Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Life in Guerrero, Mexico

Hope all is well with you, been a while since my last blog. Well let me keep you up on what’s been going on down here. Josef and I are living in the state of Guerrero, in Mexico. In a little village called Arroyo Grande. It’s been quite challenging being down here to say the least. Times of sorrows and grief, yet times of joy and peace. But I thank God for the trials for as the word of God says he uses them to refine us, as gold is refined. It’s nothing like it was living in Rosarito. It’s a lot more primitive here. God has been much gracious to me in helping me deal with the change. Josef did a lot better than me dealing with the change. So how do people live here? Well everyone here, for the exception of Josef and I, eat 3 full meals a day, 2 meals a day is more than plenty for us.

People here have a custom of eating out every night for dinner. The big thing for dinner is “enchiladas”, you can get 10 for a dollar. They are tiny though. There are no restaurants in our town like in the US, people just set up some tables and chairs outside in their front yard and cook for you outside, those are the restaurants here, you can eat for about a dollar to 2 dollars per adult at these restaurants. Tortillas are almost a necessity for them here. They hand make their tortillas, or go buy freshly made ones for each meal. They normally cook their tortillas outside on the fire on a homemade skillet thing made out of mud. Some one in the town kills a cow or pig or goat every other day or so, and every one buys it from him. Right now there’s men who go fishing and bring fish to sell here about three times a week, they get here at 7am, kinda early for me but this week I went for it, got a good deal, a dozen fish for $4US dollars. With chickens it’s a daily thing, there is a chicken lady that comes to your house and brings you freshly killed chicken for a whopping $7US dollars a chicken. Expensive. Josef and I don’t go the fresh route it’s too expensive, since we go out to the city a few times a week we just buy frozen meat and poultry there, but limit our selves to eating either meat or chicken or fish once a week, to keep our costs down. We have had to get really creative in figuring out ways to eat beans and tortillas and rice. Maybe I can send you all some recipes if you like, to help you save money on food cost. Here you can get freshly made cheese and milk, since people have cows. Josef recently planted beans and tomatoes, they are looking good so far. We are hoping that will help us save some money, we want to plant onions too and chilies, corn would be nice too. We have some room to plant where we are at but we are just borrowing a house that was empty and don’t know how long we can use it for. We are also considering having a little farm in this land we just inherited from my grandpa, but we would need to build a well and that can get costly, maybe even build a little hut out of mud. But it’s in the Lords hands, he will guide us. We don’t know how long we will be here, so before we do anything we need to wait on the leading of the Lord. Most people hand wash their clothes and air dry them since it’s so hot here, it’s a desert. The house we are living in has a washer, when it wants to work it’s great, but when it doesn’t I have to do it the old fashioned way and wash by hand, jeans are tough for me they get really heavy when they are wet, especially Josef’s. We don’t have running water like in the US. We have to pump water from a well. From the well it pumps it to this huge cement tub (that needs to be cleaned and scrubbed at least twice a week or else it gets these twirling worms, I think they turn into Mosquito’s), from the cement tub we use another pump to pump it up to this big black tank that’s on the top of our house and from there it goes to our sink and toilet. They are electrical pumps not manual, saves us lots of work. It was tough on me at first, seemed like a lot of work for me, but after much praying I have gotten used to it and it is no longer a burden. So don’t take for granted the water that you get, it’s so easy in America, you don’t have to sweat at all to get water like down here, and I am sure it’s so much worse in other parts in the world compared to here. Bucket showers for most people, including us. We don’t have hot water either, it wasn’t bad till recently now it’s on the cold side, but we bear, just got to work out showers when it’s the warmest time in the day and it’s not so bad. Oh yeah, trash, we have to burn our trash in our back yard, no trash man that comes and takes it for you. Another luxury of America. Same with gas, no gas just comes from pipes, we have to buy a tank of gas that plugs into our stove, it lasts about a month.

