NTM

Dear Prayer Partners,

The children’s club is going well. The children are listening and I just heard that they are sharing the lessons with their families. Three of the children have a grandmother that is having one of our missionaries-in-training teaching her the Bible through our Chronoligical program. I asked Veronica (the teacher) to ask Lucia (her student -the grandmother) if her husband would like to learn about the Bible. She asked and found out that the brother and her son would also like to be taught. What a blessing!

Two weeks ago on my way to church I gave a lift to town to a family who lives out in the fields near my neighborhood. In our conversation I invited her two daughters to the children’s club. She mentioned that she would like to learn about the Bible. Today, after the club, Dorothy, Vironica and I went to visit the family. They said that there were three men and two womenin the area that would like to learn. Therefore, we asked Juan (Dorothy’s Husband) to teach and he said he would be happy to. Isn’t this exciting!

All this because YOU are praying. The fields are ripe with harvest. Please keep us all in prayer and pray that we can get more people to help.

Praise the Lord for Beth, our dorm parent who helps with the club along with Dorothy and my self. Today, I am feeling a cold come on and Beth just took care of games and music etc. Dorothy did a great job teaching the lesson. God has put together a great team. Thank you for praying as this has been a dream of mine and this year I am finally seeing the results. Please pray that these children and adults will accept Jesus as their Saviour.

Thank you for being a vital part of the team.

Love in Christ,

Dear Prayer Partners,

Thank you for your prayers last week. We had 8 children and did a fun turkey craft after the lesson about the Bible. We are having a contest to encourage the children to listen and participate. At the end, the children will be able to use their point to buy things at Barbara Russ’ pretend garage sale. I have toys left by families moving back to the US, beads from crafts sent to me, and various toys I have bought for other events. I even sent out an SOS to our Guesthouse Director in El Paso to buy me $20 worth of boy’s toys from the Dollar Tree. So I think we are set to have a good time.

Tomorrow will be our club again. I invited some children who said that others had already invited them. So I am excited to see who the Lord brings over.

Pray for Dorothy who will do the lesson; Beth Mclellan will do the music; and I will do a craft.

Praise the Lord for help to clean up my bodega and create a small room at the entrance with tarps. It is nice a cozy for those winter days.

Pray for Juan as he teaches the teenagers at night. They did not meet last week, pray that they will meet this week and Juan will have a good lesson in English and the Bible.

Well, finally we had the Clinic for Dogs and Cats in this village. Amigos de Animales were able to get donated supplies from several Vet pharmaceutical companies. There were three veterinarians and a dozen other helpers. Even a trainer came to ward off dog fights for those dogs coming to get vaccinated. It was great! Sixteen dogs and 2 cats were spade or neutered. Many dogs came to be vaccinated. One gal and I chased down some pretty poor looking dogs with rabbi shots and shots for mange. We had fun doing so.

Because I do not really have a set job with the Amigos de Animales group (they seemed confident to do what they were doing) so I took time to visit with the various families bringing their animals. I invited families with little ones to come to our Children’s Club. I am inviting the mothers as well.

The clinic was so successful, the president of our village asked them to come again. We only were able to cover one fourth of the village. And the AdAGroup seems excited to have been useful. They have tried this before and found it unsuccessful, no one showed up. This is only the second time they have done this in a community. So they were pleased with the results. We hope to do another one in March.

Thank you for your prayers.

Oh, yes, my Brown Recluse Bite, well I think it is improving. I will be off the antibiotic on Friday and I am praying it does not return. I talked to a friend who is a doctor in the mountains. He said that the venom is probably gone by now and that what I am seeing is the damaged tissue rising and shedding. It seems to peal away and red skin is exposed, then it is purple and the process happens over again. I was sick with a bad cold and stayed home from school. This kept my foot up while I was in bed and it looked really good this morning. Please keep praying.

Have a great day.

Love in Christ,

Barbara Russ

Please pray as we start a Children’s Club at my house on November 27th at 3:30 mountain time, for Elementary children and young.  

