Contemplating Our Blitzing Plan:

A group from our church will be with us from November 2 - 9. We are really looking forward to having them with us. Pastor Ismael Zamarron and some of his folks will also be coming up from Navajoa to help as well as Pastor John Perez and a group of his Bible School students from Hermosillo. We are looking forward to a great week of soul winning together.
When we began the Mohave Baptist Church there in Bullhead City, Arizona this type of evangelistic meetings proved to be foundational in getting a start. We are praying that this week of soul winning will see many souls saved and give us several believers with which to continue with. We will appreciate your prayers for us during this week.
There is always room for a few more and if you would like to make a trip on down our way just give us a shout so that we can get you here and be prepared for you when you come.

July 2009 Newsletter

PLANNING THE WORK:

Since arriving here in Magdalena we have been praying about where God would have us locate the work and looking for a potential building to rent or property to purchase and begin from there. Of course we have also asked you to pray specifically for us in this area. This month we have signed a lease on a building that we believe is the answer to your prayers for us and the end to our search for the location that God has for us. We had posted a picture of this building with the others that we were asking you to pray with us back in April and then again in June on our blog site. The price was $4,000 pesos when I first ask but then went to $6,500 when the owner showed it to me in June. We ended up renting it for $5,575 pesos.

WORKING THE PLAN:

ON OUR BUILDING:
The family has been busy working on cleaning the unit up. It has been used as a cabinet shop and I do not believe that there had been any attempt to clean it since it was built (thirty plus years). I purchased an extending high pressure washer wand and rented some scaffolding and Ezra and I went to work. We literally pressure washed the building inside and out from the roof to the floor. The building is now clean but still requires some build-out work inside, a repaint outside and new front entrance doors.

OF OUR BUSINESS:

Our number one job is getting the gospel out in Magdalena with or without an official meeting place or even a dedicated name other than Baptist. With a building though we are going to be able to officially give out our address and we have decided on a name. How about Iglesia Bautista de Magdelena for simplicity? There are several reasons for that choice but simplicity and identity are primary.
This month there is a group of independent Baptist Churches here in the state of Sonora that have a youth camp together at a rented camp located right on the outskirts of Magdalena. Their planned activity for Wednesday afternoon will be soul winning on behalf of this work. It will be a tremendous blessing to have so many young people out at once to help us cover more of the city with the gospel of Christ!

PLANNING MORE WORK;

Surely the reality is that if you ever come to the place that you fail in your plan it is because you have failed to continue in your planning. And so we ask God for His providential guidance and you for your continued prayers as we plan more work for the salvation of souls wherever God's will finds our steps. Thank you for caring enough to send us.

For the salvation of souls,
The Harris Family

A Loss for the Weekend
"as a thief in the night"

This past Thursday night we experienced our first episode of robbery here in Mexico. I woke up Friday morning to discover that our locked gate (still locked) was open and Ezra's four wheeler was nowhere to be found. We called the police and filed all the forms at the three separate offices downtown. We are told that they caught the thief that morning and had the four wheeler in possession but due the processing of all of it we did not get the four wheeler back till today (Monday). Thankfully without any extreme harm.The reason I bring this incident up is to help you remember to pray not only for me and Peggy but for our children. Dad and Mom may be following the call of God on their lives but the children also end up living in foreign lands and live just as disoriented if not more. Thankfully, Ezra was looking at it and talking to me from the perspective about how God has His hand in all of this for good and who might just be saved through it all!

A Location for the Work

I have spoken with the owner of the bodega (warehouse) in the picture and as of Wednesday we will have this unit rented for use as the start of the work here in Magdalena. This unit is an open warehouse with a built in one bedroom efficiency apartment and separate men and women's bathrooms. It will take a lot of cleaning and then a lot of work to make it serviceable but I believe that it will make for a nice location. It has no parking of its own but has street parking and no other businesses close by for parking competition. We are excited with the prospects of having a building and with the possibility of getting information, tracts and the gospel out with our name and location.

Thank you for praying for us - all of us.

May 2009

May 2009
Dear Friends of Prayer,
Promises – Promises:
One of the ways that we have endeavored to make contacts with the people of our city is to invite people to come to the house for a meal. Now first off I want to publicly thank my wife for being so willing to go to such lengths so many times and for being such a great cook. What has surprised us is how many promises have been broken – and it was for a free meal! We have been stood up by both our neighbors as well as others less known. We have invited poor as well as rich, from simple daily contacts to more well known such as our landlord and have still eaten alone. I even double checked with one family a half-hour before they were suppose to come with an confirmation of their intent and still they did not show. Wow!
We have experienced the same broken promises for church attendance. Call it culture, call it lies, call it a misunderstanding, call it whatever, the result is the same – no one is there. I expected the empty promises for coming to our services but I must admit I am surprised by the lack of honesty for a free meal and from such an encompassing group. But then if everyone was what they should be in life we would not need to be here would we?
Prospects – Plans:
We still do not have a dedicated location to start services. Currently we are meeting in our house. As I look at how God intervened to give us this rental house I know that we have yet to see God's hand for a specific meeting place but that we will. Our plan is to simply follow God's leading and His timing for His will in a meeting location as well. I do believe that a dedicated location would be a great benefit but only in God's will.
Prayer – Performance:
So ultimately this is the plan – you pray for us and we will work for you here in Mexico for the glory of the Lord. I believe that God's Word is Powerful (Hebrews 4:12) and that God's Work is Providential (Ephesians 3:20). God has given us His promise of blessing, thank you for participating and being such a blessing – we will continue to plant.
For the salvation of souls,


