University Ministry at Tec de Monterrey State of Mexico Campus

Five minutes from our home is the second most important campus of Tecnologico de Monterrey Campus System in the country. It is well known and prestigious amongst U.S. universities and U.S. employers. We have been wanting to begin a campus ministry so as to make disciples of the future leaders of Mexico. In the past, we tried to have a joint venture project with Campus Crusade for Christ, but it just never worked out. Recently, some new Campus Crusade staff in Mexico City have been working hard to open 400 campuses in Mexico City. Currently about 35-40 campuses have small movements started. The Lord put me in contact with these staff people and we launched a new movement on the campus that I´ve been praying about for 2 years now. Through some local contacts I´ve had at the campus along with two U.S. University Profs from the CCC Faculty Ministry in the U.S., Dr. Walter Lane, Economics Prof,  from the University of New Orleans spoke 4 times this week. Along with other CCC staff that came along, the Lord surfaced the only probable Christian Prof at Tec along with 4 others students. Two of these students are highly interested in beginning a movement. GOD IS GREAT AND GOOD!!!

Tonight, I am going to a dinner sponsored by Campus Crusade Staff in Mexico City for Christian Professors that have been identified throughout various universities. Dr Walter Lane and Dave Wiley (Dir of International Faculty Ministry for CCC) will speak to encourage these Profs in the spiritual walk as well as to share their faith on campus.

Pray for this new and exciting outreach. Pray for me, Craig, as I will be involved in coaching student leaders and reaching out to Profs at Tec de Monterrey State of Mexico Campus. DO YOU WANT TO HELP? Contact me. The cool thing is that all the students speak English. Spanish isn´t even necessary. Come on down to Mexico City and help impact lives for Jesus Christ!!! And who said Jesus isn´t alive? I beg to differ my friends.

5 Day Clubs, Movie and Construction in Lomas de Cuautitlan

Twenty-eight children showed up for the Easter Week kid´s club  Monday-Thursday. Several kids made professions of faith. The Mexican families of the church along with the Williams put on the show. We noticed this time that more kids than usual were out of town for Easter. We saw the local parade of the local Catholic Church as they did a drama of the crucifixion for Thursday and Friday. This is very common throughout Mexico during Holy Week. One man told me that Friday is the most important day for the Catholic during Holy Week. When I asked him about Sunday and the Resurrection, he told me that it wasn´t as important. Death is more important than life!

On Thursday evening, we had 75 people show up for a movie we projected on the basketball park in the local park. We arrived an hour early to paint a large portion of a wall that had graffiti on it. On that large wall, we projected an evangelistic film. Ranulfo, 31 yrs old man, could see the film from 1/2 mile away on the hill where he lived. He rode his bike to come and see what was going on. Since that day, he has been faithful each Sunday. It appears he has made a decision for Christ. He took us to his home where he is building his home little by little as he earns money. He told us that he would like to use his home for Bible studies and other events as we needed it. On Sunday mornings, there has been an average of 30 people gathering. The people are beginning to invite more people. Ask God that He will really continue to penetrate the heart of the believers to invite people to events, Sunday morning, small groups, children´s club, share Spiritual life lessons with others, share their faith and testimony. There has been another murder in the area recently. People are needy….pray for open hearts.

During the same week we were able to begin the reconditioning of some bathrooms in the local Benito Juarez Elementary School. The former bathrooms will become a computer media room. Our desire is that we will continue to have an integral part of making that happen so people in the community will see our good works and be drawn to the Lord through our work and verbal testimonies. If you are interested in coming to help do construction on the media room then contact us.

Workers are needed…Are you willing?

1. Tec University Ministry – we need students from U.S. and Canadian Universities who will come to study abroad with the view of sharing their faith and discipling students. Contact Craig Williams at www.caminternational.org

2.  Church Planting Support Ministry – teach English in Mexican schools. Develop relationships with the Mexican people, share Christ with them and connect them to a local church.

