Desert Streams Ministries

Note: There is a PDF version of this update located HERE.

Dear Friends and Family,

It’s September, and fall is rapidly approaching. It has been raining very regularly for the past couple of months, and things are so beautiful and green here in our area. We have had more rain than usual, and this is a good thing for us! The mountains that were brown, dry and sometimes burning during the hot arid spring are now a lush green, full of life. On our mountain, the wild plants, vines and grass are taller and thicker than we’ve seen them in many years.

This reminds me of how the rain of the visitation of the Holy Spirit can take a dry and weary people, and renew them with God’s supernatural life! We pray for revival in our city and nation. May the Lord visit us with both the former and the latter rains, restoring souls and igniting a renewed passion for His Word, His church and His presence. As the psalmist said, “He restores my soul and makes me lie down in green pastures…”.

Bible School

One of our main focuses over the past several months has been our online Bible School. We finished our spring semester the middle of June and then worked hard on getting a few new courses developed and recorded. I also did some work on our LMS (learning management system) to integrate some new AI features and update software.

We have been developing three courses – Evangelism, Prayer and Bible Study, and The Local Church and Its Place Within God’s Plan. The first two have been completed, recorded, and students are now participating in them. The third has been mostly developed, but is not quite complete. We plan on offering the Local Church course in 2025.

We started our fall semester in August with just over 150 students enrolled. We also added a couple of new course facilitators – Gabriel and Paloma, from Morelia, Michoacán. I met Gabriel and his wife, Paloma, by phone just over a year ago. They wanted to have information about the online school. Since starting, they both have been studying full time and are on track to getting their bachelor’s degree in theology in 2026. They have both been excellent students, and now we get to have their help facilitating a couple of groups, even as they continue to study.

Sara and I have actually known Paloma Plata and her family since the early 1990’s, when she was a little girl. I had met her parents, both of whom were medical doctors and pastors, at the Advanced School of Ministry, the first year we attended. It just so happened that I got very sick during that first conference, and Paloma’s mom (the doctor), gave me an injection in the church parking lot. I will never forget the pain of the injection, but also the questions she suddenly began to ask me. “Had I ever done drugs?” “Was Sara the only person I had ever been married to?” Then, several others. Well, poor Doctor Plata somehow accidentally stuck herself with the needle right after injecting me!! She was quite worried that I may have had some dreadful disease that I could pass along to her. Thankfully, I wasn’t carrying any strange diseases in my blood, so she was going to be just fine.

Anyway, as you can see, our relationship with her family goes way back, and we even shared a bit of the family blood!

In July, we hosted another one of our course facilitators who is also a gifted Bible teacher. Mireya and her husband, Homero, traveled by bus from Veracruz to spend a week with us so that she could teach and record the Evangelism course. Anna and I had set everything up for a beautiful studio atmosphere for the recording, and when Homero and Mireya arrived, we were able to record 24 lessons in just three days. Mireya is very capable and taught each of the sessions with a natural flow.

We all enjoyed spending the week together with Mireya and Homero. They were very pleasant company.

It has been beautiful to see how some of our students are not only preparing to serve in their own local churches, but a few even become leaders within our school for a season. We are very thankful for this!

Travel and More Recording

At the beginning of August, Sara went to visit our son, David Jeremiah, in Texas. David was moving from one apartment to another one a few blocks away and invited Sara to come and help him get the new apartment cleaned and ready. Of course, Sara jumped at the opportunity to see him!

While Sara was gone, Anna and I took advantage of the time to record another course titled “Prayer and Bible Study“. I had previously asked Anna to prepare to teach this course. She studied the material and additional books related to the theme in July, so when the time came, she was more than ready.

For those of you who don’t know her, teaching comes second-nature to Anna. She has been teaching since she was about 7 or 8 years old. When she was 14, she took over a session of our church’s ladies meeting one day when Sara was suddenly scheduled for surgery. When she was 15, she taught in churches in Africa. She regularly teaches classes in our local congregation and often participates on Sundays.

Anna did a wonderful job not only teaching the course, but also developing activities which help the students put the concepts into practice in very practical ways.

Her new course is also online now and is the most popular course this semester, with over 45 students participating in it. We are very thankful to have Anna as part of our ministry team, both for church and for the school.

