It’s official! We’ve begun a Children’s Church for the tribe we’ve been serving in India. Our Spring Bible School outreach was such a success, the tribe asked us to keep coming every week to minister to the children. After much prayer, we’re moving forward!

We held VBS-style services for the children of Parvathi’s tribe for 5 straight days!

It took a few days to find volunteers to help. Not many other people in the area speak their language. But the Lord quickly brought it all together, and soon we had helpers, a meeting hall, food, snacks, and clean drinking water for all 47 children for five days!

The children came from 9 am until 4 pm each day. It was a little more challenging than usual though. These children have never been to school and haven’t learned to read. So we focused on Bible stories, and songs, and even memory verses. The kids were so proud of themselves for memorizing Bible verses. They had so much fun!

A few short weeks after I published Parvathi’s story here, her condition worsened, and she went home to the Savior she had just met. We cried and cried, and we mourn still.

Parvathi was from a small tribe. When we were asked to provide medical treatment for Parvathi, they accepted us among them. And, fortunately, our volunteer speaks their language!

In addition to medical treatment, we brought groceries each week to Parvathi and her family. After Parvathi was born-again, others close to her noticed a change in her. She was no longer afraid and she had a deep peace. Six women, in particular, started asking Parvathi about this change, and she told them about Jesus. They asked our volunteer, when he came to bring groceries to teach them too about Jesus. So he started teaching them and praying with them and teaching them worship songs in their language. These six women also accepted Jesus!

Then, shortly after, Parvathi passed away. We held a memorial service for her and during this service, all six women testified how much Parvathi loved Jesus, and that they too had received Him as their savior. These women are well respected and their testimonies greatly moved the tribe.

Then they asked us, if we have love for them as a people, can we hold a meeting for all of them like we had for Parvathi and the other women? With Bible Stories and singing?

We put together an evening with food, Bible Study, praise, and prayer. The men were so happy to be included! And families together learned about the love of Jesus. They are so receptive, and many have given their lives to Jesus. They have asked us to begin regular services for them.

It’s amazing how the Lord is working things together here! He is giving peace from despair and beauty from ashes in this tribe. When we thought our ministry among this tribe was over with Parvathi’s passing, it looks like it’s just beginning.

Thank you so much for your support that makes all of this possible! Both your giving and your prayers are bringing salvation to so many.

Each year before the rainy season, we go through the community to see which homes are most in danger of flooding. And we begin replacing warped and rotten wood, relaying tar and roofing paper and patching walls. Often we end up needing to remove the entire roof and start fresh. (You can see into a home from above after we removed the old rotten roof in the first image below.

Since our community here is on the coast, unprotected wood rots quickly and soon begins to leak. And because it’s on a hillside, walls with cracks and holes leak into houses from the runoff.

Repairing roofs here means heating tar in a barrel, and using a rope mop to apply it to the roof. Other crews here use tar paper that is supposed to seal with the sun, but our guys swear by hot tar… even though it’s hot, messy and dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing. They say it’s the best and cheapest way to repair them. And we’ve never had a leak in a roof we’ve done! Thank you so much for your support that gives families in need warm, dry homes!

In 2007, a reader from India wanted advice to start a Bible outreach to children in a poor tribal area. We prayed, and knew the Lord wanted us to join with him and share His love and provision with these people.

Violent persecution of Christians took place just before our first planned outreach. Over 50,000 were left homeless after mobs burned down homes, churches, and businesses. Christians were threatened to convert to Hinduism or be tortured and killed. In the aftermath of the attack, those who survived and were able to fled the area, leaving mostly seniors and children.

Praise the Lord for a twelve month growing season! Zucchini are still the favorite in the community and we’re making sure they’re always available to harvest. For variety, we’ve still been growing the large globe squashes as well. They’re so versatile.

Depending on how they’re cooked, they can taste like a traditional zucchini. But the texture also works well to cook them like pumpkin and sweeten it for dessert. So from the same large squash, you can take half to use for soup for dinner, and the other half with sugar to make a dish similar to our sweet potato pie (minus the marshmallows).

The garden is starting to fill in, and we are grateful for zucchini! They grow so quickly, we always have vegetables to give. We had a surprise rain storm that almost wiped out our tomato plants, but we’re praying they’ll recover.