3. Teachers for two Christian Schools whose students are primarily missionary kids. One school is Puebla Christian School. Contact them at pueblachristianschool@caminternational.org. The other school is Mexico City Christian Academy. Contact them through www.mcca-mexico.org

4. University Internship in Mexico. This is a hands-on incredible internship where you will interact with a Mexican families, attend language school, teach English, do sports ministry, use your skills that God has given you, eat tacos on the street and experience Mexico and its people while living in their homes. The internship works through local churches. You can earn college credit too if your university approves the internship. Most universities do.   Contact CAM International through www.caminternational.org

5. Want to make a little longer term commitment to ministry in Mexico? Contact CAM International at www.caminternational.org. You can also contact me in Mexico also!

6. Short Term Teams: Bring a team to Mexico and let’s make an impact!!! We can find something for you…5 day clubs for kids, soccer or other sports ministry, extreme sports ministry, outreach to business persons, university ministry. Hey, the sky is the limit. Be creative. Let’s reach Mexico!  Contact Craig at cwilliams@caminternational.org.

Church Plant Consulting to Churches

This is different from mentoring in that I am not working with an individual church planter but with churches who want to reproduce.

Iglesia Cristiana de Lomas – an upper middle to upper class church. Pray for a Businessmen’s Leadership Event in September 2008 where we would bring in a Business Leadership speaker. This would be a bridging event to other similar events so as to develop evangelistic contacts reaching the wealthy of Mexico City.  On a side note, the church had an evangelistic breakfast at a luxury hotel in the financial district of Mexico City in December 2007. Between church members and guests, there were 200 in attendance. 80 people raised their hands indicating that they received Christ. My friends, this is unheard of among the wealthy to acknowledge a need like this. I believe God is moving….Are we willing to move along with Him?

Pray for Oscar, Daniel and Tomas (the pastor) and others who will handling all the logistics. Pray for businessmen from Austin and Houston who may want to participate through building relationships with key business leaders in Mexico City’s financial district so they can share the life changing reality of Jesus Christ with them.

Some may ask, “Why reach the wealthy of Mexico City?” “Aren’t there enough poor people to reach with the gospel?” There are many churches and missionaries that work arduously with the middle class on down. I sincerely commend them for their work. They are doing a super job. There are not many people reaching the wealthy. The Lomas church may be one of only two churches that are actively trying to reach wealthy persons. The expansion of the gospel in other Hispanic countries has exploded when the wealthy were reached. Almost across the board, most countries reach the poor first. This is not bad and it is needed. Yet, countries like Guatemala, that boast a high percentage of Christians and you see Christian churches all over the place when you pass through small towns and large cities. The explosion really hit when finally the upper class were reached with the gospel. The upper class of Mexico need to be reached. It’s not an option. These people can easily reach down to the lower classes and could provoke some great changes for Mexico. They are lost…and they need Christ…will you help?

University Outreach to Technological of Monterrey

The University is known as Tec de Monterrey or referred to many as “Tec”. It is a private university with campuses in all the major cities of Mexico. It is one of a half dozen schools which graduate some of the top Mexican students in their fields.  You can see the university site at www.itesm.com.mx  One of the two main campuses in all of Mexico is five minutes from our home.

Pray for Mark and Donna Whiffen, missionaries with an Baptist agency, that have a heart for this ministry. Denise and I will be partnering with them to see a campus ministry to the 10,000 students.

Pray for Roberto, an ex-alumni, that is a key person in making contacts on campus.

Pray for Austin area University students that would come to study spanish and other english language courses for a semester to one year and minister alongside the Whiffen’s and us in reaching the campus.

Church Planter Mentoring in Mexico City

Multiplying our lives and our efforts is a worthy cause. Craig realizes that he may have little time left on this earth (just like all of us do!!!), therefore multiplying our lives is a good thing to advance the Kingdom. Besides, the best book in the world, the Bible, tells us to go and make disciples of all the nations. So, if the Bible tells us that, “What else would we do?” Makes sense to me.

Currently, Craig is pouring his life into the following Church Planters.

Juvenal and Francisca Morales in Lomas de Cuautitlan, northwest metropolitian area of Mexico City. He has a small group of 18 persons.

