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