Hola Guadalajara!

Well we are now in the city of Guadalajara in the state of Jalisco, in Mexico. It’s a huge city! I was not liking the idea of moving to a big city, I got used to living in a small village, and was getting used to the way of life there, and enjoying the people there. But to my amazement I have grown to really like the Big City, though big it doesn’t feel like other big cities in the world, I though it would be much like London or Rome, but it is not. People are not as in a hury and are very friendly, kinda like a small village. We drove about 11 hours to get here. It was a beautiful drive. We stayed in a hotel the first night and the second day we found a place to live. We were originally going to stay in a much nicer apartment for the same price we are paying now, and we would live alone. Unlike here, having to share a big building with over 25 people, sharing bathrooms and kitchen. The apartment seemed perfect for us, but I had no peace about it. As we were walking to get money to pay the owner I decided to ask a stranger walking down the street if he knew of a place to rent. He told us he is the owner of a hostel nearby and had available rooms. It was a divine meeting, God’s sovereignty all over it! We went and I had total peace about it in the spiritual, in the physical it’s not the nicest place around town or in the best area. But had peace about it. Josef and I don’t care about luxuries, we care about being in the perfect will of God. We decided to stay here in the hostel instead. In the physical I will spare you my stories, it is not good! But what a blessing it has been to be here.

Since being here the Lord has opened many doors to preach his Gospel in this place. A plus about living here is that there is a beautiful roof where we can hold meetings every Sunday. We have had a few people show up already. The second day being here this girl and her boyfriend moved in, many of you know the story. Her name is Carolina, and she’s 5 months pregnant. I preached to her right away, but to no avail. Josef and I were starting to think her boyfriend beats her, and I talked to her about it and she told me he does. I was encouraging her to leave him and that we would do what we could to help her. It was hard for her to leave because he was supporting her. She said she really wanted to leave him, but she didn’t. So one night to make the story short, a woke up to her cries, her boyfriend was beating her really bad! He almost killed her, Josef intervened and God spared her. She later told me that he beat her so bad she passed out, and when Josef intervened he was slamming her into the wall as she was passed out. But thanks to the Lord, she was able to get strengthand seperate from him. She is doing well now, she lives next door to me. We spend time together. She desperatly needed shoes, and I took her to buy some, she was really happy. She has a job now, and is able to support herself. She told me last night she’s gonna try to ask for the time off on Sundays so she can come to our studies. She seems to be ok, her face is still a little blue, but she will get better, Lord willing. Prior to this she hadn’t gone to the doctore to get a check up on the baby, she went recently and discovered she is having a healthy little girl. A little too healthy, the baby seems over weight and the doctor put her on a diet. She hasnt’ come to repentance and faith in the Lord, please keep her in your prayers. I will try to attach a picture here for you to see her. She’s wearing her new shoes in it and a new dress, she also didn’t have clothes that fit her.

We had no idea that were we live is the homosexual district. They are all over the place. It has been a blessing to be able to minister to them also. It is tough being a Mexican homosexual, tougher that in the states. They are not shown love by people out of their community. But God has given us a great love for them. We have had some great witnesses with some of them, a lot of them live in our building. One of which is from a Christian home. One day I was in my room and had a burden to pray, I fell in my knees in trevail praying for someone, but I didn’t know who. Later I went to the kitchen and this guy runs in and tells me of this dream he just had. I beleive it was the Lord trying to show him, his life and where it was taking him. I was able to relate the dream to the word of God, and Josef came down and we both started to preach to him. He’s a lost sheep, he knows the true way but has decided to stiffen his neck and follow the pleasures of this world. Right before this day, I had seen him in the kitchen it was the first time I had met him, and he openly told me he just found out he had Herpes. Please pray for his salvation. That day when Josef and I talked to him, he seemed to get really convicted and immediatly ran away from us, literally ran!

Since there are so many people here, Josef and I decided to take advantage of this great opportunity and open air preach at a local town square. We went for it one day. We set up this painting thing on a tripod, wrote a scripture on it, and preached with our mic. It went great! We had a huge crowd, the Lord really anointed the preaching of His word and confirmed it to the hearts of men. We had a crowd for 2 hours! Some people stayed the whole 2 hours, and even stayed another 45 min extra for prayer and council. I met this man there name Jose Antonio, he had so many questions!!! He was seeking truth, he had gone to every religion and cult you could think of here trying to find truth. And he told me that for the first time what we preached seemed to be true. Praise the Lord! Jesus is the Truth! Ends up this guy even went to Catholic Seminary and never has found peace with God. He has come to our house twice already, and he told us last week that something happened to him while we were preaching he believes he got saved, and was born again. He said he’s not the same anymore, and doesn’t take pleasure in the things he once did. Please keep him in your prayers that this seed be firmly planted on good ground!

We tried to go and preach last week, but they immediatly shut us down. Saying we needed a permit. By the grace of God we were able to get a permit to preach in a city square every Friday and Saturday from 5 to 9pm, for a month. Then we can reapply for a permit.

Yesterday, I had a little itch to look around for an apartment to rent, to get an idea what the prices are around here, we are considering moving, not sure yet. I took Josef lunch at school(he’s enrolled in a school to teach him spanish), as I was walking back home I saw a place for rent. I knocked and to my surprise, it was this man, that dresses like a woman and prostitues himself, he’s a homosexual. I had seen him before and didn’t remember that that was his house! I just happened to be wearing a long skirt. He immediatly after opening the door asked me what religion I was from, I told him I am a Christian. He told me to come in, he showed me the room, it was really bad and really expensive, him and I decided it wasn’t the place for my husband and I. He asked me if I could please stay with him a while, he wanted to talk to me. I told him sure, I was exited hoping it would be a great opportunity to preach the Gospel. He sat me in a room and told me he had a lot of questions, and told me he would be right back. So he left and came back with a huge stack of bibles. All kinds of different bibles from different cults and religions. He told me he’s seeking truth and is confused. I was there for almost 2 hours answering his questions. And the end of our conversation he opened up to me and told me he’s a prostitute and has aids and a few other sicknesses. My heard broke for him. I was able to minister to him more and told him I would be back. He told me to come and he would put me first even before his clients. It was a great blessing, please pray for him, he told me his name is Lupe.

Please also pray for one of my neighbors from Canada. She doesn’t like Christians, but has a liking for me and Josef she has even fed us a few times. She had a misconception that most Christians are realy mean and judgemental. But she has seen it is not so with real Christians. We had a huge debate one night, it went really well, we became even better friends after it. She brought out her Chinesse Phylosophy book, and insisted I needed to be open minded and not so close minded and she started to read it to me. The Lord gave me much to share with her about His holy word, and how it contradicted mostly everything she believed. It got her thinking after I would quote scriptures. She is a heavy drinker, and needs to be set free by the power of Christ, and brough into a new life. Her name is Tracy, I love her very much, she is very dear to my heart. We also have a new neighbor who came to our bible study this week, he is Japanese but from America, raised as a buddhist but is very opened to the Gospel. Josef was able to have a really good talk with him at our study. He is really nice and very opened. A friend of ours went to the US this weekend and brought him the book “The Case for Christ”. We gave it to Eric and he is really exited to read it.

There is so much more I want to write about, but I also don’t want to make this too long for you. Thank you all for your prayers and support!

In Christ,
Lina Urban www.puregospeltruth.com