August Newsletter

August  2010

He hath made every thing beautiful in his time...  Ecclesiastes 3:11

Dear Praying Friends,

If ONLY we could wait for His own time. God has a plan for Mexico and He is working it out whether or not we are able to see it. Such as, since August 3, we have been without Internet even though we filed several complaints to the company. They eventually got here this week, and we now have Internet, sometimes. Oh if we could only learn during our times of impatience!

Our only deacon has been causing a lot of problems because he was not in agreement with the vote of the church that Armando be our permanent pastor (vote was 38 to 3), and so he had been stirring discontent with some of the deaf on the fringes of our membership. Suddenly without much notice, he walked out of the church and has not been back. We certainly pain in our hearts to see them go, since we led them to the Lord in the early 80’s, but if this is what it takes to stop sowing discord, we will be better off. Pray that all will make things right with the Lord.

It has been a little different for us because we left our vehicle at the border. Why? We had already made the decision, but the day before we came back, the government advised “all Americans to avoid northern Mexico unless it is an absolute emergency. If you must travel in Mexico, do NOT do so in a pickup truck or a newer SUV.” Northern Mexico is in total war. The two major groups from Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros are battling for the “highways” to bring drugs in. The clashes happen when these two groups come together in the middle, or if they find one of the other group in their territory. Mexican pastors are begging the missionaries and workers not to cross right now due to the violence. Several missionaries have been taken hostage and the clans are contacting churches in and around Monterrey that they must pay up or be attacked. There were problems with working out details for camp this summer and it was cancelled by our national pastors. Most would not have traveled with their churches during this time.

We praise the Lord for His blessing at church as we continue to see new ones come and receive him. This past Sunday, we had a new young girl, 17 or 18, pregnant, whose boyfriend had “stolen” her (ran away with her without permission) and she came for the first time by invitation by one of our faithful. As black clouds rolled in after church and with them our desire to get to the bus before it was too late, Gary was strongly impressed to witness to this young lady. Before he could stand, Christian Carlos asked where the drawings were to explain the Gospel. As we went ahead and left several minutes later, he was “preaching” to her and she was in tears. She turned to Gary and said, “I am so ashamed of my sin.” Gary assured her of God’s forgiveness and that all of us had experienced the same thing. She returned her attention to Carlos and he proceeded to lead her to the Lord. Tears entered our eyes as we saw our “sons in the Lord” fulfilling Paul’s command to Timothy to teach to others that they might do likewise.

We remain ready to move out into Mexico as the Lord leads. We have lived many years here and experienced the terrible 80’s with violence everywhere, but this time it seems different. Before, the groups would enter a restaurant, kill their intended victim and flee. Now they enter the restaurant, shoot 20 or 25 people, including their victim, and flee. These are terrible times for Mexico and there is only safety in the hands of the Lord. Pray that we will be ready when He says “Go” to these cities we have prayed for so long. As present He continues to say, “In MY time.” Pray that we might have patience for Him to open the doors.

We continue working on the materials to get to the pastors and hope to do so until we die. NOTHING has ever been published for the deaf on their level to help the pastors except what we give them and the previous work done by Brother Henson. They are starving to find good material, and the cults are there with multi-colored, glossy paper “explanations” and DVD’s. Pray for wisdom as we seek to provide these essential materials.

Thank you for sacrificing and for praying. God is not dead!

For DEAF souls in Mexico,                 

Gary & Ann Layne