Radio Program

I recently had an interesting opportunity to participate in a radio talk program on a Mexico City FM station. Pastor Raymundo Gómez and his wife, Karla, have an hour-long program Monday-Friday. They often discuss Christian values, family matters, and more during their time slot. On this particular show, they wanted to interview me about the topic “Christians and Artificial Intelligence”. AI has been one of many things I have been fascinated with over the last couple of years. Anna and I had done a podcast episode on the topic last year. Pastor Ray heard our podcast and thought we should talk about this with the general public in Mexico City on his radio show.

It was a challenge, but at the same time, quite a privilege to speak to a live audience of probably several hundreds of thousands of people on the air. I’m thankful for the experience and pray the things that I said may have resonated with those who heard it. I also pray that Christians, in particular, may learn to use this technology for good and not fall into all the traps that it potentially will create.

Our Church Family

Sara and I continue to pastor the church we started some years ago in Tulancingo. We are in a new season and we believe the Lord has good things in store for our church family. Over the past several weeks, I’ve been teaching on the authority, value and importance of the Word of God. It’s our measuring stick to determine what truth is. It’s our final authority to judge all spiritual matters. It is the verbal embodiment of Jesus Christ Himself, for “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.“

These last several months have been a time of peace and rest for our congregation, and we have enjoyed the unity of Spirit. We’ve had wonderful times of worship, refreshing teaching in the Word and unity as we’ve enjoyed fellowship meals together. However, we also know that there is much work to do going forward. We have been called to be light, salt, and living water for our city. There are many lost who need to come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, and we are called to reach them.

Thanks!

We’d like to thank all who have been supporting us with your prayers and giving. We need you now more than ever before! May the Lord richly bless and use each of you for the extension of His Kingdom.

Help Wanted

If you know of someone who would be interested in supporting us as missionaries, please share this newsletter with them. We are currently in need of new supporters to be able to reach our monthly economic goals.

The work is great – a church in Tulancingo, a Bible School training pastors and leaders across the entire nation, and the Advanced School of Ministry, which trains over 800 pastors annually. We have much to do! In order to have the resources to continue, we depend on you. Thank you so much!

With love,

David and Sara Lont
with Anna

Note: You can download a PDF copy of this newsletter here.

Hello everyone! We hope you are having a great summer. What a beautiful world God has given us to enjoy, with the changing seasons. Despite global warming concerns, we remember the faithful promises God has given us in Genesis:

While the earth remains,
Seedtime and harvest,
Cold and heat,
Summer and winter,
And day and night
Shall not cease.

Genesis 8:22, NASB

In our last newsletter, we shared about how many parts of Mexico, and our area in particular, had been suffering a drought. It was the hottest and driest spring we’ve ever experienced. We had been praying for rain for several months, and it finally came a couple of weeks ago. Boy, did it rain! In the last few weeks we had more rain than we had all last year – almost a foot and a half. We are so thankful for the wet season, as everything very suddenly turned green again.

This abundance of rain reminds me of how faithful God is. Even in the midst of our most desperate situations, when it seems like everything in our lives is drying up and dying, God is faithful to once again send the rain of His presence and blessings upon us. He will never leave us nor forsake us!

Guest Speakers

We were very privileged to have Pastor Gamaliel and his wife Patty with us in May. They pastor a large church in the port city of Veracruz and have been our friends for many years. However, they had never been to our church to minister before.

Sara organized an annual ladies breakfast we have done for many years and invited Patty to come and minister to the ladies. This breakfast is usually held in the month of May around the time of Mother’s Day. It was a beautiful event and several women attended our church for the first time.

Pastor Gama and Patty stayed with us over the weekend and ministered to our congregation on Sunday as well. It is a blessing to receive from a diverse array of pastoral gifts, including those from friends in other cities.

Bible School

In mid-June we finished our spring semester of Bible School and are now preparing for our fall semester, which begins in August. It has been a time of getting new courses ready, updating our computer servers and several other technical jobs I do.

Next week we will be recording our evangelism course with Mireya Parral, from Veracruz. She started out with us as a student several years ago and then, in 2018, became a course facilitator. We see the hand of God on her life in the area of Bible teaching, and she will be the teacher of this new course.

I’d like to share a few testimonials of our online students:

I greatly appreciate the effort you put into updating courses and helping those of us who are far from a physical Bible school. As soon as the next semester starts, I will enroll again. I really enjoy this online format.

