NTM

When a group of people cleaned up a river area here in Chihuahua, I got the idea to have my Kids Club clean up the entrances of our neighborhood.  {{58707}}

I got a team of children on Wednesday, July 1st. to clean up the rubbish that accumulates because of the wind but mainly because people through trash in this entrance without realizing people live in this neighborhood.{{58708}} While at  the other entrance, the trash often overflows and spreds into cracks and cranies of the the entrance walls. {{58709}}

The children do not last past an hour, so I have an incentive at the end of pizza and coke.  This seems to help them go for one more hour.  {{58710}} But that is the end of their stamina.  After the pizza, they ask,"When are we going to go again."  I just smile and say, "I will let you know." 

Pray they learn the culture of cleanliness and work.

Please pray for our up coming VBS here at my house.  The dates will be July 20th through the 24th with a parent presentation on Satuday, July 25th.

My church here in Mexico will help me teach the classes and with all the activities.  The crafts will be simple as they can not afford the ones we use in the United States.

One of the crafts will be a piggy bank made from plastic drink bottles for pops, sodas and water.  I told the kids to save some for me and the next day they came with a wheel barrow load of over 75 bottles.  So I put them to work to clean them. 

Pray that the Lord will meet these children where they are in their new relationship with Him.  Help the kids to grow in the Lord and for the once who do not know Jesus, to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus.

Pray I can get more help to help us as well.

Pray also that we can find all the things we need to do the art projects.  Most are recycled products like juice containers.  We have plenty sodapop bottles.:-)

Thank you for your prayers.

Dear Prayer Partners,

Your prayers have been answered. At out Kids Club, Beth shared the Gospel via scriptures and relating to the Bible events that we shared this past year. Then she asked the children who believes that they are sinners and Jesus died on the cross for their sin and want to accept what Jesus has done. Eight children accepted Jesus today. We had three new children here as well and two of them accepted Christ as their savior.

This was our last meeting for the year because our Mission school has only one week left and we will doing other things. I will still try to do things with the children during the summer. But their school is not out for a month and maybe longer as the schools are thinking of adding a couple weeks to make up for the weeks lost from the Swine Flu closing the schools.

Please pray for these children to grow in the Lord. Pray that over the summer, we can do things together. We had planned to toss water balloons today. Ten kids showed up at my house yesterday to fill the balloons. But we had heavy rain today and it is cold. So we only did simple things with part of the balloons so people would not get wet. I told them to return Thursday, June 4th if it is HOT and we will have a water balloon party.

Also in July the little church, I am attending,  will have DVBS and if I can get help we can take a bunch of children to the activities.
Thank you so much for praying. What a great team I have and thank you so much for being on that team.

For the safety of our Missionary’s children, we have moved the recess and PE classes to our inside playgound.  In the past we used a park infront of our school.  We found people watching the International children.  We had to have extra people helping to watch the children to be sure they were safe. 

After a while, we decided to move the children to our inclosed area and a wall was built to help keep people from watching the children play.  In bringing the children in to our inclosure, we realized the play gound equipment we had was getting run down and in need of repairs.  We also realized we needed a cemented area for children to jumprope and play ball sports and learn other PE skills.

Therefore, we are asking for help to build this project.  We have a Cd made to share the project.  If you would be interested to share this with your DVBS, Sunday School class or church, contact me and I will send you one.

All money should be sent to Binimea Project Fund.

SEE the Binimea Web site on the NTM Mexico site.

Also pray that we will be creative in building this  project. We are limited with space, but the Lord is creative and can give us wisdom in how we should use the space wisely. 

Yours in Christ,

Barbara Russ

The Swine Flu epademia has caused the Mexican Government to take tough measures.  Though the state of Chihuahua has not had any reported cases of Swine Flu, we still most comply with the required closer of schools and social event places for 10 days. Therefore my school has been closed since April 28th. 

The children are being homeschooled by their parents.  I think for some parents it is an eye opener on how their child is doing in school.  For others parent it is doubling their tasks as they try to keep up on their Spanish studies and others working in offices. It is helping parents appreciate the school.   

