When will the baby come???

Well, I have finished traveling for a while now. And our little girl is due on July 7. We think she will come early because Zack and Russell both came two weeks early. If the same holds true for our little girl, we are looking at welcoming her to our world around June 23(that is next Wednesday). We are about as ready as we are going to be, so whenever she comes is ok with us. We still haven't settled on a name yet.

Once we have her with us, we will let everyone know.

Please keep praying for Adriana!!!

Jan. 31, 2010!!!

Adriana's birthday was yesterday. I am so blessed to have a wife like her. She wanted Bono's last night for supper. So we had ourselves some barbecue.

This past year has been a whirlwind for us, especially since August of last year. We have been visiting churches since then, and have met many great people along the way. We miss Mexico, but we hope this is the last time we have to come to the States to do some major fund raising.

We are in Jacksonville, FL, and will be in the state of FL for the month of February. This year we will travel and visit churches in NY, CT, FL, GA, CO, KS, AR, AZ, WI, OK, and TX. That is alot of travelling, but hopefully God will bless us in our travels.

I will try to give more updates on a more regular basis. And maybe give some opinions of different areas of the church.

The Basilica and the Launch service today!!!

We have had quite a busy week. It has been a good week, and I know next week will be better.



I have to start out with our visit to the Basilica. I have been in Mexico now for almost 12 years, and it was the first time I had ever went to the Basilica. It is usually one of the first places somebody goes when they come to Mexico City. Anyway, it is a pretty awesome sight. With such a Roman Catholic influence here in the city, this is like the most holy of places here in Mexico. Even though I didn't grow up in a Catholic family, or have alot of Catholic friends, I heard alot about the church, but I have learned alot more since I came to Mexico. The only thing I can say is that it is so sad to see how this church has a complete "spell" over the people here. We also came away with some pictures for our video which was pretty good.

We also had our launch service today, March 8,2009. We had 20 people with 3 first time visitors. I say first-timers because we have been having preview services since October, and it has went well so far. We thank God that one of our neighbors, Saida, went today, and we look forward to further developing our relationship with her.

God has been good for us, and this week, Adriana and I will be heading up to Phoenix, AZ, to visit a couple of churches. Please pray that we will see further economic support from these churches.

2009!

We have had quite a beginning to 2009. Zack had bronchitis. Then Russell fell out of the bed and really scared us. We thought he had some type of neurological problems, but thank God that he doesn't.
We have also started a new ministry along with some other missionaries. We are so excited about what God is going to do in La Iglesia Vida(Life Church) here in Mexico City. Also, we are hoping that our English classes will also start opening some doors in our community.
One thing I know after this Christmas season, is how incredible my family is. We have had our struggles, but Adriana, Zack, and Russell have been incredible. Zack has started to study at the missionary school here in Mexico City, and he is loving it so far. He misses his friends at his old school, but we are trying to work out some time for him to see them.

Summer Camps!!!

We are getting ready for the summer camps. We are hoping to have over 3,000 youth at our camps this year. Thanks to a great facility we can have over 400 youth at each camp. So if you are doing the math, that means we are doing 7 camps this year. 2 high school, 4 jr. high, and 1 kids camp. It is going to be alot of work, but we are ready for this.

God is so awesome. We are filling up our bus quickly for camp. We already have 13 youth signed up and we still have a month before camp. This really pumps me up.

Also, I do have to say even though I can't stand the Lakers, I am hoping that they beat the Celtics in the NBA finals. I have to say that Boston fans and New York fans can be pretty obnoxious. And I have very good friends that are both.

The daily battles!!!

Wow!!! I have got to do a better job of getting onto my blog. I started this blog so that I could keep a sort of running diary of what is going on here in Mexico City. Well, I got too caught up in everything else, and forgot to do the blog.

Anyway, I would like to talk about what I thought would happen 2 years ago when we returned to Mexico City. I thought we would come back and within 6 months to a year we would have about 50-75 people in our congregation, and we would be training new Mexican believers all the time. Now looking back on things, I wouldn't focus in on a number. Although, I know sometimes a number will show how we are reaching people, I feel sometimes we can get too focused in on numbers and not be doing a good job of investing in people on a PERSONAL level. One thing Adriana and I have learned, ministry takes alot of investment. There are people that just get it immediately, but 99% of the people don't GET IT immediately.

I was just talking to a Southern Baptist missionary about this yesterday. And from our conversation, the one thing I learned that I need to do better is how to ask probing questions. You know, the type of questions that make people think as they answer, and their answers will give you a good picture of where they are in their life.

I also have to take this time to say how awesome my family is. Adriana has done an incredible job of really trying to form friendships with moms from Zack's kindergarten. And Zachary is so happy to tell his friends what we do and why we live in Mexico City. It really is odd for alot of people to imagine that we would rather live in Mexico City than in the States. Some people ask Adriana, why are you here when you could be up in the States? And that just opens a door for us to talk to them.

One thing we have really tried to do in Mexico City is starting a church as we are leading people to the Lord. I know the philosophy of our day is to start a church with a core group in place, and that is not all bad. But where we are starting the ministry, we don't know of any churches with members from our area. And we also don't want to be "stealing sheep" from another pastor or missionary. I have literally seen "ministy relationships" blow up due to this issue. And for us, we don't want any part of it. But this is another blog for another day.

Well, I have to finish up. Tomorrow we are having some friends over for lunch and the NCAA basketball tourney is starting. CBSsportsline has a free offer to watch games. So that is what I will be doing some of the day on my laptop. My two wishes for the tourney are that the ACC stinks it up, and that Indiana does well. I really don't think the 2nd will happen, but I hope the 1st happens.

Later,

Matt

My first blog!!!

Wow!!! My first blog. The reason I am doing this, is so that people can keep more up to date on what is going on with us and the ministry. During this Christmas holiday, we have had activities at the church. We spent New Years eve here at the house. No big parties here!!!

We are starting our Thursday night Bible Study on Thursday, Jan. 11 or 18. During February we are going to take a group of youth to a local sports park to pick up trash and clean up as much as possible. And while we are there we hope to make contacts for the Bible Study. Also, I am teaching Apologetics later this month at the Bible Institute. I am also keeping busy with the missionary school World History classes I teach.

We are both adjusting to the life with a newborn again. Thank God Russell sleeps from about 9pm until close to 4am on a daily basis. So Adriana can rest a little. Please pray for her as she has been hit with the cold pretty hard these last two weeks. One of these days, I am going to convince her to write on the blog. I hope to get on here once a week to report. Or when I get some theological thoughts, I might let you all know what is going on inside this small brain of mine. One of my goals this year is to read one book a month. I am also wanting to read through the Bible this year. I have done that once, but I would like to do it every year now.

Please let me know what you think, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Hoosier in Mexico