September 2024

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Compassion Ministry: From Infancy to Today

(Written by: Pastor Ron Brink)

Touch Baja began ministry in the hospitals many years ago. We would make a meal for the family members who had a relative in the hospital in addition to offering prayer and encouragement. Family and friends would often sleep on the ground and lack financial resources to purchase food on the street. Many people were ministered to in a time of crisis and many made the decision to follow Jesus. Then, seven years ago, a simple request resulted in an incredible step forward in the ministry.

Honorio and Amelia’s nine year old daughter, Ana Karen, was in the hospital receiving treatment for cancer. Honorio approached Maru, a member of Calvary Chapel St. Fe, and asked if she would go to his daughter’s room to pray for her. After receiving permission from the hospital, Maru prayed with and offered encouragement to Ana. When Maru was ready to leave Ana asked if she would visit her again. During one of many visits Ana and her parents prayed to receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior. As Ana’s physical condition worsened Maru continued to visit. During one of her visits, Ana told Maru that she would be leaving soon and asked if Maru would continue to visit other children in the hospital. Maru, filled with sorrow thinking about Ana’s passing, assured her she would. Ana introduced her to a nurse that had been a great encouragement. Then, after about a year of battling cancer, Ana won life’s biggest fight and went to be with her Savior. (Pictured L to R: Amelia, Honorio, Ana, Pastor Jorge)

Ana’s parents returned to San Quintin where they began to minister to the indigenous group that they belong to, Zapatecos. They have a weekly Bible study in the Zapateco language and work with a church near their home. They miss their daughter but have the confidence that they will see her again.

Maru continued to minister on the children’s cancer floor of the hospital with the help of the nurse that Ana had introduced her to. Soon it developed into a ministry called Compassion. Compassion has since grown and works in several different areas, but Touch Baja focuses solely on the ministry at the hospitals with an emphasis on the children’s hospital.

The cancer floor of the children’s hospital usually has between 20 and 25 children at any one time. A cancer diagnosis is a crisis for every family however, for some, it is even more difficult. Often just getting to the hospital is a financial struggle. “Everything is a battle for them,” says Maru. They do not have money for food or lodging, often sleeping on the ground at the hospital. They must depend on the generosity of others in order to simply have food to eat. Many of the doctors believe that, because they are uneducated and often illiterate, the parents are not capable of understanding so nothing is explained to them. Going through the process blind, the parents and children get to know one another as sadly, one by one about 90% of the children die. As each child dies it creates a new crisis in each of their own lives, being bound together by each ones battle. Unfortunately the trauma never seems to end, as most of them will experience the death of their child, further compounded by the grief causing many of the marriages to end in divorce.

This is where the Compassion Ministry steps in to help, assisting the parents in a number of ways. We connect the families with professional Christian counselors that provide their services free of charge, assist them with finding lodging which, as a matter of prayer, has become very difficult due to the closure of a facility we were partnering with, provide assistance with food, and line up child care for their children which includes the child being treated. This assistance is also offered to families of children with a terminal illness cared for on another floor of the hospital.

Touch Baja is presently working to construct a guest house at our St. Fe facility for these families. Initially, it will accommodate three families and have facilities for bathing, cooking, laundry, and relaxation. When the guest house is complete, we will need to provide a vehicle to transport the families back and forth to the hospital as well as for them to run errands and also staff member to coordinate everything. We ask that you pray with us for all that needs to be accomplished so that these families in crisis can be cared for and ministered to in the love of Jesus. In future newsletters, we look forward to sharing more on how God is transforming lives through this ministry.   <top>

Calvary Chapel Granjas Reaching It’s Community

(Written by: Staff)

You drive down an incredibly steep road praying your brakes hold out. You then hit a dirt road topped with several inches of clay ground to powder resulting in a huge cloud of dust that engulfs your vehicle, filling it with choking dust. Quickly rolling up the car windows, you turn on the A/C which you really need, both because you are now in a narrow valley with little or no breeze and also the dust-filled air is hot not to mention, if someone is burning trash, the acrid smoke that lingers in the air burns your lungs. As you look around, the sides of the hills have carved out level spots where homes are built, many little more than shacks. The ladies are washing clothes and hanging them out to dry while children play in the streets. You have just entered Granjas Amparo Sanchez, a small community controlled by a violent drug cartel. As an American, you are safe because they don’t want to give the government a reason to send in the military. Everywhere yiou look you are surrounded by poverty, soon arriving at Calvary Chapel Granjas. The building next door used to be a small store but it was closed a couple of years earlier after the owner left town,  the cartel having kidnapped and killed his son in an extortion plan gone wrong. Very few youth will finish high school here and the majority will regularly use drugs, and many will work for the cartel.

How do you reach these children, the youth, and their parents? To be honest, Calvary Chapel Granjas has reached out to the youth in various ways with limited success. Up until now the church, which is growing, has had little impact in getting children to stay in school which is crucial to keeping them off the streets and preventing them from using drugs. It is clearly evident that more than Sunday school once a week is needed, that we need to intervene in their lives when they are young, evangelizing and discipling them in the early crucial years of their lives. To begin to do this, we have started a meal program four days per week where, along with their meal, the kids are offered a Bible study and an activity. It will be years before we see the full impact of this ministry but, for the short term, it is bearing some fruit and looks promising. The children and the parents seem to love the program with many of them now attending church services.

