This update is a little late but we wanted to update you on the mission trips our students went on this year over spring break. We sent teams to Denver and Juarez. Quite frankly, God did some pretty amazing things for those being ministered to and for our students as well.
A little back story on how the mission trips came about. Josh has had a relationship with a school down in Juarez for years. The school is free private school for all kids in the area as long as the parents put in some hours helping the school out. It’s one of the few safe and positive places in Juarez for these kids. In safer times, the school would have lots of mission teams come down and work, with the kids and on building projects. After the cartel violence escalated, the mission teams disappeared.
Despite what people see on the news, Juarez is safe as long as you don’t go into bad areas. We are now one of the only groups that heads down there to help the school out.
We also sent a team to Denver to do ministry in the inner-city. We offer the Denver option because we know a lot of parents won’t allow their kids to go to a place like Juarez. That’s understandable but we don’t want students who have a passion to serve Christ losing out on a mission trip opportunity. Our Denver team worked in homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and in low-income housing areas sharing the Gospel and serving those in need. It was eye opening our students in that they realized there are ministry opportunities right in their backyard. They didn’t have to go overseas to be used of God.
Our Juarez team of eleven headed down to Mexico during that same time-frame. The team consisted of seven believers and four non-believers. Our days were filled with long hours of building projects and playing with kids as much as possible. The evenings consisted of assisting another team from a Christian high school in Denver with different ministry events for the community. We always ended the night on the roof top sharing highs and lows, as well as pondering and sharing thoughts on an assigned scripture for the day. All of our students, including our non-Christian ones, had good insight and opinions. On the last day, we weren’t going to have a scripture reading, due to us needing to pack and get on the road the next morning really early. Kazu, one of our Japanese, non-Christian students, requested that we have one anyways!
There were so many things that I loved about the trip. We had an incredible team. The eleven of us got along very well all week. I credit that to God. He really made the team one. We loved one another well. It was really cool watching each student throughout the week. The way they loved on the children, the way they interacted with each other, how hard they worked. They took great interest in the local people and their way of life. I believe God was at work in each student’s life, from the believers to those who do not believe yet.
I’ll leave you with a couple of short quotes from students on what they learned from the trip.
Kazu: This trip opened my eyes to how selfish I’ve been. How good my life has been. But now I should focus on others and helping them.
Lane: I didn’t use to see the point in humanitarian trips/mission trips. But I can see the need to help others now.
Thank you for all the support and encouragement you give! We are super thankful for that! Keep FLC in your prayers!
Cheers and God Bless,
Mike and Rachel
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Prayer Requests:
Housing-
So we had a pretty good report in our last update. Unfortunately, a couple days after sending out the last update, the issues came back. So keep praying for our septic system. I'm going to try some more pipe hair remover soon and see if that fixes things again. Be praying for our well as that is dry again. Thankfully, there's been moisture in the area so that should help at least a little.
Our new war is against an old enemy, mice and pack rats. They have come out of hibernation with the warmer temperatures. We plugged up all of their access points into the house but can now hear them throughout our walls clawing and biting trying to get through the drywall. We've got traps and poison set up under the house. The traps catch them every now and then. They are also eating the poison...and then dying in our walls making our house smell not so pleasant at times. When we moved in, it seemed the last owner clearly let them run rampant throughout the house. They seem very unhappy that they can't do that anymore. Pray that we can get the upper-hand on them and that their activity dies down.
Students-
Praise that God kept everyone safe on the mission trips!
Pray that the Holy Spirit would continue to grow our students in their faith and that they'd stay strong in it.
Pray that God would continue to reveal Himself to the students who have not yet put their trust in Him.
Pray for Misae and her family. Misae was on the mission trip to Juarez. In mid-April, she got word that her dad had a stroke. She left Durango early to be at his side. Pray that her and her family would have strength and comfort to get through this tough time. As far as we understand, it was a very severe stroke. At the time, they didn't know if he was going to make it. Pray that God would do a big miracle and that her dad would have a complete recovery.
Rachel and Mike-
Pray that we would get positive answers concerning our medical concerns. We may have some good leads but it's too early to tell just yet. (Include Josh with his medical stuff in those prayers as well.)
Pray that we would make time to rest and not get burnt out by the busy nature of ministry.
Pray that God would open doors for us after the semester as we begin the support raising process again and that it would be fruitful.
Pray that our marriage would stay strong, keeping God always at the center of it.
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