastors, and asked if he would be willing to impart the fire to us. He was delighted to pray over us and we are grateful to God for that moment!

In order to share our last ‘special’ experience, I need to quickly share that while we were in Michigan in August for our annual excursion to our home base in Muskegon, MI, I was in a severe auto accident and our mini-van was demolished. I was miraculously spared serious injury, apart from extensive bruising, 18 stitches, a broken left thumb and a broken right arm. We were scheduled to fly back to Los Cabos one week after the accident, and all the American doctors were very helpful and told Richard how to remove my stitches, along with giving him instructions for caring for me during recovery. I only share the story of the accident to tell you that I had a cast on my right arm during the conference and that is key to what I am going to share next…

I had been asking the Lord to have mercy on me and heal my right arm faster than the predicted three to four months but, of course, I did not have confirmation that He would choose to do a faster work of healing. Pastor Kris Valloton, associate lead pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, CA, had just taught in the morning session. Bethel Church originally had a mission school two hours north of us in Mexico in our state capitol of La Paz until not long before we first came to the area in 2010. We heard through the grapevine that there were several encouraging prophetic words spoken over the Baja at that time, so when Richard saw Kris Valloton in the hall after the session, he asked Kris if he remembered any of the words. During that short pause in the hall, Kris, who also runs the School of Ministry, looked at my cast, asked what had happened and said, “I’ll have to pray for you tonight.” This was special because Kris carries a heavy anointing for praying for the sick, even though the purpose of this meeting wasn’t for personal prayer.

The session he referred to was actually late afternoon and we were ready. We ran right up to him after the teaching. He quickly, but gladly, prayed for my arm and then had to rush to catch his plane home. From that time on, my arm felt much better, but we do not have confirmation. My orthopedic surgeon from Muskegon, MI had already told me just to get an x-ray in Mexico and send the DVD via the internet to him and he would read it for me. We still haven’t figured out a comfortable and economical way to get an x-ray yet, but either way, this was a special divine appointment with Kris Valloton.

I need to bring this to a close since I am typing with one hand—and my left one at that. Check out the material on the TOW website and enjoy the photos from the conference. A big thank-you to all of you that made it possible for us to attend this year’s conference!

While at a recent Monday patriotic ceremony, Presidente (Mayor) Arturo’s right hand man made a point of telling Richard the administration wanted to honor us as a couple at the weekly ceremony on Monday, September 24. Regretfully, we had to share that we would be in the San Jose, CA area for the Transform Our World Global Conference and would not be able to attend the ceremony that Monday. The timing was also important since Arturo del a Rosa was defeated in the July 1st National elections, even though, in Mexico, the newly elected officials are not sworn in until December 1st and fade out of office somewhere between the election and December 1st. Mayor Arturo’s administration wanted to be sure to honor us on his last day as acting mayor.

As we shared in previous blogs, Presidente Arturo has honored “those who pray for him and the city,” before the public on several previous occasions, but this particular offer was a precious gift for our two years of faithful prayer for his administration, our attendance to the patriotic ceremony, and because of our ministry’s financial gift of paying for the values-based program, Avanza sin Tranza (see previous blogs), to be taught in all 90 elementary schools in the Municipality of Los Cabos. They also especially wanted to honor us for our patriotism to their country, as well as for our concern for the well-being of the Municipality of Los Cabos, even though Mexico is not our homeland. We have often been blessed to hear this from various members of his administration throughout these past two years. They have even graciously likened our faithfulness to the city we are called to, to that of a handful of foreigners in the history of Mexico who physically fought for the country—to fight for a land not our own.

All of you who pray for us, support us financially, and continue to encourage us, you are honored, as well.  May the Lord richly bless you and give you peace!