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs!!! That’s one of our problems especially now there’s lots of these bugs that suck your blood and make you itch they leave me welts, kind of like Mosquito’s but not. They like to get me really bad, they don’t bite Josef much and if they do he doesn’t get welts, which is good. Some of these bugs carry Dengue, it’s a really bad sickness. Josef’s problem was with wasps, they were constantly in the house swarming around him and building nests in our house. It’s better now though. We had a tarantula creep into our house, Josef ended up killing it, it was big and creepy looking, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it, you can see a picture of Josef and the tarantula on the right slide show. John (a friend that came and stayed with us for a while) killed a few Alacranes. They’re like scorpions they are deadly if not taken care of immediately. Bats like to hang outside our front door, there’s two of them that sleep there. Twice already they have came in our house and one just about came in a short while ago. There’s also snakes, in our property, since being here our neighbor that lives in the same land we do has killed now about 5 snakes outside our house. There’s still a few we haven’t been able to catch.

Now the good things. It is really nice down here, hills, trees, horses, cows, donkeys, goats, rivers, country type. You can also see pics of our surroundings on the right on the slide show. Food is not bad, weather is nice right now it does get really hot though here. But the best of all is being able to live in the midst of a people who don’t know Christ, and being able to preach the blessed gospel to them. We had a great opportunity to have a booth at yearly fiesta for the town we live in. It has been the first time anyone has ever done this here before. It brought fear to some people in the town, they were saying things like it is for sure the last days and that Jesus is coming back, because never has anyone done this before. We gave out free gospel literature and bibles for those who came up, we had some great witnesses it was very fruitful. The people here have been really nice to us, we have this really nice lady that invites us a lot to her house to cook for us, she feeds us well. She said something just birthed in her heart to want to care for us since meeting us. She reminds me of the woman who took care of Elijah the prophet, though she had almost nothing to eat herself she gave her all to cook for this man of God, you can read the story in 1Kings. And this lady has been like this to us, lately she has been struggling hard with finances but still is having us over. She is still unconverted, not wanting to forsake all to follow Christ, I just trust in the Lord that as the seed of the Gospel has been planted and we keep watering it that he would give the increase. She has a daughter too that has been a great blessing to us, and we have been preaching the word to her also and have seen the Spirit of the Lord convict her and bring her to tears over her sin. Please keep them in your prayers that God would bring salvation to that home. The lady has a boyfriend whom she’s lived with for many years and they have children that are all grown up now. He not so long ago left to the US to get into the drug smuggling business. We preached to him a few times before he left and he decided to leave anyways, it broke our hearts to see him follow the path of destruction. But to our great surprise, he has been really scared to take on that job and has not been able to work doing that, he started washing cars instead. I have talked to him a few times on the phone, since he has been up there. Please pray for him, that the hand of the Lord would continue to be heavy upon him and that he would repent of all his sins, as Jesus commands, and that he would follow Christ having putting all his faith in Him. This is a couple who came to see the Jesus Film when we showed it here in our town, so it’s a blessing to see how the Lord used that movie so that we could meet these people.

We have had some opposition here from some people, in the beginning some of the townspeople were making up lies about us, so that people would not go to see the movie we were showing. Gone through some heartbreaking experiences with false brethren. We had this relationship with a local pastor he seemed so humble and seemed to love the Lord, but ended up being a wolf in sheep’s clothing a habitual liar and hypocrite. It is so sad that this man is what has been representing Christianity for many years to these people. We tried talking to him about his life of sin to no avail. Since parting ways with him he has gotten deeper into his life of lies and is now slandering us and lying about us. Please pray that God would have mercy on this man and that he would repent and truly serve Christ.

Since being here we have showed the Jesus Film to this town and other surrounding towns. We also showed a movie called “Luz Del Mundo” here in this town. It has been a great blessing to see the fruit of this, many times as laborers of the Lord we don’t see fruits when we pour out our hearts to people and our time, but God has allowed us to see some fruit from this. We show the movie and preach the Gospel. We recently visited an old man that can barely see and hear, but he went to see the Jesus Film in our town and memorized some of it and holds on to that since he can’t read the bible. It has had that effect on a few of the older people and on the children.