We’ve planted the next side with seedlings, hoping to space out our harvest a little better this time. When the entire garden has produce ready for harvest every day, it’s hard to keep up, so we’re hoping to space it out to harvest from one side one day and then the other side the next. It’s a good problem to have!

We’re transplanting our seedlings from the greenhouse, now that we’ve tilled and prepared the soil. We are growing zucchini and few different types of squash, along with cabbage, peas, corn, beets, peppers, and tomatoes.

We’ve been tilling the ground, adding new compost and fertilizer, and getting it ready for the next planting. We still have beets growing on the side, and our greenhouse is filled with seedlings ready to be planted once the soil is ready.

We’ve been so blessed with great weather! We’ve also been able to keep everything organic, and we haven’t had any problems with pests. Thank you Lord for protecting this garden! And thank you to all who join with us to keep this garden going to provide food to those in need!

You’ll see in the photos below the clever device our workers made to till the ground from scraps from our home building ministry! This is reusing at its finest, and it meant we didn’t need to buy any equipment.

It’s been drier and warmer, but the garden is doing well! We continue to harvest many types of squash daily. We have melons, cucumbers, cabbage, peppers, and beets to harvest as well.

Thanks to your generosity, so many in this community who would have gone hungry now have fresh organic produce!

Many kids in the community love to come help too. They help carry and hand out the produce when it’s ready. We’ve even had a toddler who loves to sneak in and eat the cucumbers off the vine while the older kids are helping!

We are harvesting Italian zucchini, traditional Mexican calabacitas, and several other types of squash, daily. The community now knows the harvest schedule well and those in need know when we’ll have fresh picked produce available.

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We’ve been blessed with lots of rain and the garden is growing! We’re growing a few types of zucchini, green beans, and herbs.  Zucchini is our main crop so far. The seeds are cheap, and they grow quickly and produce so well!

Zucchini are very popular here and this time of year they are pretty expensive, so most aren’t able to have them until the fall.  We also harvest the blossoms. People love to stuff the blossoms with cheese and fry them.

We’ve started a community garden! Along with our home repair and building projects, we’ve always given food, clothing, medical care and other necessities to those in need. Where we are in Mexico has such a long growing season, that we’ve wanted to grow food in the community for a long time. Everything finally lined up and we began. People started giving more and more, and one of our construction workers gave his land for us to use. Thank you all for your generosity to this ministry!

At first, we wanted to use the traditional community garden model, where each family gets a plot of land and they are responsible for it. They buy the compost and seeds, and they reap the harvest of what they grow. What a great model! And there is such talk and debate in the church now about how to give without hurting. How to give without creating dependency. I thought it would be a great example of helping people help themselves! But after much prayer, the Lord told me that this is not how we were to begin. In beginning, were to labor in the garden. We were to buy the materials. And we were to give the harvest to the community, so that they would see that He is feeding His people. Later perhaps it will be a traditional community garden, but for now it is a gift. How beautiful! Thank you Lord!

This family has two young kids, and their home is basically a one room studio apartment.

Every Christmas, we put together a food distribution for especially needy families in the community where our home building ministry is focused. This year, because of your incredible generosity, we were able to double the size of our distribution and even add some extras!

For years, the community in which we’ve been working has been trying to complete a public meeting and recreation center. It originally started as a 20 X 20 single room that currently houses a seniors group, a pre-school, and a no cost legal clinic.

Due to over crowding, the students in a nearby village are not getting enough personal attention from their teachers.

The tar paper and plywood shanty in the first picture below is home to a husband and wife, their two children, and two teenage nephews.

A dad, his single daughter, and her little boy lived in what was essentially a one room house.

This is another case where a poorly constructed flat roof eventually began to collapse.  It got so bad the combined weight of the roof and the water that pooled on it began cracking the windows.

This family has 5 children and lived in a two bedroom cellar with pieces of old plywood laid on top for a roof. Whenever it rained, water seeped in through the walls and through the roof.

Early this spring the Lord brought us the opportunity to build a house for Him. A small congregation lost their meeting place without warning and had nowhere to go.

There are two different roof projects.  The one with the peaked roof  was a simple remove and replace the existing material.  The one with the flat roof was a different story.

This project looked like a bombed out shell when we first saw it, and I didn’t have much hope for it.  But our crew wanted to try, so we went ahead in faith.

Last week we put together a Christmas food distribution for 31 especially needy families in the community where our home building ministry is focused.

This single mom and her little boy lived in a shack made of  used garage doors.