• Pray for an exciting lesson
• Pray that the children will be excited and invite others
• Pray that God’s Word would reach their hearts
• Pray that they will come to Christ
• Pray for all of those helping with our club.  There will be only  two now and more later.

Trying to find ways to reach my neighborhood, I asked "Amigos de Animales" to help do a clinic in my neighbor hood.   We went house to house, giving rabies shots and inviting those who are interested to have their dogs spade for free at an upcoming clinic. At our last house, two doors from my house, we came upon a very sick dog, owned my their renter.

The little dog’s hair was matted against skin and bones.  Its eyes looked at me as if to ask for help. The family was not home, therefore our group leader gave me a bag of food to give to the family and asked if they would like for them to take the dog and give it to a better family.

I returned with this message and the food.  I was met by a boy of 14 years old.  He looked so sad when I told him the message,  that he needed to feed his dog and take care of it. or the Amigos de Animales could help find a good home for the pet.   My heart went out to both the boy and the pet.  The boy looked so alone as well.

I decided it would be best if I tried to help the boy take care of his dog.  I also felt we needed to reach out to the boy.  I asked one of the students from our NTM National Training camp to come and help me. 

We met the boy and his dog on Saturday, November 15th.  I realized I needed help to cut the hair and deal with the parasites, thus I took the dog to my veterinarian.  In the mean time, Juan (our NTM student in training) took over and helped the boy clean out the dog’s living conditions.   He invited the boy and his friends to have English classes at my house.

Two boys and one girl came to my house the following Monday.  During the classes in English, Juan asked the students if they would like to study the Bible.  They all seemed interested to learn about the Bible. 

PRAY that they will keep coming and accept Jesus as their savior.  Pray more will join them and they will be faithful to come each week.

After the Vet gave the dog a shot, it perked up and after the medicine, the paracites are gone.  He has had a haircut and is doing much better.

Pray that his master will listen closely to the Words of the Lord, which are medicine to our soul.   God is our strength, pray that He will show Himself to this boy and to His family.

Dear Prayer Partners,
I finaly am able to get on the internet and write you a note.

Thursday, around 4:30 I was leaving a co-workers house from a Bible study and walked to school to pick up my car. I felt an itch on my foot thinking it was one of those pesky mosquito bites. It had a pit of a pricky feeling as well, but I did not think anything of it. I went to get my haircut, but had time to walk around a large park near there for exercise. Then after I got the hair cut, I went to Home Depot to pick up a curtain rod for a man to put up some curtains. My foot was beginning to swell and it was hard to walk around the store.

Up on returning to my house, I felt tired and took a shower and went to bed. Chills began to over take me. I thought maybe I was getting the flu but I did not feel nausious, just tired and cold. I took a Benedrel for sinuses because I felt stuffed up and wanted to sleep.

In the morning, Friday, I felt better and went to school. My foot still hurt so I wore a more open shoe. At school, I began to feel cold again and was trembling. But people thought it was just an ant bite and that it would go away in a couple days. The flu was going around so I thought the chills maybe part of that.

Saturday morning, my foot ached, burned and itched. It was swollen, red, and now I could see where it had been bitten. I contacted a friend to help me. We tried to find friends that knew what to do. She contacted a gal in her mission whose father worked in the mission hospitals over seas. He told his daugher to get me to the emergency room as that was a spider bite and it can damage the cell walls of the blood vessels to the point I could loose my foot. So action was taken and the missionary in my neighborhood took me to a good hospital here in chihuahua. They contacted a doctor who is aware of such things and I was admitted to the hospital on Saturday for heavy dose of antibiotics and other medicines.

I was bitten by a Brown Recluse. It is funny to think that we were studying about Spiders this week in my 5th and 6th graded science book. But I didn’t learn our lessons very well did I? But know I know!!! Brown Recluse truly gives a serious bite.