People in this town are lawless. Kind of like wild cowboys. Its do as you will here, there’s hardly any consequences. They just found a dead man down the road we live on less than 10 minutes away. Don’t know the details yet, somepeople say he was hanged, others say he was shot in the forehead, now they are saying they just found another body too. People here don’t think twice about taking someones life, it’s really sad, the men here carry guns when they go out. I don’t think there has been a day that I don’t hear gunshots, even machine guns! They just like to shoot in the air for fun at home or at parties. A lot of the men here are drug traffickers. We have had some good witnesses with some of them, just a few days ago I was able to preach a little to about 6 of the main mobsters from this town. It was my first time meeting them. I look forward to talking to them further, the mens wives have agreed to have us over once a week for bible studies at one of their houses. These women are broken, they get treated badly by these men, please pray for their protection and salvation. They have a lot of inner wounds, but God can heal them and save their souls. They are starting to see their depravity and need for a Savior, please keep them in prayer that they would repent and believe the Gospel.

For years since being converted I have had a great desire to preach the gospel in Prisons. After much prayer, the Lord has answered that desire of mine in such a special way. I thank God for giving me a husband that has the same burdens and desires as I do and encourages me to preach where God leads. For about 2 months we have been preaching there, Josef preaches I interpret. We go about 2 times a week sometimes 3. On Sundays is our time where we preach in this room for 2 hours. And Wed. and Sat. are visiting hours, that’s where we go to spend one on one time with the men that are being ministered to, and build relationships with them, exhort them deeper with the Word of God, pray for them, cast demons out, etc. It’s a lot like what we were doing in the Rehab center in Tijuana. Here it’s not like the US prisons, here the inmates are all loose on the yard, and you can go up to any of them and talk to them, you have free range to go anywhere, the basketball courts, their work area, their rooms where they sleep, they all sleep in one big room with these cheap hand made bunk beds, some sleep on the floor till they build a bed which it takes weeks for them to be able to get beds. Please pray for the men that God would set them free in the inner man, though the outer man is in bonds. Some of the men we are spending one on one time with are murderers, kidnappers of adults, thief’s, drug traffickers and the list goes on. Some are in there for car accidents, here in Mexico if you get into a car accident and don’t have money to pay the injured you go to jail, that’s really sad, especially if it’s not your fault. We were able to meet a lady who’s son is in there and she heard us talking to someone about the Lord and she invited us to her home to come and give her a bible study. She has been wanting to live for God and needed guidance. We went last week, it was really far where she lives in the middle of no where, about an hour from our house. Josef taught her about the message of Reconciliation through what Jesus did on the Cross.

Many of you know the Lord has done something different here in Mexico that we didn’t do in the US as far as ministry, and that is reaching the little ones. Again we see the hand of the Lord in this here. For over a month now we have had weekly bible studies for the kids. We bring some speakers, play music, teach the kids songs, and sing. It’s different than the way we did it in Tijuana. Here kids just want to learn the bible they don’t care if they get clothes or treats, we don’t even do that, in fact I only gave them cookies once as a surprise. The kids here seem to be much more hungry for the Word than the adults. They are learning and putting into practice what they learn. I do a lesson from the Word of God, then they color biblical pictures, then I spend one on one time with them, that’s when they seem to get the more convicted over their sins, when I personally address their sins and how they need to repent and put their faith in Christ. I believe some of the older kids are at an age where they do understand and can be born again. As a result of these childrens meetings, now our house is filled with kids, they don’t bother me, I quite like it. They come up with all kinds of questions about religious things as they are here, like “who made God?” “What do you mean He always existed?” “How is that possible?” “Is it wrong to do this or that?” They like to come over and help me clean the yard, it’s so helpful we have a huge yard, and they help me burn the leaves, one of the little girls is like an Indian she has a special talent on starting fires to burn trash. One little girl comes over almost everyday and spends time here, she’s really sad her brother died not to long ago and you can see the sadness in her eyes. She’s been a lot more cheerful though, I can’t even see that sad look in her eyes that often anymore. Because of our childrens study it seems like the Catholic Church wasn’t so happy that their kids were coming to our study, so they decided to do a kid study of their own, but wanting to bait the kids in with candy. Really sad, because they are not doing it out of love. I know this because I heard the teacher herself express how she really doesn’t want to teach them. It seems like it’s this religious burden, something they have to do and not love. I really love these kids and they need someone to teach them the truth in the love of Christ. Please keep all these things in prayer. We need your prayers. This was a long blog, I will try to blog more often so it doesn’t get this long next time. Pray that God would strengthen us, that we would not grow weary, that we would be faithful to the Lord in all we do, and that Him who died would be glorified!
For new pictures you can also view them here: http://s403.photobucket.com/albums/pp114/Missions2Mexico/

Blessings to all,

Lina Urban
www.puregospeltruth.com

Friday, June 20, 2008

We Are Back From Our Journey!