Gerardo  and Norma Velazquez in Valle de Aragon, east of the Mexico City airport. He has a group of 22 persons. He also has a small group of 7 persons in a northern suburb of Mexico City.

Misael Pascual has a group of 18 persons in a northern suburb of Mexico City. Misael and I do not have a formal partnership yet. Pray for Misael to accept a formal partnership so we can work with him. Misael has a great vision and a heart for people.

Pray for two other opportunities to begin church plants. Gerardo and I will be interviewing two other CPer prospects.

Web-Based Biblical/Church Planter Training

Due to the bigness of Mexico City, Craig has wanted for some time to have  Web-based for Church Planters and local churches. Craig needed a Mexican counterpart who could do all the technical work. The Lord brought along  Antonio Vazquez (a systems analyst) as Craig’s partner in crime (or better stated…Web-based streaming). The idea is to provide excellent courses through Live Internet Streaming.  We have already recruited some great teachers here in Mexico, and we hope to recruit more teachers to provide courses, seminars, conferences on topics that will contribute to the growth of Mexican Church Planters as well as local church leadership. Just think, together we will be able to provide invaluable training over the internet to all of Spanish speaking Latin America where ever  high-speed internet is available. The beautiful thing is that almost in every major city and even smaller ones, high speed internet is available. Therefore, we need to go for it!!! Antonio and I thought it would come together in February, but…the server space we counted on didn’t come through…therefore…

Pray for $4000 dollars to be raised which would buy our own server (will be located in Dallas) and the software necessary. We may need additional dollars for two high tech microphones, 1 video projector and a laptop.

Pray for our synergy with www.obrerofiel.com who has told me that they would like to be able to manage the programming in the future. We have some super contacts for great professors and classes.

Pray for my March 6-12 trip to Dallas where part of my time will be spent at Dallas Seminary World Evangelization Conference where I hope to interest some DTS Spanish Doctorate students to be part of the Web-based training.

Manuel Gomez Church Planting in Michoacan

October 24-26, I had the opportunity to go to Michoacan, a state northwest of Mexico City. Morelia is the capital. There are almost 1 million people. Most of the agricultural workers in the U.S. come from Michoacan. I knew Manuel when he was 8 yrs old on the Texas border. His father pastored a church in Rio Bravo. 10 churches were planted through his father’s ministry. Manuel wants to do the same thing in Morelia and throughout the State. Pray for these hardworking workers of the gospel. They gathered all the children’s clubs the Saturday we were there plus the visitors. There were 140 children. Phil Christensen, pastor of Hill Country Bible Church Southwest in Austin Texas, along with Ariana Dean and John Coffman and myself were there to share the Word, our testimonies and participate with the Gomez’s. The blessings we received from our visit were overwhelming. Pray for the Gomez’s church, Baptist Christian Church. The Gomez’s have two girls, Morelia and Denise. Denise is 1.5 years old and she needs a hernia operation in the area of her belly button.

Lomas de Cuautitlan Church Plant Update

We began a kid’s club on Saturdays beginning in October and it will run through mid-December. We have averaged 28 kids per Saturday. Our workers are the Morales family, Luis Ramirez, Edith Oliva, Marcos and Karla Luna and others that come and go whenever possible.

1. Pray for the salvation of the children and their parents.

2. Pray for the workers as several have suffered setbacks such as being robbed, job loss and a host of other things. In spite of it all, they are encouraged.

3. Pray that we can find a house with a double lot that we can rent. There is one available as far as we know, but we locate the owner. His name is José Luis and he lives in Mexico City somewhere. Pray that we can obtain a phone number or that we can run into him when he passes by and checks on his house.

4. We have set up a Project number with  #063609 and is labeled “Cuautitlan Church Plant”. The project is for $4000 dollars so we can buy tables, chairs and a tent like structure to meet under. If you are interested in giving toward this project then send your financial gift to CAM International, 8625 La Prada Drive, Dallas, Texas, 75228. Specify the project number with your contribution.

WWF Josh Williams

Josh is not a fan of WWF, but one can find these masks all over Mexico in the street markets. Josh needs to add a few pounds if he is going to wrestle with the big boys!