Mexico

A couple of months back my husband and I were sitting in service. After the first couple of songs our pastor got up and introduced a missionary that was going to come and tell about his burden and ministry to Mexico. He and his wife were called to Central Mexico. I enjoyed his presentation. He had a short video of a crusade they had in a large stadium. He gave the gospel message and then an altar call. The camera scanned out across the crowd. It showed many people raising their hands, tears running down their cheeks and many people stepping out of their seats and coming to the altar to accept Christ. A flood of emotion filled my heart and my eyes began to fill up with tears. For a moment I went down memory lane to the times that my mom told of her teenage years growing up in Southern California. At that time she felt a desire to learn Spanish and she started attending a Spanish speaking church. She thought that she might be called to be a missionary to Mexico. She had many fond memories of that time and told several cute and heart warming stories of her involvement with that church. She loved the Mexican people and she had a heart for missions. This ran in her family. Her older brother and his wife were missionaries to Chile. My Uncle Cyle went there is his mid twenties and pioneered a large church in Santiago and also started a Bible School there and over the years pioneered 40 churches in Chile. He gave his whole life to those people and was a missionary there until he was 80. He fell very ill with a heart problem and came to America shortly before he died. His home was Chile and he loved those people so much. My mom's life took a different turn. She did the Lord's work by raising all of her children to serve the Lord. She was a good wife and homemaker. Her love for the Spanish people was carried in the names of two of her daughters. My oldest sister's name is Linda, which means "pretty" in Spanish and my name is Elena and it is Spanish for Ellen (my mom's name). After remembering those things, I came back to the presentation and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The missionaries are Ryan and Christy Thomas. I leaned over to Rich and told him that I felt like we should support them and he agreed. After service I went out to their table in the lobby and signed up to get e-mail updates from them and I picked up a business card with their web page address on it. When we got home I looked them up on the Internet and I found out they have a little boy that is Mary's age. His name is Nathan. I have loved that name for a long time. It started when I did a study in the book of Ruth. I just loved Ruth's story of following and trusting God no matter what and God blessed her so beautifully. It says in the 4th chapter that after she married Boaz, God gave her conception and she had Obed. The Hebrew word for "gave" in that sentence is "nathan". The name, Nathan, means gift of God. Before I met Rich, I thought if I ever had a little boy that I would name him Nathan Thomas. Thomas would be for the ancestor on my mom's side that came here from England in 1632. When I realized this couple had a little boy named Nathan and their last name was Thomas I felt another deep connection to them! I wrote them a letter and told them how our hearts were touched by their ministry to Mexico and how I loved the name Nathan. I told them our story and the amazing gift that Mary is. I got a sweet letter back from them thanking us for our support and for sharing our story and heart for Mexico. They asked us to keep in touch. Which we plan to do. Every day for lunch Mary and I pray over the food and we ask God to help the people in Mexico. When she is older I will have her write letters and do projects for the mission work there. It is just so amazing how God touches our hearts for other believers and brings about connections in our lives. I also realized how important it is to follow those nudges of the Holy Spirit and to love and support those who are laying their lives down for the gospel. If anyone would like to find out more about their ministry to Mexico you can see it here.

http://thomasmexico.org/Thomas_Family/Welcome.html

I just realized that today is Mexico's Independence Day! Happy Cinco de' Mayo!