We have recently returned from our 3-week journey to southern Mexico and had a successful mission to the glory of God. We met with both hardships, with persecution, and with blessings and movings of the Spirit. Here is an outline of our trip:

We flew out from the Tijuana airport to Acapulco and abode overnight at a relative’s house. From there, we took a 7-hour bus ride and arrived in a small city called Altamirano and from there, stayed in a small town about 30 minutes away (driving time), where Lina has a lot of family. This small town is in the middle of a desert and is largely unreached with the Gospel, and the main city is surrounded by many other such towns in all directions.

The area where this town is located doesn’t see hardly any American visitors (I would actually get many hard stares for being a gringo). There is almost NO gospel witness. It’s sad though as there are Catholics everywhere. And there are a couple of big, brand new Jehovah Witness churches in that area. The mormons are there too. Yet, the true Church of Jesus Christ has not penetrated the enemy’s ranks in that place! It’s full of dead religion but totally void of a true witness of the power of God! Of all the people we talked to, none of them owned a real Bible. The ones that owned a Bible only had a copy of the Jehovah Witnesses Bible since they have been all through there preaching their doctrines of demons. It is a dark area, full of drug smugglers and high-ranking mafia. The town is a drug town; most of the houses are extremely poor and dilapidated yet out front, you will see a brand new $50,000 car (which a regular working Mexican could never afford). It hasn’t been sufficiently evangelized and despite what your missions prayer maps might say, it’s largely unreached. When asked what religion we were, we always say, “Christians”, that is, followers of Christ. People would say, “Christians? There’s none of those in this area.” It is a great desire of mine to go back and to labor and pray that the Lord would be pleased to establish a strong Gospel witness in this region. We will see if the Lord permits. Here are some pictures:

It was amazing because usually, family is the last people to want to hear you preach to them. Yet, the first night we were there, when we were about to go for a walk through the town and prospectively find someone to share the Gospel with, some of Lina’s family members that were with us said, “Why don’t you preach to us?” So we said, “Sure!” and proceeded to preach the whole Gospel to them. We actually have a large pictorial flip chart that goes through vivid biblical illustrations, starting with Adam and Eve and ending at the Great White Throne Judgment and the Lake of Fire, so we started at the beginning and preached through all of the pictures to them. It went really well.

We were also able to preach to some others in this village and had a couple of truly divine appointments. The scripture never ceases to amaze me: “A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps” (Pro 16:9). One day after prayer, as we went door to door to preach, we were walking through the village and the first house we went up to invited us in and allowed us to sit down and preach the whole Gospel to them for a couple hours. They were a very poor husband and wife couple and have a couple children. He used to smuggle drugs to the US but has now left that. As we began to talk with them, I started by asking him about what he thinks is going to happen to him when he dies (I usually never ask this at the first). And he was immediately shocked at the question, because he related to us that many times he wakes up in the middle of the night, worried about what’s going to happen when he dies. He gets so scared sometimes, that, being unable to see to read for himself, he will have his wife read the Bible to him at these times. Yet, he understood nothing of it. So we proceeded to preach through the Scriptures on the nature of sin, it’s penalty, the justice of God and the wrath of God, and then upon the mercy and love of God and the grace of Jesus Christ. The man and his wife appeared to be very much convicted. They used to be Catholics, then switched to Jehovah Witness, then switched again to hyper-charismatic Pentecostals (who in this village sound more like a cult than anything), and now had given up and settled for nothing. All they had was a JW’s Bible (which is changed), so we were able to give them a real New Testament. We were able to preach to them clearly on the way of salvation and how to be saved, and we were able to pray with them too. Please continue to keep them in prayer.

