What's going on in:
San Diego
&
Aguascalientes
There is a lot going on and I want to keep you all informed with the highlights of each month. Thank you to all who pray for and support these ministries. We are able to bless so many people and we couldn't do it without you. To God be all the glory. Gracias amigos!
I'm now officially one year older! October was a great month. I got to celebrate my birthday down in Aguascalientes with many friends and loved ones. And back in San Diego we have some changes in the Youth Ministry.
I celebrated my 42nd birthday in Mexico, but it was more like a birth-week! I felt very loved and blessed by all of the invitations to celebrate. On the actual day (Oct 1) I stopped by and had cake with fellow Horizon missionary, Chevon. Later that night I went to church with my "daughter" Elvira. I also went out for a nice dinner with friends one night. Other friends organized a party for me at a "cabaña" (a getaway house outside of the city) where we had a carne asada and a bonfire. Another day we had a pool party. It was nice to celebrate and hang out with so many people. Usually when I go to Aguascalientes I am really busy helping out with different projects. This time I was able to spend lots of quality time with the people I have grown to love and care about over the years. Praise God for another great year of life!
Elvira is in her 3rd year of med school. This year she started doing her clinics where she is assisting in hospitals. At one of the clinics she helped assist in delivering a baby via C-section! I saw her get so excited as she told me all about it. It was great to see her so passionate because she had been discouraged and burned out a bit after her last semester. It was her toughest one yet and she even began to doubt if she was able to keep going. Things are going much better this semester and at the moment of seeing the baby being delivered into this world, God reaffirmed that she is called to be a gynecologist. I'm so proud of her and can't wait to see her living out her dream as a great doctor someday!
(The picture of her with the baby is from a practice in school. She couldn't take any pictures inside of the hospital when she was assisting with the patients.)
While I was in Mexico, I got news that Allyson, one of the helpers with the youth, had her baby boy! Anthony Victor LaRosa was born on October 8th and is doing well. Allyson has been serving the Horizon youth for the past 2 years and has been such a blessing. She planned a lot of our holiday parties and always had fun games for the kids. With the birth of her baby boy she is going to have her hands full and will no longer continue in the Youth Ministry. But I am very grateful for her 2 years of serving with us and wish her and her family the best! May God bless the new addition to the family!
I got back to San Diego on Saturday, October 11th. I didn't want to miss another Sunday with the youth at church.
The Youth Ministry is going well. We tried something different one Sunday. We wanted to hear from the kids so we had a discussion group and let them ask questions and talk about the things they wanted to learn. They enjoyed it and some of the kids asked me afterwards if we could do that more often...that's always nice to hear. Sometimes I wonder if they are interested. It's a difficult age and kids are so distracted nowadays!
And since there have been more people showing up lately and we've had some new faces, I explained the gospel very clearly and made sure that they understand all that Jesus did for us on the cross. I saw a cool demonstration on the internet that really shows how when we accept Jesus all of our sins are washed away. I used bleach, iodine and water. The dark iodine (which represents sin) stains the water (which represents us) but the moment it comes in contact with bleach (which represents Jesus) the color disappears and leaves the dark stain clear. It was a cool demonstration and it got the kids' attention. Please pray for all of the new kids coming to class.
And for our outing this month, we took some of the youth group to the "Trunk or Treat" at Newbreak Church in Tierrasanta. It was a small turnout but they had lots of fun. They had a good time dressing up in their costumes and playing all of the different games. Afterwards, we walked down the street to Gaetano's Italian Restaurant and had pizza. It was a fun night and I'm glad the kids like getting together outside of church.