I am not sure when I will be released, hopefully tomorrow. But the red was almost up to my knee and now is down below my ankle.

Pray that we will be able to know what to do clearly once I leave here. I have some questions and some of my Mexican visitors helped me translate the questions

Added note: After sending this out to my prayer partners. I began to get more information about the Brown Recluse.  It does not like light.  Therefore, I figured out what may have happened.  They are digging a long trench near our school.  The spider may have been hiding under my car, which at the time was the only car on that side of the parking lot, to get out of the sun.  I recalled being told when I first went to Aritao in the Philippines to be careful because there are more bugs around when they are doing construction and digging in the ground.  Well, I have found centipedes in my classroom so this may account for all the BUGS=(

Thank you for your prayers,

I am beginning to travel westward toward home.  I am in Detroit then will go to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and then start downward.  Please continue to pray for safety on this summer furlough. 

Thank you for your prayers.

I am in the Washington DC area visiting the Yoakum family that use to work in the Philippines. 

Tomorrow I will take the train to Boston area and visit friends from Bible School days at Prairie Bible Institute.

Then I will return and drive a short distance to friends that use to work in Mexico.

After that I will head for Pennsylvania, up to Canada, over to Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and back down to Missouri to visit more friends that I met either in the Philippines or at Prairie Bible. 

I need to return to El Paso by the 28th.  Please pray for safety and that I will be able to visit all those the Lord has put in my path over the years.

Yours in Christ,

Barbara

Dear Prayer Partners,

This weekend, our third and fourth grade teacher had to hurry home to Nebraska because her ailing dad turned for the worse. We only have two full weeks and a part of the next week of classes. What to do?

I suggested that if we can find someone to sub for this week, I can finish up the kindergarten program and go in and help finish up the third and fourth grade classes. Right now we are struggling for find someone to finish up this current week.

Thank you for your prayers and your support behind me being able to be here to teach our children. Pray the the kindergarten class has a good last week. Pray for me as I help the third and fourth grade class.

Please pray for next year, as we really could use a 1st and 2nd grade teacher. If not, I will teach first grade in the morning and kinder in the afternoon. The other grades will be distributed on up the line: 2nd-3rd, 4th-5th and sixth will have several teachers. Our a mission, as the whole, needs MK teachers. If you are able to encourage your churches to send out teachers, do so. Teachers are needed around the world in Missions.

Pray for our present third and fourth graders. They still have test to take and need to end the year well.

Yours in Christ,
Barbara Russ

This summer I will continue to visit those I missed.

Pray for my travel Eastward.  Pray for me as I start to work out a schedule.

Praise, I have someone to stay at my house.  He is not a Christain but a retired brother of a neighbor.  This neighbor does not live in this community but owns property infront of my house. They use the property for parties and get aways for the family.  He is a government lawyer.  I am not sure what his brother was but he is retired and has lots of time on his hands. 

Pray that I can communicate what needs to be done around the house. 

Pray also as for my travel plans.  I need to move the dates for Jury Duty as well, (Yes, I am up for Jury Duty. Until I am actually called on a case, I am up for it every year.   But I am allowed to move the dates.)

If you read this and would like for me to visit your area, let me know.

Have a great day. 

Love in Christ,

Barbara

Thank you for your prayers, The community pump is running.  They are going to cut the water lines from those who have never paid their bills and are living on free water. 

I also have another praise, a person visiting Chihuahua, has offered his time to help anyone who has an electrical or plumbing problem.  What an answer to prayer, I now have all the lights in and now wires weighting for a kind person to finish the lighting in my house.  I also have a new faucet in the bathroom so I can wash my hair in the sink. 

These are little things but they bring peace of mind as I teach school and work with my neighbors and friends here in Mexico.

Praise also as I am slowly fitting into the church I am attending.  It is hard when it is in another language, but people are beginning to accept my Spanglish and including me in their activities.  It has been a cold church but slowly I am fitting into their cliques and being accepted. 

Thank you for your prayers.