Urgent Need: Refrigerator

Some good news and some less-good news: first, our children's breakfast program is expanding, which is great! What's not so good is that we are out of storage space for the food we buy every Friday. Since we prepare everything the night before, it all has to be refrigerated until Saturday morning, and with our numbers pushing 200, our current fridge isn't near big enough: it's math time!

On the left you see our fridge, which is the size of an average lawn chair (at right of fridge), and on the right is a picture of all the supplies we will be taking to the breakfasts tomorrow. The pew which the food is on seats about 8 people, so being good mathematicians we will convert pews to lawn chairs and say that we are trying to fit 8 lawn chairs of food into 1 lawn chair of space.

Result: 8 lawn chairs of food / 1 lawn chair of space = time for a big new fridge!

With about $1000 we could buy a large fridge and possibly a small, separate freezer. This is an urgent and important need because we see an increasing number of children every week. We don't want to run the risk of a child becoming sick from an improperly stored item of food; not only would it physically endanger the people we are trying to help, it would also damage our testimony in the area. Please pray that God will meet this need in the coming week, and please contact me at sanpedroshm@gmail.com if you are interested in donating toward this important ministry.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year from everyone here in San Pedro to all of you who read this blog and keep us in your thoughts and prayers. It is our prayer that God will bless you in this new year! We are excited to keep sharing with you what he is doing here in Mexico. We are back to our normal routines now, with the start of classes at the English school and Id Pues Missions School today. We are also getting ready for our trip to San Antonio and the annual missions conference at Destiny Church, which is always a blessing to us.

In early December we were happy to receive a visit from another group from Grace Church of Humble. They stayed over the weekend and participated in the Children's Breakfast and held a service at our San Pedro rehab center. Almost 300 people showed up for the breakfast and we ran out of food, even after a quick trip to a nearby Wal-Mart. We have submitted an application to the food bank asking them to allot us more food, so please pray that they will grant the request.

End of Summer

On Monday we said goodbye to our last summer group, who came from Texas to spend the weekend with us. They participated in our Friday night church service, the Saturday morning children's breakfast, an outreach in the village of San Rafael on Saturday night, and both services on Sunday.

Making balloon shapes for the children at the breakfast...





Sharing a testimony in San Rafael, and the crowd of onlookers...




School starts next week for most children here, and many universities have already begun classes. Timothy's first day of university was yesterday, Elisa begins her second year of university in two more weeks, and Peter will be homeschooled this fall as he enters Grade 8. Also, the Id Pues missions school will be opening September 1. Please keep all of these in prayer, joining with us in asking God to use his children and young people to spread his love in their schools, and wherever they go.

Grace Center

This week we enjoyed a visit from a group of more than 30 youth and leaders from Grace Center in Nashville. They arrived very early Wednesday morning after a delay at the border, but the rest of the week went smoothly. They worked on several projects around the property, fixing roofs and painting buildings, and also saw some of San Pedro. They ministered at both rehab centers and at the children's breakfast, as well as in our regular church services. On Sunday morning 12 of the youth were baptized, along with two people from Templo Cristiano Libertad.

URGENT Need: Desayunador

If you are a regular reader of the blog, you will know about the children's breakfast project we run every Saturday in Cardboardland, the poorest neigbourhood in the city of Torreon. (If you are new to the blog, click on the label at the bottom of this post that says "Ministry - Children's Breakfast"to see a list of all the pertinent entries). Several months ago we obtained land to build our own desayunador, or building from which to distribute food and eventually open a medical clinic. We started building but have only been able to lay a very basic foundation. Recently we were given a deadline by the local government: we have until the end of October to complete the building or we will lose the property entirely. This is the only remaining property available in the area and we urgently need $5000 to completely construct and furnish the building. You can send donations through PayPal (see button at the top left of this page) or through regular mail to:

Seedtime and Harvest Ministries
8635 Callaghan Rd.
San Antonio, TX 78230 USA

Please help us continue this important outreach. As I have commented before, we are not only feeding the children's bodies, but more importantly we are feeding their souls.

We Made It!