Edgar Ivan G. from Hidalgo

All the courses I have taken have been very thorough. Every time I finish a course, I am already thinking about the next one I will take. I appreciate the commitment, time, and research that each person puts in to make this platform possible, allowing us to continue learning and discovering the beautiful teachings that God’s Word has for us.

Miryam P. from Veracruz

I would like to express my gratitude for all your hard work, dedication, and commitment. Thank you to each one of you for making my dream of studying at a Bible school a reality. Without a doubt, we will continue to learn and grow together.

Anonymous

Many of our students serve as pastors across various regions of the country. Our school has become a fountain of the Living Water of the Spirit and the Word of God, providing teaching, training, and refreshment for their vital work in cities and villages.

We finished our semester with a live Zoom session, during which Bill Brown ministered to the students from Aurora, Canada. It was very good to see many of our students from all across Mexico and a few from the U.S. as we thanked God together for the learning and growing He gave to all of us during the semester.

A Note From Anna

The past few months have been filled with different opportunities to bless and encourage people. It’s incredible how God can use us through the small, seemingly inconsequential things to impact someone’s life.

Once a month we’ve been having women’s meetings at our church, and I’ve gotten to share alongside some friends. We have seen God awaken a hunger for Him in many of the women, and it has been a joy getting to teach about some fundamentals, such as Bible study and learning how to hear God’s voice. Last week, I created an activity where the women got to pray a Bible verse over each other. We paired everyone in teams and gave them a piece of paper with a verse written on it. Once they were all done praying for each other, I asked if they wanted to share what the Lord spoke to them. One woman came up and shared how she’d been seeking the Lord for direction in her life and career. The verse that was prayed over her was exactly what she needed at that moment! A small activity turned into a time of encouragement and reassurance for many of them. We are excited as a team for what God is beginning to do, and we know we have just scratched the surface of all He has for us.

While it has been exciting to see God move in our church, I’ve also had the privilege to see Him work in the lives of many people through our online Bible school. From February to June, I had the opportunity to facilitate over twenty students, grading homework assignments, essays, and answering questions. Even though a facilitator’s job is to help a student learn, and in a way “teach” them, I ended up learning more from facilitating than being a student. Reading the same assignment over twenty times will do that for you!

I had the honor of having a group that consisted of people in their sixties and seventies. Their lives and testimonies truly inspired me! Some had known the Lord for a long time and been involved in ministry, and others were new both to the Gospel and an online Bible school. One student, in particular, encountered the Lord in his late fifties and had a radical transformation in his life. He and his wife were my students, and it was inspiring to see their eagerness to learn and the changes that God has brought about in their personal lives and marriage. Another student of mine, also in her sixties, was so eager to learn that she took two courses at a time while pastoring her local church. These students quickly turned into my heroes. It’s truly never too late to learn and go after all that God has for you.

As I’ve served in many different areas, from working on my own developing courses to working with people in our church and online, I’ve been trying to remember what Paul said: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters…” (Col 3:23). Working for people, an organization, or even ourselves will never feel as rewarding or fulfilling. In the end, it might even feel exhausting. But working with all our heart for the Lord, in everything we do, will carry with it a joyful reward. He is our inheritance and He is our reward. Whether we eat, drink, sweep the floors, facilitate students, or pray for people, for Him it is all worth it!

Back To Work!

Thanks, Anna! (It’s me, David again. I’ve come back to wrap up this letter.)

There is so much more I could write, but for now I must get back to work on the Bible School. The summer is one of my main times to work “behind the scenes” with the online Bible School platform, since there are no students, and soon the Advanced School of Ministry will be requiring more of my attention.

We want to thank each of you who prays for us and supports us financially. We really appreciate what you do. May the Lord bless you richly.

Finally, if you’ve ever considered becoming a partner in our ministry, please pray about it. Although the students pay a small tuition fee, it only covers part of our operating expenses, and not the development of our programs. The school is being built and developed entirely on donations of people like you. Your giving allows us to purchase equipment, develop curriculum, bring in good Bible teachers and develop our programs. Please send me a note if you are not currently a supporter and would like to become one, or if you would be interested in helping with a one-time gift.

May the Lord bless each of you abundantly!

David and Sara Lont
with Anna