Mexico Ministry Musings
January 2012
Greetings from sunny Mexico! I’m thinking especially of my neighbors across the southern US this afternoon, in southern California and Arizona – you might see a whole bunch of weird things in the sky this afternoon and this evening and I just want you to know it’s not UFO’s as my friend Bob Gray said. Yesterday thousands of Mexican children released helium balloons with a letter tied on to tell Melchior, Casper and Baltazar, better known as the Three Kings here, what the child hoped they would bring on their gift-giving rounds last night. If you’re used to the idea of flying reindeer and sleighs, try out the supersonic camel, horse and elephant trio, although some folks just have them all on camels. You don’t put out milk and cookies, you put out hay for the camels. Three kings day, which might be Epiphany on your calendar, pretty much brings the Christmas season to an official end, although we’ve been in school in a condensed
course on Pentateuch since Tuesday.
I wanted to bring you up to speed on a couple of things that I mentioned in the last note I sent you last month. I asked you to pray for pastoral student Llunay Brena. The good news for Llunay is after he was hospitalized for pneumonia, he is free and clear of that, in spite of it being a severe case. The bad news is that he was indeed confirmed to have tuberculosis and has had to interrupt his ministerial studies and return to Oaxaca for the long-term treatment. Please keep him in prayer. He’s discouraged to have his studies interrupted, and likely to have to repeat several of the classes that he took this semester. It’s very frustrating. But we’re all glad to see him finally getting treatment.
This new year kicks of with a big rush and a lot going on – it’s gonna be high speed and jam-packed for about the next two months straight.
Please pray for:
-- One week more of class to finish out the semester this month. Did NOT get through all the material I wanted to share with our students for their pastoral ministries!
-- week of Jan 16-19 is final exam week and there’s a lot of grades to process.
-- this same week is the district assembly of our South district here and Arnulfo needs to be at that.
-- this SAME week, is the graduation of three of our students. Gabriel Hernandez, Rosalia Morales and Abigail Gomez, who are all currently pastoring, will come starting Jan 17 or 18 for their Jan 19th graduation, and their “exit” or professional exams. Accompanying them will be a whole lot of family members and some church members and leaders so we are going to have a huge influx of visitors over that week along with our other goings on. Laundry, logistics and cooking! I still don’t know where we’re going to put everyone.
-- January 27 to 29 Arnulfo will be in Panama as one of the Mexico delegates to the Latin American conference.
-- February 7 our spring semester starts, and somewhere in between here and there I have toprepare for the classes I am going to teach, one of which is Greek, which I haven’t worked with in a formal study context since I took it in college. I use it all the time in my study tools, but I am a far cry from being able to review grammar, so I need an awful lot of study time to get that up and running to enable our students to also be able to take advantage of study tools to better understand the New Testament. Oimoi talaina! (Alas! Woe is me!)
-- Feb 20-26 we are taking the students on a tour of visiting churches in Oaxaca with the hopes of finding prospective students. There will also be a similar trip to the State of San Luis probably in the same month. Please pray fervently for more Mexicans to respond to God's call on their lives to serve him, as well as safety in travel.
Needless to say, there’s a lot going on. Prayer, I am convinced, helps with our ability to do what needs to be done. Please continue to hold us up, as well as our pastoral students. Thanks for being with us here in Mexico! May 2012 be a year for all of us for prospering the Kingdom of Heaven!
Blessings in Christ, Nicky, Arnulfo, Amanda and Sophie
Check out the Facebook page of the Instituto Biblico Peregrino for more pictures. Arnulfo also tends to put pics up more frequently on his Facebook page (Arnulfo Purata Salido) and check out the Bible school’s website at http://www.ibpmexico.com
New mailing address at the Bible School is:
Avenida México-Puebla #104
Cuautlancingo, Puebla CP 72700
México
Phone: 011-52- 222- 226 -9806
Bob Gray has put together a website in Spanish for the Association of Wesleyan schools if you would like to see 
it -- www.teamwesley.org