The Lord also opened the doors for us to preach to another family in this village. The man in this family is an educated, respectable, “moral” man and a hard working mechanic who thought that all religion is good since it leads to better morals, and that he himself would enter Heaven based upon the supposition that he is a good person who deserves it. In talking with him, I opened up the Law of God and he was immediately convinced as a liar. I opened the Bible to Revelation 21:8 (all liars have their part in the lake of fire) and had him read it, and when he did, his countenance suddenly sunk and it hit him like a ton of bricks. Then I turned it to John 3:36, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him”. When he read that, knowing that he doesn’t believe in Jesus as we already discussed what that means, his eyes began to water as the Holy Ghost convinced him of his sinful state before God. I immediately started expounding on the Cross, and before I could scarcely begin, he interrupted desperately, “What do I have to do to be saved?!!” So we told him how to be saved. He turned to his wife and anxiously said, “Let’s go for it honey!” Then his mind started to race forward as he began to count the cost. He started asking questions like, “Does this mean I won’t be able to own a nice car?”, “does this mean I won’t be able to save a lot of money up?”, “Does this mean that I have to be a preacher like you?”, etc. He began to say, “This means I am going to be mocked and laughed at by the town”, “This means that when that happens, I won’t be able to defend myself”, etc. etc. It was amazing to see how the Spirit of God was revealing to him exactly what it means to follow Christ and exactly what he would have to endure for the Cross’ sake. We were able to plead with him and exhort them much and to give them a nice hardcover full Bible. Hopefully they have laid down their rebellion against God and repented. Please keep them in prayer –the man’s name is Sergio.

We also desired to preach in the open market in the main city in this place, but for some reason, it wasn’t as populated when we went as people were telling us it was, and there wasn’t enough people to preach to without having some kind of amplification to make our voices heard, so we didn’t preach. Here’s a picture of the market:

From there, we were off to Oaxaca to meet up with David Sitton (www.toeverytribe.com) and his team. We had to take a 5-hour bus ride to Mexico City, and from there, transfer to another bus which then took us on another 6-7 hour trip to another city, and from there, take a shuttle for another couple of hours which then caused us to arrive in our city of destination in Oaxaca. As we stayed there, David and his team ended up breaking down on the ride down and had a lot of problems making it. So we ended up waiting for 4 days for them to arrive. But it was all good and in the divine providence of God!

During our wait in this little city, we decided to do some preaching. The first night we were there, as we were in the city square, I noticed a large Catholic Church down the street. I said, “let’s walk over there and check it out”. As we walked up, some men came out and lit off a bunch of fireworks. Then they were followed by a procession of a large group of people marching out. As they marched, they were chanting “Hail Mary’s” and carrying idols and relics.

My heart was grieved and I prayed for them. We proceeded to walk back to our hotel which is many blocks away across the city. As we walked down our street, we stopped, and before long and to our complete surprise, the people began to march right down our street. I told Lina, “You should stand up and read some scripture to them”, so as they went by, she read the 2nd Commandment from Exodus 20 that reads: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God…” She expounded slightly upon it. Then they kept walking.

The next night, an older man came up to us and asked, “Are you the ones who read the Bible to us last night?” We affirmed. Then he turned beat red, furious, and full of hatred, and began to curse and threaten us. He told Lina that he would take her Bible and destroy it while poking her with his finger and pushing her. He said things such as “Who do you think you are to quote the Bible and try to change the traditions that our ancestors have held for hundreds of years!” There was a murderous Catholic demon which had a strong influence in that place. A day or two later, as we were walking down the street, we ran into that man with a group of his friends standing along the road. He pointed to us, “That’s the gringo and the girl!” A woman yelled, “We should stone them!!!” And the crowd cheered her on. Praise God! Hallelujah!!! I’ve never actually been threatened to be stoned for Jesus’ sake, but it was a tremendous blessing and caused me to rejoice in heart! We have been praying for that man ever since, that God would forgive him for he knows not what he is doing, and even that God would convert him and make him the Saul of Tarsus turned Paul of the town.