One mother said this has been good for her. They will be going into a tribal area this summer and have a gal to join their team to teach the children.  The mother now knows how much work this person will have to cover her 5 grades and then add to that children from the other families.  

Elementary schools will resume  Monday, May 11.  The government is asking that the schools be disinfected before children return. Thus our highschool student janitors are busy wiping the door handles, desks, chairs etc.  The highschool will return on Thursday.  And I am not sure when we will continue the Achievement Tests.

All this makes life interesting as we need to be flexable.

Thank you for your prayers. Here are a few updates.

The children’s club is coming along. One of the new boys from the flat building factor up the hill has been answering the questions and learning a lot. Pray that more new children will come our club.

The Bible Studies in the "loma" are going well. There are three men and two women attending regularly. They are just starting so the studies are on the first three chapters of Genensis.

Please pray for some new workers in this area. Juan and Dorothy will be graduation from our NTM Latino train in May. Pray that there would be someone to take their places in these studies. I have great tapes that teach the Bible, so I am willing to do this is nothing happens. But it would be best if we had some Spanish speakers that would take an interest in the people in the "loma" or fields just outside my village. Beth will be here but we could use more help for our club as well.

Praise: a couple of weekends ago, 15 of us missionary women went to El Paso to attend a Beth Moore conference. One of our missionaries, that helps run our guest house in El Paso, was talking to the LifeWay organization (that helps Beth Moore and other Christian writer) about the possiblity for us to come and help with the running of the conference so as to get free tickets. Well, to our shock, they said they would GIVE US ALL FREE TICKETS. They even set aside seats in front three rows back from the center of the stage, behind Beth herself and the singers. Wow! what a blessing to get in free and have the best seats in the house.

BUT I got sick. We arrived, as I drove one of the two cars that brought us to El Paso, and I began to feel punk. We got over to the conventions center and my body began to rebel. I had the flu and it hit hard. I made it through the concert and Beth Moore’s first session. But that night I was a mess. I had to stay at our guest house all day Saturday. I felt awful, but was glad I had heard one session.

One gal told the fellow that was incharge of us that I was sick. He was so kind and came back with a bag of books for me. I was given Beth Moore’s devotional book on Voices of the Faithful and a study guide and CDs for the study on David: Anointed, Transformed, Redeemed by Priscilla Shirer, Beth Moore, and Kay Arthur. How special! I could not have afforded these books but the Lord knew I needed these and study materials more than than the conference. Besides, there was so many wonderful studies and books that I would have not known where to start looking. I can only thank the Lord for HIS FAITHFULNESS.

Thank you again for your prayers.

Yours in Christ,
Barbara

PS pray for this Saturday night as we take the kids to a movie at the Mall. Five children raised their hands that they have never been to movie and six of them have never been to a Mall.

Also the Altamirano family and I will be feeding lunch to one of the orphanages on Saturday afternoon. Pray we will be a blessing to the children and they to us.

Thank you for your prayers.

Barbara Russ

For several years I have wanted a Kids Club at my house that would be sharing the Gospel.   My Spanish is weak and I would need help.

Finally,  one of my co-worker,  who is our Dorm Parent for our MK school, said she would be willing to help.  We have a couple from our National Training that has been working in the area, so I asked them as well to help teach the lessons.  In November, after the incident about the "dog" (see: previous News Article)  Dorothy asked me if I was still interested in a club.  I said, "YES!" Thus, Dorothy, Beth, and I began. 

The club had a disapointed turn when we found out we were in compitition with the Catholic Church in the village.  But people prayed and in January we continued the club with an average of 9 children attending.

We still have our struggles to keep the kids interested, but with your prayers we can keep going.

Praise the Lord for the children we have and for out team.  Dorothy teaches (She is a daughter of Mong refugees to the California who accepted the Lord).  Juan, her husband a native speaker, teaches when the lesson would be difficult for Dorothy to teach.  Beth, had a club in the mountains and is gifted with music and games.  As for me, I am in charge of crafts and praying for the kids during the lessons.  The children know me, so I am also the stablizer giving treats and mending wounds when the kids get hurt.  A few hugs are needed at times as well.  

Thank you for praying and do check out my prayer requests.   

Yours in Christ,

Barbara