The Harris Family

March Prayer Letter

Dear Friends of Prayer,

A Missionaries Worst Nightmare - Sort-of:

With living in Mexico comes a certain fear of the violence that one may experience because of the drug violence that goes with the territory. You know - such as being held at gunpoint. Well, I now have had that experience but it was not like you imagine. I was helping another missionary tow his pickup back to the states for repairs. We had safely transversed 500 miles of Mexico but just about 5 miles into the United States I found myself in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was put to the ground at gunpoint by about twelve U.S. officers including the Border Patrol, the Highway Patrol, the Sheriff's department and some of the city of Nogales' finest. Seems someone was trying to steal my truck and take it to Mexico - only I was still driving it!Thankfully the situation was all quickly sorted out and I am still alive. Thank you for praying for us though, even in the false alarms of missionary life.

A Missionaries Work Needed - Soul-winning:

Personally - I am sure Peggy gets weary of all the people I invite to come over and have dinner with us, but it provides such an effective way to get to know people one on one. We continue to attempt to witness to our Jehovah Witness neighbors and with the sowing of the gospel and the work of the Holy Spirit we trust God to bring salvation to their house.

Publically - All of our family has just returned from town were we spent about three hours handing out gospel tracts and talking to as many as God put it our way. In all that time not one refused the gospel tracts and we left many reading the tracts as we moved on. So far we do not have names that we can give you as to salvations, but we do have many such as Eduardo from Nicaragua who saw us both yesterday and today and sought us out to talk to us. In time God will begin to gather those whose heart are receptive to the gospel.

Pursuedly - Each morning in our class devotion for the children's school and then each evening during our family devotions we make it a point and priority to pray that we might see souls saved. I believe that this ought to be the consuming passion of every believer. Pray with us that God might work beyond our limitations to bring glory to himself with the salvation of many here in Magdalena.

Thank you for praying for us as we continue to seek to establish ourselves and a gospel witness here in this town. We continue to be excited about God's calling on our lives here and the work that He has for us.Thank you for partnering with us.

For the salvation of souls,

The Harris Family

January 2009

Dear Friends of Prayer,
The History of our Town:
We have arrived! - in Magdalena de Kino, Sonora, Mexico and we are so glad to be here. By God's grace we have had safety in our travels and believe that God has led us all the way. God has provided a rental house suited for our family's needs which we believe will be comfortable and secure yet amongst and accessable to those whom God has sent us to.
Magdalena was settled in the sixteen hundreds by a Jesuit priest named Fransico Kino. He built the original catholic mission downtown and his bones are enshrined in the square for all to see. In the cathedral there is an idol of his likeness at rest to which devout catholics of the whole of this part of Mexico and the southwest of the United States make a pilgrimage to pray to. Having said their prayers, offered their offerings and burned their candles then they begin to kiss this idol from the toes to his face. Once at his head they ever so discreetly attempt to lift him off his bed. Those whose sins are light are able to do so! - Those who cannot lift him must seek continued penitance.
Each year in October Magdalena becomes the mecca of catholics of this whole part of North America. They come by the thousands and partake of all the old world catholic and pagan practices held so tightly by benighting tradition. It is truly heart wrenching to see the complete inner emptiness portrayed outwardly upon the faces of these sincere but misinformed souls.
The Hope of our Town:
It is the gospel of the LORD JESUS CHRIST - no more, no less. But how to go about the job of telling Magdalena. Really, It is not that hard - actually quite simple (other than the language thing). "Could I give you a tract to read? It's the Word of God."
Almost every day we are able to pass out handfulls of the gospel. Seldom ever are they refused even in the catholic square's shops. Almost always they are being read when we retrace our steps.
Today I was able to speak with a few. I spoke more at length with Javier and his brother Hañssel. I spoke with Jose at a grocery store and then Peggy, Anna and I had the privilege to speak with Maria Los Angeles, Angelita. She is eighty-six and is anxious to talk with us again. Jesus Garcia and his family are our neighbors - devout Jehovah Witnesses but God made no mistake when He put us in their way,
It is our hope to have the help of some of the young people that we have previously helped to train. We have one young lady that is to join us in the ministry in February. I have been praying for another specific couple to also come and work with us. It is my desire that as God raises up this work that it be a national work from the very onset. Please pray with us for God´s will in this specific matter.
We are also looking at various places to rent for services. We have found several good possibilities and we are excited about the prospects. We know that God has exactly what He desires for His work here in Magdalena, please pray with us as we discern God´s will in each of these things as well.
Thank you for allowing us to be here,
For the salvation of souls,

The Harris Family

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