As a side note, Touch Baja also has a meal program at Calvary Chapel Xochimilco and, between the two churches, we are presently serving about 350 meals a week which continues to slowly grow in number.    <top>

All Work and No Play…

(Written by: Pastor Ron Brink)

Every year in July, our churches and other local ministries, such as Colina de Luz orphanage, get together for a soccer tournament hosted by Fervent  Church in Las Vegas. Manny Reyes, the pastor of the Spanish-speaking congregation at Fervent, has been a heading up the tournament for years. Members of the local churches come to watch the tournament and each church has a stand that sells antojitos or in English foods people crave. As a side note, my favorite this year was the tortas ahogadas, a drowned Mexican sandwich. It’s a slightly blackened fried pork sandwich on a very thick roll fried smothered in salsa… yum! For the tournament, trophies are awarded for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place, which the champions from the previous year bring and present it to the new champions, if they don’t win themselves. This year Colina de Luz took the 1st place trophy home for the very first time. During the tournament there is a Bible message and the gospel is shared, so it provides a great opportunity for those who attend to invite unsaved friends.

In past years, we have had to rent a facility to host the event which has always been a challenge to find a suitable location. For instance, last year the Mexican National Guard took over a large portion of the facility we were using including the restrooms. In planning for this year, Pastor Jimmy, Senior Pastor of Fervent, allowed Pastor Manny to sell Mexican food after a couple of their services in Las Vegas to raise money to build a soccer field with a shaded area at Touch Baja’s new facility in Santa Fe. While improvements will be made over time,we were able to host a successful tournament there and, looking forward, we will be able to use the area for different events and outreaches as well.

Many thanks to Pastor Jimmy and Fervent Church… what a blessing.  <top>

Prayer for Family of One of Our Staff: Williams

(Written by: Pastor Ron Brink)

Mexico, along with much of Central and South America, has been  experiencing an increasing epidemic of violence related to drug cartels and gangs. Recently, that violence dramatically invaded our lives.

Williams has ministered with us for many years, presently working with the youth in the Vencedores Rehab Center. On April 15th, drug cartel members kidnapped both his 19 year-old and 16 year-old (Pedro – standing in picture to left) cousins. It appears that the older cousin, who used drugs, somehow angered someone in the cartel, resulting in both boys being kidnapped in the city of Cancun, which is where they live. They were then taken to their home, where the older cousin was murdered in front of Williams’ mother and grandmother, taking Pedro with them when they left. All of this was so traumatic that Williams’ grandmother, who had a bad heart, passed away the next day.

We contacted no small number of believers to pray for Pedro’s safe return. A few days passed and it looked more than likely that he would not be returning. As is often the case, it was believed he had probably been tortured and murdered in front of other cartel members as a warning, with the act often being video taped and sent out widely to effect a larger group of people. But God had other plans and, after a week, miraculously we received the news that Pedro had been set free, having been badly beaten but nothing that wouldn’t heal.

Unfortunately, these types of stories and heinous acts are all too common in Mexico. Some people might ask where is God in all of this, but the real question and problem is not where He’s AT in situations like this but, rather, where He ISN’T – reigning and ruling in the hearts of the people. In the hearts of people who, through lifestyle choices, are at risk of being victims of these type of violent acts, often times putting other innocent people at risk, as well as in the hearts of those who commit these type of violent acts.

Lord, help us to reach more people with your life changing message so that stories like this become less and less prevalent.  <top>

Praises

  • The number of students in the St. Fe school has been limited by space. The new facility will allow them to go from 34 students last year to over 60 this year. As improvements are made they will continue to grow.
  • We have been constructing a building in Carmen Serdan to use for processing honey and a place for the rehab boys to stay. The construction continues but we are far enough along that we can begin to use it. We began processing honey last week and the boys are now able to stay there.
  • Dani, one of the boys in the youth rehab, left this week. For many years he had been living with his grandmother who uses drugs. His stepfather, who separated from his mother many years ago, allowed him to move in with him. He is a Christian and Dani goes to church with him. Next week he begins attending a school to learn to cut hair.
  • Last week we had a youth conference. The theme was about living the Christian faith in a broken world. The youth were very encouraged.  <top>

Prayer Requests

  • Pedro is not a Christian. Please pray that God would use this event to draw Pedro to Himself.

  • Fransisco, one of the boys in the rehab, had a medical issue and has returned home. We are hoping he will return in a couple of weeks. Please pray for a full recovery.

  • Both of the schools will be starting classes again in a few weeks. Please pray for the students to be powerful witnesses that will be going on to the university and for the returning and new students. That they would have a closer walk with the Lord.

  • The facility in Carmen Serdan is reaching a point where we will have the facilities to start the school. Please pray for staff and the finances to begin soon.

  • In September we have a special event sponsored by Calvary Chapel St. George to bless the pastors of the churches we work with. Members of some of the other Utah churches will also be helping. Please pray for the pastors’ spiritual life and for their protection.   <top>