Thanksgiving and another year for Benjamin

This past week or so has been super filled. Thanksgiving week was filled with family and friends. Christine's dad, Frank, and his wife, Laura, came up from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico to spend a few days with us. It was great having them here. On thanksgiving day our team of 13 and great friend Irma joined us for a wonderful Thanksgiving feast and festivities. It was filled with music, food and great sharing time. We are so grateful for all that God has given us. His grace and mercy is tremendous.

A few days after Thanksgiving Benjamin turned 6 years old. Our friends, Craig, Joe, Steve and Terry Morgan and others joined us for the cake and present festivities. Benjamin was super happy to have new bionicles, a video game and some nerf guns.

November was filled with many activities and you can see a photo run down at VanDiest Photos.

Categories: Family, Photos

Join me in 24/7 prayer movement

This coming Monday I'm joining students, staff and Christian in a 40 day 24/7 prayer movement. My prayer time is at 5am here in Mexico City for the next 5 weeks.

If you're up to getting up a bit earlier every Monday morning and joining me in prayer, please do so.

• Pray that God will reveal Himself to us.
• Pray that God will show us how He is already working around us and how we can join Him.
• Pray that God will give us hearts of faith, boldness and passion for Him and His mission.
• Pray that God's Kingdom would be expanded through students launching spiritual movements/churches in Mexico City and around the world.
• Pray that thousands come to know Jesus this coming months and year.
  
• Pray that God will raise up 4,000-5,000 new student leaders to lead the spiritual movements in Mexico City.
  
• Pray that we will train our new student leaders to launch more and more spiritual movements.
  
• Pray that our new movements will not be gathered Christians but convert growth.
• Pray for our Enfoque Mexico staff team. Pray that we will believe in Him, walk intimately with Him and listen to Him.
  

Categories: MexicoCity, Leadership, Prayer

Great Insights from Friends a far

This past Sunday, Don Wilcox, with Leadership Network, and good friend stopped in town. He was on his way to facilitate some meetings in Puebla with Campus Crusade and many other ministries, some of the same guys I met on Tues at Hotel Via Veneto. I first met Don about 13 years ago when Christine and I came on staff with CCC in Boulder. He was one of my regional directors in charge of our World-wide student network (WSN). Don was super instrumental in my growth and development those first years of staff. He had trust and faith in Christine and I in leading international trips to Chile and Spain. I worked along side of him for a couple of years helping with some administrative deals within WSN. I love his heart, ability to listen, coach and give great insights.

About 3-4 years ago Don came up with many of the dreams and visions of reaching Mexico City. He took first took students down to Mexico City in the early 90's and learned a bunch. Since then he led our ministry to deal with some of the major cities of the world. He was the creator and dreamer behind the early days of Enfoque Mexico (used to be called City Focus). So I can blame him for all my life change and move to Mexico City. What I should say is, I can thank him. About a year ago he left staff and now works with Leadership Network - Encore Generation. He gives leadership in helping churches maximize their influence with the Senior Adult generation. This is an untapped resource to build God's kingdom.

He came with a friend of his Peter, who works with Level 3, located in my backyard of my Colorado home. Monday morning we met Craig and Ryan, a good friend of Craig's from his Nebraska days, at Starbucks to share our ministry and potential problems. Don sees clearly and gave some good advice to help us move ahead with more effectiveness. After Starbucks Craig and I brought Peter, Don and Ryan to our favorite taco stand. These are $1 steak tacos that will knock your socks off in a good way. Ryan stopped at 3 but said he could have gone to 6.

Ryan also shared some excellent insights into teams, systems and just helped us make some good outside observations of our ministry and teams. Ryan works in Newport Beach, CA and is also part of the leadership of CBMC. Yesterday Ryan contacted the local Mexico City director of CBMC and Craig and Ryan are meeting with them as I write. Our prayer and desire is that businessmen will see the need to adopt a local university, pray for it, help raise up student leaders and use their place of business for a spiritual movement led by students.

We know that so much is going on in our new venture of Enfoque Mexico and it is going on quickly. This is why we cherish the insights and wisdom of outside observations of pastors, businessmen, leaders, and friends. So if you're needing a stamp in our passport, come on down and spend a day with us.
Categories: MexicoCity, Leadership, Coaching

I think I can be a dad

This past Thursday Christine headed off to Texas to visit her mom who is doing pretty bad with cancer, tumors, and energy. Initially Christine was going to travel with Isa but being 11 weeks pregnant, Isa, air flights, and taking care of her mom was a recipe for exhaustion. So, I being the father of the year, brought my "A" game. We actually did pretty good. I took the kids to swimming lessons, to my gym, out to dinner, cooked food kids liked, watched Amazing Race shows, was a teacher for home school, changed enough diapers and loved being a dad. Times like these when one of the parents is gone is never a choice but I do cherish the slow down and focus on the kids. It was fun and even Isa was happy with me as a full time parent.

