Gateway Teams

Isak la payaso! Isak the clown!

A beautiful little girl at Centro Internacional de Alabanzas park ministry.

August 4, 2007

Greetings from Mexico City! “The Small Group” Mexico Gateway Team from Brookfield, WI that Shelly and Randy are leading to Tlahuac, Mexico arrived Friday night to the home/church of our hosts, Pastor Juan and Anamaria Castro and immediately were a part of the weekly Friday night church service of Centro Internacional de Alabanza. The team is here at the request of the church to help with issues of discipleship and leadership and definitely got their feet wet in the Friday evening service and then with an afternoon outreach on the streets of the ‘Colonia’ for children and for adults in the evening. Randy preached and Mike DeLong and Scott Mathison shared their testimonies at the service on Friday night. The team also helped in a number of ways at the Saturday afternoon outreach as well; leading songs for the children and helping with the set-up and tear-down.

This church is such an example of loving, caring and growth. Their plans include a number of church planting efforts in this part of the city and many members of the congregation have plans to help with these church plants. Pastor Juan and Anamaria view these church plants as mission projects that will multiply what this church is already doing. The Castros themselves are missionaries here in Mexico, sent from their respective churches in Chile and Brazil and the fervor that they have brought here for church planting has definitely been contagious.

The team we have here consists of 9 adults and 4 of our children and we’re looking forward to what God already has done and will do this week. If our first day is any indication by the number of people that came to the Saturday outreach and responded, we are in for many blessings this week.


August 5, 2007

The weekend is an incredibly busy time here at Centro Internacional de Alabanza. The Sunday service is definitely the focal point of the week here and we were privileged to be to play a major role in the service this week. Our team shared 3 songs of worship as a group before Beth Mathison and Mark Kelm shared their testimonies of following Christ. Beth and Mark had 2 young people from the church as interpreters who had the opportunity to translate in public for the first time. It was a little shaky at times but fortunately they were given some help from some other bilingual people close-by and it was a good experience for them.

Mike DeLong was asked to preach in this service and he was interpreted by a long-time friend of Gateway Teams, Pastor Juan Luna of Rio Grande City, Texas. Juan and his wife Amanda are here in Mexico City (originally their home) to help our team with translation in many of the events we’re looking to do here this week. Mike had a great message encouraging the church in all the great things they’re already doing and challenging them to keep their eyes on Jesus as they look to move to a larger facility next month. Mike also challenged the men to be the spiritual leaders of their homes; something that is not always so easy in this culture. Juan Luna is a great interpreter and preacher in his own rite, so it was a great message and it was awesome to see Juan using his interpretive skills.

The rest of the day included an invitation to a church family’s home for a birthday party and a trip to Coyoacan; the “artsy” area of Mexico City. It was a very full day and the entire team shared how they are so impressed with the dedication, passion and servant hearts shown through members of this church. One example of that service is Monica. Monica is cooking meals for us this week but in order to do this, she had to take a week’s vacation from her job which she willing did to serve us in this way! She is just one incredible example of the servant hearts of the people at this church. It is such a blessing to be here.

August 6, 2007

Finally the pace slows down! But, just a little! Today is a day where our plans include our first of 2 ESL (English as a Second Language) classes in the evening, but we knew that much of the morning and afternoon would be given to preparing for these classes and also preparing for the “Good News Club” for children we’ll be offering on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of this week. The team pulled together and did a great job preparing for these ministry times which enabled us to have some time to explore a near-by market.

That evening, the ESL classes (we offered Beginner and Advanced) came together beautifully as we had a good turnout of people. But really, what everyone realizes is happening between us as a team and the people of this church is relationship. So many of the team members have shared how incredible it is to develop such a bond with these brothers and sisters in Christ in such a short time. The only explanation is our common bond of the Holy Spirit and the oneness that can be felt in the body of Christ.

I’ll also share with you that we have definitely experienced some of the spiritual attacks that we talked about before we came here. Mexico City (and Mexico in general) has been under the influence of much occultic activity for many, many years. And anyone that has ever sought to further the cause of Christ here, including us, has experience opposition. Please pray for us as we seek, with God’s help, to overcome. God has definitely been here at work through us, but we have also experienced efforts to halt that work.

Would you please lift our team and this church up to Jesus right now as you read this? God bless and thank you.