During our layover in this city, by the sovereignty of God we were able to meet a husband and wife couple who runs a little restaurant. This is a nice, sit-down restaurant and all the food is a whopping $3 a plate (!). After seeing the Bible in my hand and finding out we were Christians, the man sat down with us at our table and began to talk with us and listen to us present the Gospel and expound on what it means to be born again. He never heard about being born again and didn’t know what it meant. He also thought one could only pray in a church, so he was blown away to discover that one can pray anywhere, especially the words of Jesus where He talks about entering your room and praying in secret. We talked with him about true repentance, about confessing his sins and putting his faith and trust in Jesus alone to save him. Later, when we came back, we found him preaching to a couple men in his restaurant, and telling them they need to be born again, and to go get alone with God and confess their sins! –It is always a great sign to see somebody evangelizing. We were encouraged to find out that after talking with us, he himself went into his room and shut the door, knelt down before God, and confessed his sins asking Jesus to save him. He has been waking up at 4 o’clock every morning and reading his Bible too. And this couple has opened their house to us, offering us a place to stay whenever we visit this city. We were also able to pray for his kidneys, as he has had tumors or growths on them that are potentially cancerous, so we laid hands on him and cursed those tumors in the name of Jesus. We pray he was healed but were not able to visit him again since then to verify anything.

By the mercy of God, we were also able to preach in the big open square in the dead center of the city where a lot of people gather. We were able to preach a great open air message to a crowd of about 30+ people. Seeing they are all Catholic, I decided to preach from the Lord’s Prayer, since all Catholics knew it, and to expound on it verse by verse, using it as a springboard to preach against idolatry as is in Catholicism, to preach the hallowedness and holiness of God, the Kingdom of God and what it means to enter that Kingdom and abide therein, against hypocrisy, the will of God for sinners to repent and for people to live in obedience to His commands, the provision and love of God in caring for men, the basis of the forgiveness of sin in the Cross and Gospel of Christ, and the glory of God. The people were very attentive and after much exhortation, we were able to pass out a couple Gospels of John to them.

Eventually, brother David and the team ended up showing up before we were martyred for the testimony of Jesus. We then headed out from this city to the town of unreached Indians that we were going to preach to. We had to drive along some extremely thin and dangerous mountain roads to reach this remote village and after about 4 hours of driving through these mountains, we arrived. Here’s some pictures of the village:

David and the team set up a medical and dental clinic in this village as the way to get in (you can’t just go in saying you’re a Christian missionary who desires to convert people or you will get kicked out and possibly be in serious physical danger). So the clinics were the inroads he used. This was a village of Mixtec Indians who just a hundred years ago were still performing human sacrifices to their pagan gods. Their main religion is Animism (the belief that spirits control everything, possess inanimate objects, and must be constantly appeased) mixed with Catholicism, therefore they live in perpetual fear. Some of them seem to be more modernized now though too.

Many were very fearful of us as well. They are not an open, friendly people like many Mexicans are. And to top it all off, the vast majority of them don’t speak any Spanish. They still speak their native Mixteco language (which sounds very Asian). During our stay, we camped out in tents and they ran the dental and medical clinics to provide services for all the people who came up. It was hard to communicate as most of the time we didn’t have a translator.

However, there were maybe about ten people that came up who did speak Spanish. So it was our goal to preach as much as we could to those who could understand us. We were also able to pray for some of the sick and ask God to heal them. One man who spoke Spanish came up and we were able to sit down with him and talk. We explained to him the fact of sin and how God views it, and its penalty, and then I asked him, “Do you know what Jesus did for you on the Cross?” He looked puzzled, and said, “no”. Then I said, “Do you even know who Jesus Christ is?” and to that he replied, “I think I’ve heard of Him before”. –What! My heart was overwhelmed within me as the reality hit me that these people have never heard who Jesus is. We proceeded to share the Gospel with him as simply and clearly as we could. We told him about how Jesus would heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead and cast out demons, and he was amazed. Right away, he pointed to the Bible in Lina’s hands, and said, “Do you have another one of those books?” (he didn’t know to call it a Bible), so we gave him one. We told him what to do to be saved. We were able to pray with him and commend him to the grace of God, and have been praying for him since. May God give the increase!

There was also another man from this village who spoke Spanish who we were able to preach to and have a tremendous time with. He had no idea what “sin” was, or what “judgment day” was. We explained it to him, and his jaw literally dropped open, and then he immediately asked if we have another book (Bible)! We told him about the Lord Jesus and how to be saved through faith in His name. He appeared to have a very sincere hunger to know the things of God and to read his new Bible, please pray for Him that God would reach down and convert his soul.

