Little Paloma was the runt and very last of nine puppies to be born in the corner of the little bamboo hut on the remote beach on Mexico´s Gulf Coast.  Two days later, I saw that the tiny puppy´s nostrils were covered in mucous and she was barely breathing. Imelda, her owner, shrugged her shoulders. Death is an everyday part of her world. She and her family love their animals, and care for them as best they can. But Imelda lost a child due to poverty and helplessness, so what can she possibly do for a dying little puppy?

But I couldn’t let it go. I´m a Christian missionary on this barrier island, and though our purpose and our mission is to reach the people in this place with the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Paloma only needed a tiny boost . So we brought in some antibiotic drops from town and she lived. Before we knew it, nine puppies were running all over the place, growing, tumbling over each other and learning how to interact with the animals and people around them.

It never ceases to amaze me when I see all the species interact together as if they belong to a long lost Paradise. The family dad, Pablo,earns a living by climbing palm trees; using nothing but a soft rope circling his bare feet, he shimmys up the tall trunk and brings the coconuts down. He opens them up with a machete, and we enjoy a fresh drink of a perfectly balanced combination of salts and sugars, one of God’s most nutritious readymade drinks. When we are done, he opens the coconut up, and everyone tucks into the meat, and I mean everyone. The chickens, the parrot, the dogs, the turkeys, the puppies, even the cat! And of course, us humans.

But life is tough at the beach. People have to work hard to eek a living out of the formidable and sometimes hostile ocean. Nothing is easy. No roads, and very few vehicles. Some families may have a motorcycle, but most don´t and either walk, hitch a ride or boat down the canal to the mainland fishing dock. Children can walk for an hour and a half each way to get to and from school. When the north winds bring the waves up to the pine trees, these children are in danger of being whisked away by a sudden surge of water, as they struggle to get back home. Heat and mosquitoes oppress everyone most of the year. Only on weekends does a public bus make its way along the beach itself to collect the fishermen and peasants, giving them an opportunity to go into town. It´s a tough life, but a marvelously alive one that we have been privileged to participate in.

We seem out of place, two single middle aged female missionaries on a lone island, working to develop a Christian camp. Our lives are totally unpredictable. We can be going to pray with someone who is sick one minute, and loading up cement to take to the camp the next, and then going to pick up the teacher who needs a ride into the school in our dilapidated pickup truck the following. We have two sets of people in mind at our camp: the city kids who have never seen the ocean, and need an opportunity to be in touch with Paradise, and the local people who need to have the opportunity to be in touch with civilization. But really, their needs are far deeper than that, and one and the same, they need to know Jesus Christ and find hope to face their lives. This is what we do, and we love it. We are here for the people.

But if a little puppy can be helped while we’re at it, why not? So last August, when Anne from Pennsylvania asked if we would be willing to take the scrawny little white puppy with the pale blue eyes to the States with us later, we agreed. So, in November, we packed the petrified drooling Paloma, into the back of our car, then into an airplane, and took her a world away to Pennsylvania, to be a part of Anne´s family. So Paloma plays in the snow now rather than the sand. She is a reminder to their family that there is an island on the Gulf Coast of Mexico that may seem very different on the outside, but is really made up of people like themselves who long to love and be loved.

–Diana, Missionary to Tuxpan, Mexico

The Tijuana House of Prayer

It started out as a dream, and now its coming to reality since the day that God put it in our hearts at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City (IHOP-KC). Those days that we spent in that famous prayer room were really special in all ways, and that is when God put it in our hearts, Hey you need this in Tijuana.

And what is this we need in Tijuana?
A place were worship, prayer, intercession and fellowship never ends, kind of like heaven in earth. A place were you can’t feel time itself and it even feels that cease to exist. A place were the presence of God is burning your heart, and is so alive that you need to take your shoes off!!! The community, city and country itself being changed by the non stop intercession and prayer going on in the room. And we definitely need allot of this in my beautiful city of Tijuana.

So this is what we definitely need in Tijuana, a House of Prayer (HOP). Our goal is to do have it 24/7, 7 days a week, 365 days of the year a non stop worship and prayer, it may sound kind of ambitious but we are trying to bring a little bit of heaven to earth!!!

May be you are asking yourself, how can I be part of this?
First of all we need allot of prayer help, and we still need a lot of things for the HOP. If you need some more information on how you can be part of it, contact us directly at coitijuana@gmail.com or directly with Christ For the City International . If you want to see some more pictures you can visit us in facebook.com

In Christ
Isak Gonzalez & Josue Gonzalez

On Sunday afternoon of the 9th of August, the New Generation Youth Ministry of Christ For the City International and the Word, Bread, Fish Foundation carried out an event in the city if Medellin, Colombia which gathered together more than 18,000 people. In 2007 the Gospel Park Outreach began as a proposal to make an evangelistic impact and support the local talent. Over the years the even has become stronger, and this has allowed us to be included in the program of the Flower Festival, which is one of the most important traditional celebrations of the city of Medellin.

According to the report of the EPM Foundation, who administrates the Desires Park where we have celebrated the event during the past three years, the attendance has been satisfactory. It was between 13,000 and 15,000 people in 2007, between 15,000 and 16,000 people in 2008, and then increased to between 18,000 and 20,000 people in 2009. When I consider the evangelistic and social impact that the outreach has had, we have a strong conviction that all of this is because of the Lord’s goodness, who in His love has decided to use ordinary common people to exalt His Name. The Gospel Outreach has been maturing each year and our desire is that we will be able to exalt Jesus through these big events. Many people who we know have a strong burden for the youth and children of this city have joined with us in this project. It is a joy for us to work in the matters of the Kingdom and know that they are significant for the administration of the city of Medellin.