About 2 of the 3 nights Christine was gone Craig and Joe came over for steaks, chicken, junk food, guac and chips. The weather was nice enough that we sat outside on my patio for hours talking, laughing and complaining about things that don't go our way. One night a small little visitor crawled up the wall behind Craig. We have seen possums in our backyard and we suspect they eat our cool limes from our lime tree. We have also suspected they live in a small hole near our patio. Well the baby possum climbing our vines confirmed it. Not sure how I feel about having a possum as an unofficial guest at our house. I think this possum felt threatened and left us a smelly gift on our front door step 2 days later (no picture of that.)

On Sunday we were at our gym and Benjamin comes running into the weight room to say that his tooth was falling out because he had bumped it. I rejoiced with him and told him that was natural part of becoming a man. He was losing his first tooth. It was a pretty big drama the first day as everything he chewed caused pain. Tues afternoon, he comes running to Christine and I and is smiling with joy, holding his tooth and explaining he it just fell out and that he almost swallowed it. We made sure he got prepared to put it under his pillow for the tooth fairy. Here in Mexico they have the tooth rat come by and take it and replace it with money. But since we are experiencing too many rat like looking creatures we stuck with the tooth fairy version. That night he told Christine he didn't believe in the tooth fairy and Santa Claus. Oh well, there goes my fun. I still went into his room about 11pm and replaced his tooth with about 25 pesos.

It us super fun seeing them grow and enjoy life. Isa now screams "HI" to me when I walk in the door. She can do no wrong. Her expressions, learning about life and new words is so fun. The boys are great swimmers (2 lessons a week) and are learning the game of tennis. This week they learned serves. A week ago our gym hosted a tennis tournament and on the first day there was a kids clinic. Benjamin won wrist bands and a hat. Then, much to his fathers delight, Jonathan brought home the bacon. He won a $70 Nokia cell phone. Very cool. He already made a deal to sell it to our ministry for $25. Just like his dad.


Categories: Family, MexicoCity

Connecting Some More

I've got to get a regular time to post some thoughts other than once a week but in light of my infrequency I post here about my last week.

Last Wednesday, Nov 8, we, Craig, Joe and I met with Eliud Gomez and his wife. They are pastors of Comunion de Cristo up bit north of where I live in Colonia Lindavista. There church was started with the Calvary Chapel connection and they are seeing some great things happening. Right away we connected at a deep level and agreed upon so many things about God, the power of God and the Gospel. Very early in our conversation Eliud and his wife said, "We have confidence and trust in you and your ministry." That was super encouraging. They have two children, one who is in college now. They hope to attend our leaders training this Saturday, bring their son and other pastors. It was just one of those times with a leader of a church that was Spirit filled. We look forward to many more conversations, serving together and being part of their church network (they are connected to 9 other churches.)

Yesterday Joe Cross and I headed, this time via metro (I'm scared of the police), down to the Tlalplan area to a hotel called Via Veneto. A few weeks ago a connection called us and wanted us to come to a breakfast that the General Baptist Conference was holding. I had no idea what to expect. We first met Gary Reynolds and Stephen Doggett. They are the executive directors of International ministries of the GBC. Stephen was on staff with CCC years ago. It was great to hear their heart for planting simple churches and being comfortable with chaos and ambiguity but not being comfortable with doing the work of church the way it always has been. Pretty cool vision and openess to partner to reach the lost and build the Kingdom.

After a great buffett we got to hear from Pastor Gilberto Gutierrez Lucero, president of the Mexican GBC and pastor of Horeb church here in Mexico city and author of Atrevete a sequirlo. His vision was compelling and inspiring. The GBC here in Mexico and in the states in changing to make it happen. Gilberto shared that they are going to plant 10,000 churches in the next 10 years but they won't look like churches of the past. They spoke of simple church. Their 3 part simple plan is to plant churches, Education and administration. Before he mentioned there were like 64 parts of the GBC. They want to train and equip lay people for rapid multiplication. Some other pastors and businessmen from the states shared and it spirit of partnership and building God's kingdom was present. We got to share our vision of launching 4,000 spiritual movements all through students and the room was responsive. I'm looking forward to where they partnerships will lead us in raising up student leaders and blessing this city.

That afternoon, Nate Hoover, a team member, and I drove up north. We had an appointment with Gerardo Ascevedo, a pastor of a local church. We knew we had to go north but didn't really know where to go exactly. After 3 phone calls on the freeway (safety was present thanks to my $20 bluetooth headset) we finally met him and we're only 10 minutes late. Gerardo was super encouraging, loved our vision but the only problem was that he didn't have any college students in his church. They are a largely industrial area with poor, poor, working class members where most of their kids don't go to college. But he agreed the need to adopt local universities and pray that God will raise up couples, professionals to reach out the campus and raise up a student leader. He is part of a Luis Palau network of churches and plans on sharing with them our vision and mission with the hopes of letting us speak at their monthly meeting.

It is all about trust, relationships and offering something that will bless them, their churches and reach the lost. Over time we are praying that appointments and relationships like these will raise up 4,000 student leaders.
Categories: MexicoCity, Church, Leadership, SimpleChurch