Tilling The Soil

Well this has been a week with many answers to prayer.  We have seen a friend who we have known since 2009 choose to follow Christ.  We have seen someone with a real life struggle make great progress! and We have seen God leading people and giving them a great concern for the lost.  My prayer at the beginning of this week was, Lord we need some encouragement! I was struck by Psalm 25:10 this am, that says, all of God's paths are loving and faithful, for those who follow him.  This was definitely a confirmation of our week in seeing fruit as it is slowly revealed.  Our job is just to keep faithful to keeping our gaze straight ahead and not getting distracted by anything else.  Slowly and in God's timing will we see the fruit of all the seeds that have been planted and watered.  He is the only one who can produce authentic fruit! That will not be destroyed or change like shifting shadows.

All Things New

Well our first Sunday in 2013 we will meeting in a home. It is a rebirthing of La Conexion, our original church plant here in Mexico City.  After searching and listening to God and having a great discontent on our part for the results of the model we have been using, we feel God calling us to a different model that will promote and nourish families to grow deeply together and reach their own communities. So with almost all of our families excited to continue down the journey we have been placed on we are starting to meet in a home this week.  With a focus on the true cost of discipleship, what does it look like to be a disciple of Christ? We are convinced as a community that we are each called to be lanterns in our communities, so this is our goal not to be inward focused and so grow lethargic in our desire to grow and reach the lost.  But we want to be a community where our own spiritual growth is our commitment and our desire together, where we are open to accountability and long for spiritual renewal in our own lives.  Then we will be seen by those who live around us as a light that is shining in the darkness, that others will be drawn to looking for truth in a dark and broken world.  This is a very intentional time with a specific time period of 9-10 months of praying for the lost in our areas of influence and creating a deeper foundation for our own lives, through disciplines in our daily lives.  Then in however it plays out we will seek to become these strong lanterns in our different communities with a presence that will last bearing imperishable fruit.

Dying to live

John 12:24   Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 

This passage has becoming new to me again in the situation we are going through with our church plant La Conexion.  We are seeing a sort of change that looks from the outside as if something is dying.  I have decided that it is fruitless to look back and try to anylize all of the what if´s..it is a fruitless waste of time to which I need to practice taking every thought captive (2 Cor 12:5) and practice allowing his presence to mould my thoughts even towards the future.  Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.  But if it dies, it produces many seeds.  I think this is an image for us at this present time, we are being asked to die to an image that we take comfort in (our present expression of church community) and being asked to allow it to be reborn 1Peter 1:23 says For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. So that we can become something that will be lasting that will endure and in the spiritual realm will multiply imperishable.  This is a journey that requires the type of faith that Hebrews 10 that encourages us to preserve and not to shrink back in times when we walking by faith and not by sight. But to see what is in front of us as an incredible opportunity for growth! To allow ourselves to be broken so that what is put back together is immovable and imperishable!

Nadie se lo imagino Jesus Adrian Romero.wmv

Celebration Morning

Well once a month our Contemplative Prayer Group meets together to celebrate all the ways that the Lord has been with us and answering our prayers.  Everyone brings something to share and we eat breakfast together and reflect on how good our God is! Three of these ladies aren´t apart of our community La Conexion but they have brought us together and really given us a sense of community.  Aren´t they beautiful!!!
love Sandra

Contemplative Prayer

This is to me a painting of the community that takes place Thursday mornings at our Contemplative Prayer group.  There are many women from La Conexion that faithfully come, some even travel two hours by metro and then bus just to enjoy the morning together.  We also have more than a hand full of women that come from our community.  We always here comments of how it is the high light of their week, that the time goes too quickly.  Its really a very simple thing that we share together.  We worship together and we meditate on a small piece of scripture, allowing  questions to draw us deeper into the verse and allowing in to penetrate our hearts. Then we always have time to share our hearts together, what have we heard this morning? and how can we care for each other in prayer.  It is beautiful! So this picture is of how when we come together and feast of the living bread of life, how he meets us and sustains us, he brings refreshing to our tired bodies, he brings hope to our discouragement and he allows his presence as we meditate on him to heal our wounded hearts.  All together drawing us together in community.
love Sandra

Teaching English!

So I am totally enjoying the kids school with English Conversation! I think it is a great way to serve and give back to the school for loving my girls and taking great care of them.  Plus I get to hang out at school and peek in on them! These are all great kids and though they are learning english grammar they don't have a native speaker to converse with.  I hope they are having as much fun as I am. 

love Sandra