There were others we were able to speak with as well. It was such an unspeakable blessing to be able to share the Gospel and the beauties of the precious Cross to people who have never ever heard, or even had a chance to hear, such things. To tell someone about Jesus who doesn’t even know who Jesus is or what He did. It was such a blessed experience; it was truly amazing; words cannot describe how much it blessed my soul. The village has now requested that we would send in an English teacher to teach the townspeople English, which is a total breakthrough and a mighty opportunity for a Gospel worker to go in, live among them, and be a witness in this village while teaching English using the Bible as the text book. Please pray that God would send worthy laborers into this unreached harvest field. If you are interested in giving your life for the next few years+ to forsake all the comforts of your materialistic culture, moving in to a group of unreached people in a remote region, taking up their culture, learning their language (which is only spoken, there is no written language here), teaching English, praying for a move of God, and ultimately, planting churches in this region, please contact me if you feel God is calling you.

It was also a great blessing to be able to meet David and some of the other brethren who came with him, and I believe it was a very fruitful time to fellowship and admonish and encourage and be admonished and encouraged. David is planning on hosting a missions conference, Lord willing, this October in Brownsville, TX. The name of the conference is, “A Purpose Driven Death” and the subject is how God uses missionary hardship and martyrdom to pioneer the Gospel into hard and unreached regions. If you may want to attend or want information about it, email me.

We are now back in Tijuana and are selling the little amount of possessions we have left in our house. After that, we plan on sojourning in the US for a month or two, and during this time, acquiring some much needed ministry equipment which will enable us to preach to many more people, and also during this time making all the preparations necessary for our next journey deep into southern Mexico (which would be a much longer journey this time, at least a number of months duration) if the Lord permits. Please keep my wife and I in your prayers as the Lord leads. And pray for mercy for the nation of America as I believe great catastrophe is just right around the corner in terms of war and financial hardship.

I want to extend a special word of appreciation to our friends and supporters who have been faithfully praying for us and supporting us financially in order that we can continue to do what we’re doing in like manner, and we pray that God will bless you and increase the fruits of your righteousness in return. We trust our labor in the Lord is not in vain.

May Christ be glorified! May the Lamb who was slain receive the reward of His suffering!

To See Pictures of the trip go here:
http://www.slide.com/r/lkaTU9CL7z8QYMjhNVCTrkwBkD2QldiS

In Christ – Josef and Lina Urban
www.puregospeltruth.com

Monday, April 28, 2008

More Doors Open!




Sean, Josef and I decided to go door to door to preach the Gospel in the slum village. Hey if Jehovah Witnesse's do it for a lie how much more should we do it for the truth! It was a blessing. The first and only house we went to opened their doors to us, and before we even told them what we where there for they invited us into their house. They were very friendly. We got to preach the Gospel to 4 of them, there are 13 people who live in this little house, I have attached pictures of them and their house. They were false converts, never experiencing the glorious new birth.
Please pray for them that they would be new creatures in Christ! We gave them Gospel of John's, for they only have one bible that they all share in the house. We encouraged them to read them and set up an appointment for us to return, they wanted us to come back to have bible studies with them. We came back Saturday as planned, and started teaching them through the book of John. We have set up a weekly bible study with them every Sunday. One of the young men that live there his name is Carlos confessed to us he has a problem with alcohol. He just recently got robbed and violently beaten his jaw was left hanging from his face. This neighborhood is so violent, it seems like everyone we know has something horrible happen to them. Carlos seems to be thinking about eternity right now. Please pray for his salvation, we offered to bring him to our house to spend more time with him alone, for he holds back having his mother and brother and sister there. He has quite happy and said he would like that. So Lord willing we will bring him over soon.

Also that Wednesday, we decided to walk up this hill to see what was there. It was the Lord's Sovereignty! We ran into this guy who was trying to go down this hill but couldn't in his car he got out of his car, and we went up to him. Long story short, his girlfriend of many years whom is the mother of his kids and lives with her, seems to be cheating on him. He was utterly heart broken, after being clean from alcohol for 9 years he fell again due to this. He also is doing drugs, and is suicidal. We got to listen to him as he told us his sorrows and we got to preach the Gospel to him. We prayed for him also and gave him a gospel of John. He knew the Lord sent us to him. Lord willing we will see him again, he said he will try to come on Wednesdays to the rehab to hear the word. Please pray that it would be so.