We're happy (and amazed) to tell you that we DID make it to the food bank this week - despite our van overheating. Thankfully, we were at the rehab center when it happened, and so we were able to deal with the situation quickly. After running out of food at the last two breakfasts, this week we were blessed with enough food for 130 breakfasts on Saturday morning. We actually saw closer to 150 children come, and while we weren't able to give full breakfasts to the last few, at the very least they received a bottle of yogurt or Jello. Please pray that we will be able to feed all who come, and not just with earthly food, but that God will fill the souls of the children and their families.

What Are The Odds?

If you've been reading our blog from the beginning, or if you've taken the time to read some of the older posts, you probably know a bit about the children's breakfast we serve in Torreon every Saturday morning. 3 weeks ago, Stephen told me that I would be taking charge of the breakfasts. Every Friday, I have to go to the food bank in Torreon, get what we need for the next day (usually bread, yogurt, and milk), and then drive to Torreon bright and early Saturday morning to serve breakfast. Since I'm still relatively new here, I don't know where the food bank is, so Stephen told Paul and I to go that first Friday. However, when Friday came, we didn't have a car to go in. Fine, we said, we'll go next week. The next Friday rolls around, and Paul and I set out in our ancient pick-up truck. All is going well until about 20 minutes into the trip, when the truck suddenly slows down for no reason. Well, actually, this was the reason:
So off we trekked into town, called for help, changed the tire, and decided to try again the next week.

The third Friday comes along, and we set off again (in a different car), feeling a bit of trepidation...but we passed the spot where we broke down...halfway to Torreon...success!! We made it to the rehab center! All we have to do is wait for a couple of people, and then we're off to the food bank. BUT, while we're waiting in the office, we get a phone call from Stephen - there's a problem at the bank, and we have to go back to San Pedro to sort it out. So close...and yet so far...so this week, a month after our first attempt, we'll be heading out again - please pray that we'll make it!

However disastrous our attempts to get to the food bank, the breakfasts have been going very well. Three weeks ago we fed about 60 children, two weeks ago about 75, and last week over 120. While we're glad that we're reaching so many people, this week we ran out of food before we ran out of people. It's difficult to look at the people and tell them that there's nothing left, although they received the news calmly. To avoid this problem in the future, we're hoping to involve some of our church members in buying beans and tortillas and making burritos to supplement the food we get from the food bank. It will also be helpful when we get the new kitchen built because if we start to run low on food, we will be able to make more on site, instead of guessing how much to bring every week. This is a picture of the new building right now. We are praying that we will be able to expand it further to accommodate more children and more workers.

Don't Close Your Eyes

A little while ago Stephen asked me to go take pictures at a ministry that I didn't even know we had. I have been here working with him and Marcela for almost a year now, but there is just so much going on that it is hard to keep up with everything.

Every Saturday morning the director of our Torreon Rehab Center (Rescate Social), Gerardo, and some of the young men who are in recovery go to a neighborhood to give breakfast to the children there. This is no ordinary neighborhood.

It is called Cardboardland (Cartonlandia). It is just a few miles away from one of the most expensive, private universities and one of the wealthiest parts of town. It is a part of the city that I didn't even know existed. The cardboard and cinder block houses stretched as far as I could see. Many had newspaper for roofs and sticks for beams. Others had wood nailed poorly together with gaps in the walls. It literally makes me shudder to think about how cold the winter will be for these people. I have seen this type of poverty in other parts of Mexico, but never in this proportion and not in the city of Torreon.

We arrived and unloaded the car with the food. The families were already lined up waiting for us. It was a blessing to be able to see the kids and visit with them, and to be able to help a little against their poverty. They seemed grateful for the help and, despite their conditions, they were still smiling.

The long term plan of this ministry is to build a permanent cafeteria in the area so the children can come, be safe, and simply eat. Stephen and Gerardo are already looking at property. What an incredible vision!!!

Numbness is a scary thing. It happens even on the mission field. We become so used to our schedule, to our life, and the worries of our day that we forget that it is not about us. It is about Him, the one who gave everything, all his attention, all his life...for us.

So the challenge for all of us is to open our eyes. Be aware. It is so easy to see a picture of a child and say, "What a shame,'' and do nothing more. Let's be involved, be aware, and pray always for the greatest need of all: the salvation of the souls of these children.

Please be praying for Stephen and Gerardo as they further this ministry. I praise God for opening my eyes to this ministry and for touching my heart with the faces that need spiritual and physical bread.

Paul Ellsworth