Desert Streams Ministries

During the month of April, we had several opportunities to minister, including an invitation to preach in the “Spring of Life” church in Pachuca. We had met the pastor a few years ago, while ministering in another church. He and his wife expressed an interest in the Advanced School of Ministry seminars in Cuernavaca, and they have been attending for the past two years.

It was the church’s twenty-first anniversary celebration, and I was the guest speaker for the Sunday service. After the service, we all ate a meal together in the church’s dining area. Pastor Onésimo Torres and his wife were very hospitable and we enjoyed being with them and their church.

 

We had a very interesting ministry visit to Real del Monte, the village where Sara was born. Pastor Cirilo invited me to preach to their young church on Sunday evening, March 20, for a special service in which they were celebrating the second year anniversary of their worship team. A couple of months before this, we had visited him and his wife to invite them to the Advanced School of Ministry conference in Cuernavaca. At that time, they had told us that they were meeting outside of town on a rustic property that used to be a chicken farm. We headed to the service believing we would probably be meeting outside under a tent or in a barn or something similar. What a surprise when we arrived and found a beautifully finished church building!

Pastor Cirilo was very touched by the teaching at the Advanced School of Ministry conference and felt the Lord speaking to his heart about their church building. When he returned, he got the people together, raised money, and had the old chicken farm completely remodeled and converted into a nice church building in just over a month.

The night was filled with music, both modern praise and worship songs as well as some of the old classic Mexican praise songs. Two traditional Mariachi groups also participated in the service, which was almost full to capacity. I preached about the importance of praise and worship, and then the congregation praised and sang for another hour. After the five-hour service, we all had a late fellowship dinner together. It was a real blessing to see the unity and great atmosphere in this little church in Real del Monte.

On the weekend of March 18 and 19, we hosted a mini youth camp. Over thirty young people from our church came to spend a night in tents here in the woods. After setting up the tents at dusk, we started the evening with fun activities, an outdoor movie, and hamburgers, hotdogs and chicken wings. Later, everyone sat around the campfire and sang worship songs together.

The next morning, David Jeremiah guided the group on a walk up the mountain and back. It took the group almost an hour and a half to get to the top and back, as there are areas that are very steep to climb. While the group was out, we helped to prepare breakfast, which was ready when they all returned.

I preached to the group after breakfast, challenging them to have a big vision for what God could do through them and in them. Several of the newer kids in the group gave their lives to Jesus Christ in prayer that morning, and we also prayed for several of the other young people, ministering to their needs.

Our youth group is in the process of a transition in this moment. We have brought in Ricardo as a new youth leader for the group, after another couple, Fernando and Adriana, had been in charge for several years. Ricardo has grown up in our church and youth group, and was a part of it until he got married several years ago. He is now coming back to the group as the leader, together with another couple, Israel and Jessica. This was the youth group’s first event with Ricardo in charge.

We would like to encourage you to pray for Ricardo and his family, and also Israel and Jessica, as they take on these new responsibilities. Please also pray for the youth, that they would grow in their relationship with the Lord and be challenged to do great things for the Kingdom of God.

We had a great turnout this year for the Advanced School of Ministry conference in Cuernavaca. Almost 900 pastors, leaders and others involved in ministry, gathered with us during the four days of worship, teaching, ministry and fellowship. Pastor Bob MacGregor was our keynote speaker with the theme “Focus”. Together we focused on the different aspects of our relationship with the Lord and Christian ministry.

Sara and I each taught a session during the seminar. Sara’s was “Focus on Healing Ministerial Disillusions”, and she did a great job ministering to the hearts of those who had been wounded in ministry. She ended in a time of prayer and healing ministry to broken hearted leaders. I taught a class called “Focus on Social Media”, dealing with the benefits of using social media in ministry and also the dangers and precautions we must be aware of.

The conference included a total of about 18 teaching sessions, concluding with a graduation ceremony where 14 students celebrated their five years of study and received a bachelor’s degree in theology.

I interpreted, as I usually do, for our keynote speaker, Bob MacGregor. Both Sara and I were involved in preparing the 200+ page book that each pastor received containing the full teaching notes. This book can then be used by each pastor or leader as a resource for their own teaching/preaching. We also offered the book in PDF format for those who want to keep a copy on the tablet or iPad.

For the last several years I have been in charge of the online registration for the conference. This past June I redesigned the online registration program and interface to work better with mobile phones. Almost two-thirds of those who attended used the new system to register online. The online registration helps us avoid long lines at the conference. Those who attend only need to show a QR code on the screen of their mobile phone and can then receive their books and access to the conferences. Before we had online registration, the people would often have to stand in line for one half hour or more to get in. This year there were virtually no lines at all. This change and been a blessing for everyone!

Our team leaders, Bill and Gerda Brown, we both able to do their sessions, although Gerda has been experiencing health problems. The Lord strengthened her, and she was able to minister very well. She taught on the theme “Personal Focuses of Leaders” and used her husband’s expertise with the bow and arrow to illustrate her point.

Now that the conference is past, we’ll soon have a meeting with the leadership team and start planning for our 2017 seminar.

We started this year with a remodeling job in our church building. As many of you may know, we have been doing two Sunday morning services for several years now in order to have seating for everyone. However, we have felt the need to get the entire group together once again. After talking this over with our leadership team this past fall, we decided that we would try to make our building a bit larger. In order to do this, we removed the divisions that we had originally built to create a nursery and a storage area. In this way we were able to gain about 70% seating capacity and go back to a single Sunday morning service.

We are blessed to have several architects in our church, and one in particular who has had many years of experience. Gabriel, our worship leader, has worked on several large projects over the years, including the construction of a Sam’s Club, the Mexico City airport, and several housing developments. He has graciously offered his time, knowledge, and talent to make the changes.

A team of several volunteers gathered for the work during the days following Christmas and News Years. They worked very hard to have everything ready for Sunday services. We relocated the nursery to a property just three doors down the street, where we rented a second warehouse in which we will be building the children’s and youth ministry centers. This will be a good change for our children’s and youth ministries, as well. We plan to also use the classrooms for adult Bible school classes during the week.