We went to the rehab center this Sunday again, it was a blessing. One of the guys we just met Aurelio is doing better. He has been a heroin addict for 21 years and has been clean for about 21 days. He's been at the rehab for about 2 weeks, and has been really impacted by the word. We have been visiting him for 2 weeks now, and there is such a change in him. He told us last week he's tired and wants to get right. We prayed for his deliverance from Heroin last week, he hadn't slept for like 15 days or so, because of the withdrawls. After praying for his deliverance he got really sleepy and went to bed. He knew it was the Lord, he's been sleeping ever since! He's been reading the word every night, and is learning so much, and it's helping him believe. Most of the men here don't want to make time for the Lord or His word, so it's such a blessing to see Aurelios hunger and desire to seek and know God. Please keep him in your prayers!

Lord bless you all!
Lina Urban
www.puregospeltruth.com

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Still Laboring!






"Behold, there went out a sower to sow: And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up. And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth: But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit. And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some a hundred." (Mark 4:3-8).

By the grace of God we are still sowing seeds here in Mexico. It seems like most of the seeds we plant get devoured by the enemy. Oh how I long to see a seed fall on good ground, that it may bear much fruit unto our King! We are still going out feeding the poor kids. Last week I was saddened to hear that the family that I am the closest too were moving deep down to Mexico, it broke my heart, I cried for days. But Praise Jesus, they were not able to move down there, so I get to keep them a little longer and keep loving them and teaching them! The pictures above are of them, for those who don't know of them yet. Luz (one of the girls) had told me that she stopped fighting, about 3 to 4 weeks ago, so I decided to ask her mom to see how she was behaving at home. Her mom told me there has been a great change in her. She doesn't fight anymore, and now tries to share with younger sister's what I have taught her. They are Catholic but by the grace of God, the parents allow them to come every week. I have noticed Luz for 2 weeks now has been sitting in our adult bible study and she wants me to show open the bible to where we are studying for her. She just sits there and listens. I gave her a bible last week, and her mom told me this weekend that Luz keeps asking her mom to read the bible to her, and then asks her a lot of questions regarding what she reads. So they both sit down and read the bible through the week. The mom told me, that her dad said that at the rate Luz is going she is going to be a Christian! I was blessed to hear that, this little girl seems to have more hunger than anybody we minister too. And I can see fruit in her life. Please pray that the Lord would save her soul. She is 6 years old.
We are still meeting with the women from the slum village. Please pray for Lucy, we have been preaching to her for a while, the Lord is calling her but she just won't repent and believe. Last week her neighbor Jose( he is also a guy we have been preaching too) came to her house with a huge knife and tried to stab her boyfriend on the back, but one of the other ladies from our study saw that and swung a broom to defend him and it hit the knife and missed him. So Lucy's boyfriend gets angry, grabs his Bibi gun and goes to Jose's house and shoots him on the lip! Jose fell and Lucy's boyfriend was pointing the gun at his eyes, about to shoot out his eyes, and Lucy was able to plead with him and pull him aside. Jose is fine, he went to work that same morning. That's Mexico for you! Please pray for these lost souls. Lucy is in adultery, her boyfriend is also in adultery and is a murderer at heart, Jose is also a murderer at heart and a homosexual, and the lady who helped Maggie, is also in adultery. We will be going tomorrow to meet with them some more.
We are also still preaching at the men's rehab. Please pray for these men. We go every Wednesday and Sunday. We have our own private room now to meet with the men on Sundays. See my picture on my homepage.
Please Pray for Sean and Lisa as they are expecting their 4th child in a strange land! I think she is like 7months pregnant.
We are also in the process of printing 7,000 gospel tracts in Spanish! Josef and Sean wrote them, and were blessed to have some brethren translate them for us. Please keep that in prayer that they get done, the printer has them now. If you would like to help us in the work here in Mexico go to our website.Lord bless you all!!!

In Christ,
Lina Urban
www.puregospeltruth.com