Erika Zapata: Director of the Word, Bread, Fish Foundation
The Gospel Park Outreach is a means in which music and lyrics joyfully and contemporaneously express the only true message of love, which is the message of our Lord Jesus.

Cristal Agudelo: Director of New Generation
It is very significant to see what God does through people who believe in Him. The Gospel Park Outreach is an event which is socially and spiritually relevant.

It started on Halloween night in 2006 when Operacion Luz’s founder, Pastor Cuco Gonzalez invited the kids from his congregation to come to church to give them a bag of candy and to have a night of worship and prayer. To his surprise only 10 people arrived that night, none of them kids. He then remembered a story in the Bible that said,

A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’ Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’ Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’ The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’ ‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’ Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full.’ Luke 14:16-23

Cuco grabbed a bag of candy and started inviting people from the streets, and after one hour people started to come into the church. It started with 20, then 15 more arrived and finally, to his surprise, the seats started to fill. By the time the service ended there were 44 kids and 43 adults, a total of 87 persons. All were non-believers, and all 87 people accepted Christ in their hearts.

After that, Pastor Cuco started planning and thinking about Halloween 2007. He planned to do a special service with puppets, music, sketches, videos, a short and direct message of the Word of God, and, of course, lots of candy for the kids. God spoke to Cuco’s heart, and confirmed to him that this project was what God wanted him to do. At that moment, Pastor Cuco asked God for a name for the project, for structure, and for funds. God answered Cuco and promised to provide and give him what he needed to develop the project. So God give the project a name and a scripture base….

Operacion Luz (Operation Light)

You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. Mathew 5:14-16

And that is how Operacion Luz began.

At first it wasn’t easy to get the project going, but every time Pastor Cuco was in a pastor’s meeting, he had a chance to share the project, the vision, and the scripture base. He challenged them to fill their churches with new people like he did. Pastor Cuco and his staff had meetings with many different churches and pastoral alliances from January to October, and as a result we had 80 churches ready to carry out Operation Luz in their communities.

Operacion Luz staff printed a booklet directed towards the youth and adults and included information about who Jesus is and why the church is here. They created a comic booklet directed towards kids full of different stories that illustrate that the only solution to our problems is Jesus Christ. On the night of the event, each bag of candy had a booklet.

There were 5 events that October 31, 2007. The following Sunday Pastor Cuco’s church had 130 visitors, 60 of whom became permanent members of the congregation. There were many similar testimonies all over town. As a result of the work of 80 churches, a total of 50,000 people heard the Word of God. In 2008, the third year of Operacion Luz, 110 churches participated in reaching more than 50,000 people. This year Pastor Cuco and his Operacion Luz staff are hoping to reach even more.

We arrived in Tuxpan, Veracruz, Mexico around 12:30 am, Saturday, July 18.  We were greeted by the sound of ocean waves, a myriad of stars in the sky, and humidity so thick you could cut it with a knife.  Mirna, one of the missionaries, told us God was welcoming our team because the Milky Way had never been so clear as that night.

“From this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore” (Hebrews 11:12, NIV).  Each day while in Mexico, we spent an hour studying a couple verses from Hebrews 11.  This excerpt from the chapter had never been so clearly illustrated to me through our surroundings.  The twelve members of our team were divided into groups of two or three where we intensely studied and discussed what God was speaking to us through His word.  Then, during evening meetings, we shared together as one large group, learning things such as we are in a relay race and the cloud of witnesses is the Christians who have gone before us.  We reveled at the incredible ways Christians before us took God at his word, and our entire team memorized Hebrews 12:1-3.

Our study time, however, took place after many hours of hard work.  Monday-Friday we woke with the dawn as roosters crowed and the sun rose above the sea.  Our team was responsible for helping prepare and clean-up all meals, so the breakfast crew set-up plastic chairs and tables and set-out the cereal and fruit.  After taking our garlic and vitamin B complex pills to ward-off mosquitoes, we divided into our work teams.

Two days during the week we had a break from work and enjoyed building relationships with local children and youth.  Our first day in Tuxpan, we hosted an intercultural day at the camp and young people came to meet us, play soccer, and watch the mime we prepared.  Arturo, a local PE teacher, came and led us in some activities that caused me to reminisce of my elementary school days.  Missionaries Diana and Mirna arranged to have a bus bring any youth from town that wanted to attend. Valeria, the daughter of the bus owner, was the only one who came on the bus. Surface-level, it was a waste to pay for that bus. However, that evening, Diana and Mirna told us how Valeria was not saved.  If they hadn’t paid for that bus, she would have never come to the camp or heard the salvation message we presented. They emphasized that it was worth it for just one person.

Our last evening we hunted for crab. The big, blue crab only come out after it rains.  Pablo would take a stick and hold the crab still while he broke-off its big claw.  We could keep that part and let the crab go free so he could grow another claw and feed us, again instead of killing them off.

It was a blessing to get to go on this trip. I’m sure this won’t be my last trip, and I pray this was the first of many for the youth.

When the bus arrived, the CFCI team gathered around to welcome the kids and begin to play. To their horror, a handful of teenagers got off the bus- all the pastor’s grandchildren. There were no younger children. What were we to do now?

The Lord brought to our minds the parable of the banquet in Luke 14. The guests hadn’t come. They had silly excuses, the teenagers told us, and had set our invitation aside. And the Word sent us out, “Go out to the roads and the country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full.”

And so we did. We took our pickup and headed to the different communities along the beach. Twice we went out and brought the truck back filled with children. Then others arrived, invited by the Holy Spirit alone. By mid-morning the camp was full of joyous laughter as all the uninvited enjoyed the feast that our group had prepared. Altogether about 40 children attended, just as if the bus had come in full.

Isn’t that our amazing Lord who leads us to live His Word in such a palpable way?

Diana
CFCI Missionary at Camp Kikomar