Dear Friends:
We are almost ready to start our new school year at Alas! We have about 140 students signed up for the program, and we only lack about 10 sponsors at this point! Please pray with us for the final 10! 3 of those 10 are college students, and if anyone REALLY needs support it is them. On the weekend of August 12-13, we will be putting together backpacks of school supplies for our kids, meeting with them and taking measurements to order their school uniforms, and for their shoes, and orienting them for the new school year. It will be a very busy week-end, and we would love to see some new volunteers come and help! If you have been waiting for the right time to come and see what we are doing, and perhaps becoming involved in working with the kids during the year, this is a great opportunity!
I have been thinking about a theme for this coming school year for our students. I am thinking a great theme would be Somos Vencadores! We are overcomers! In Romans, Chapters 7 and 8, Paul talks about all of the things that keep us from being Overcomers in Christ:
1. The law of sin and death—overcome by the law of the Spirit of Christ.
2. Our human natures that are attracted to the enticement of the world—overcome by drawing close to Jesus and living in the Holy Spirit.
3. Our weaknesses—overcome by praying in the Spirit of God.
4. Our suffering—overcome by our Hope in Christ.
5. Trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, the sword—conquered by Christ, sitting at the right hand of God, interceding for us!
And so, as it says in Rom 8:37-39 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. NIV
Our young people in Mexico, just like our young people in the US, are being assaulted daily by the enticements and priorities
of the world we live in. John 14:30 tells us that Satan is the ruler of this world, 2 Corinthians 4:4 and Ephesians 2:2 tell us that Satan blinds and misleads all the people of the world that are not in Christ, 1 Peter 5:8 tells us that the devil is out to destroy us.
I think 2 Tim. 3:1-5 sums up many of the attacks that are coming against our young people these days: Don't be naive. There are difficult times ahead. As the end approaches, people are going to be self-absorbed, money-hungry, self-promoting, stuck-up, profane, contemptuous of parents, crude, coarse, dog-eat-dog, unbending, slanderers, impulsively wild, savage, cynical, treacherous, ruthless, bloated windbags, addicted to lust, and allergic to God. They'll make a show of religion, but behind the scenes they're animals. Stay clear of these people. MSG. What do we see around us? Young people absorbed with selfies, immorality and murder covered up by “personal rights”, foul language throughout the media they listen to, pornography freely available, complete rejection of Christian values, mind-altering and mind-soothing drugs available everywhere, thrill-seeking as an important value, and on and on. I have even heard some of our young people say that they don’t want to have children because it will be so hard for them to live in this kind of world, and I understand!
So, it is important in all of this to keep God’s promises for us in mind, that no matter how bad the “world” becomes, no matter how hard Satan tries to trap and destroy people, as followers of Jesus, we have the choice to take the Christ-road, we have the choice to seek the Spirit of God in our lives, we have the choice to draw near to Jesus and reject those things all around us that don’t, and we have the amazing Grace of God available to us through the death of Jesus to restore us when we do make a bad decision!
So, as we go through this coming school year with the kids, please pray with us that they will be able to develop a personal relationship with Christ, that they will allow their minds to be transformed by Him, that they will be able to distinguish between the good and the bad and choose the good, turning quickly to Jesus when they fail! And may their grades reflect a serious approach to their futures!
¡Somos vencedores!
Jim and Pat
Hello, Alas de Amor friends and family!
We have a lot of great things to share with you from July. As you all may know, our children are still enjoying their summer break.
This summer, we had the privilege of hosting a fun retreat for all of our students and their families. We decided to reserve the whole day at a ranch called Las Arras. For such a big event, we were hoping to have a large number of volunteers to help us coordinate and execute all the games and activities we had planned. Thankfully, God provided and we had an amazing showing of volunteers.
We started off our students and their families with a breakfast, served at 9AM. After breakfast, we separated parents and children so that we could give each of the groups a sermon on relevant topics.
For our students, we talked to them about how important it is to direct our focus towards our goals and people who are positive influences in our lives. This topic is critical: Children rarely understand at an early age how easily they can be swayed and influenced by others, and will often form major habits and go through personality changes by just emulating who they look up to or value. Additionally, we reinforced the idea of focusing on future goals and dreams so that they can build toward these dreams every single day.
As for the parents, we talked to them about how their words can heavily influence their children. We wanted to remind them that the power their words have on their children and how they can affect their children's self-esteem. We framed our talk in “Blessings and Curses”-- A word of kindness and love is quite literally a blessing you are giving your child, whereas a word of anger and abuse becomes a literal curse on their lives. This lesson’s importance cannot be overstated, and we continue to try and work with the parents of our students as that is who they often receive most of their lessons from.
After our sermons, we had a volunteer youth group from Juarez hold a teamwork rally for our kids. This rally included a big race as well as many fun games that were designed to reinforce the value of teamwork. The rally was a big hit and we saw many smiles during the afternoon. We also served a delicious ‘discada’ and hotdogs as lunch for the day. Our day at the ranch concluded at 5PM, and we are happy to report that everyone had plenty of fun and everything went without a hitch, thanks to God.
We’d like to take a moment to give an update on our vision and goals for Alas de Amor: It is clear to each and every one of us that God is doing amazing things with our sponsors. We are always humbled by the loyalty you show with your financial contributions to the program, and we see more and more positive changes every month. These changes come in all forms: spiritual, economic, and educational. God is clear about His intention: Go forth and keep growing this ministry.
This is why we’d like to close this month’s letter by putting out a simple, but not easy, bit of homework for every one of you: Tell someone about Alas de Amor.
We are still missing sponsors for 10 of our students, as well as at least 3 college students. This number may seem big, but it is no problem for our God. However, we must also understand that God uses us as tools for his work and to spread his Gospel and his love. We, therefore, ask you to look for others who may be interested in joining Alas in this mission.
We thank every one of you. Without you, none of our work would be possible. Understand that whether you are contributing as a donor, as a volunteer, or as part of the Alas de Amor staff, you are just as vital to the work that God is doing in Palomas. We hope that God blesses you all during the rest of your summer, and as we begin a new school year!.
Berenice