Laynes' Line

Please pray for protection on the highways as we travel this weekend. Mexico is in a very wild situation right now with daily battles between drug lords and the Army/Police. The border towns are being told to stay in their houses because of the danger, but we have to pass through at least one of them to get to Texas. The two doors and the running board are being held in Texas so we will go there to get the repairs taken care of. Pray that all goes well with the repairs and our stay there. No offense, Texas, but you are not one of our favorite places. We believe that Philippians 1:20, 21 are still just as true and vibrant today as it was 39 years ago when I took them as life verses. God knows all about our travels and needs and He goes before us to prepare the way. Thank you for praying.

We praise the Lord for the way He continues to bless the ministry in Guadalajara. Yesterday, at least 82 deaf showed up for our party commemorating Valentine's Day. There was at least one who asked Christ to save them, Carmen's mother. She has been in poor health and yet made the effort to come to the special day. She is at least 80, but felt she still had never really understood salvation. We are thankful that Ann was able to help her yesterday to understand the importance of taking care of her salvation immediately. We had two brand new deaf who came and many returning again after earlier visits. We are so thankful for the large number of younger people who are now attending. We have a good group of teens and a very healthy group of 20-30 year olds. They have gotten saved and now as young adults, are excited to see the church move forward. They have immediately moved in to become the movers and shakers in the aspect of every Sunday's necessary planning, exec...

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!! A funny thing happened on the way to the forum -- well, almost. We didn't go to prayer meeting on Thursday as it seems we got waylaid in the process. It seems that a young lady from Sonora did not know how to get around in Guadalajara and from the center lane attempted to turn left. The only problem was that Ann, Lance and I were in that lane. She did not turn in front of us, she turned into the side of the truck. Thankfully, no one was injured and the only damage was to the vehicles. After she asked MY insurance man to commit fraud and cover her car because she had no insurance, she called her boss here in town. After 5 hours of haggling between her boss and my insurance agent, an agreement was established and we headed home after 9:30 PM! We flagged four different transito (traffic police) and all refused to stop. The final result is that we will probably have to go to the border to find the repair parts. Tomorrow is our big party at the church an...

January's Lanes Lines January 2009 14 Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High: Psalm 50:14 Dear Praying Friends, We praise the Lord for all he has done for the last couple of months. He is always so faithful and true. The Lord is always at least a step ahead of us and is opening the way for us, even though many times we do not realize it. The Christmas program was a tremendous blessing as we witnessed several big victories. First, the total attendance for the program was 103. We have not seen that kind of attendance since about 1985 for any activity. There were deaf there who have not attended for decades and some who have never attended. One young girl who attended turned out to be the daughter of the first lady that we witnessed to in 1983. Another family came for the first time and they have their origins in Morelia. Two received Christ as Savior, including the hearing son of a family that came many years ago. What a blessing to se...

We returned yesterday afternoon from our weekend trip to Tepic with lots of information and a deeper desire to know more. Tepic (tāpēk'), Nayarit (näyärēt') is a neat little city (we have lived in the BIG city for 25 years) with a warmth and a colonial feeling that we used to have here in Guadalajara. Here in Guadalajara, you are completely surrounded by mountains, but because Guadalajara is so big, you never see them. Tepic, is about one hundred miles northwest of Guadalajara in the very heart of the Sierra Madre mountain range. I have read many different figures, but the official census figures show almost 300,000 residents in the city and almost 400,000 total in the neighboring areas. Number keeping here is not always an exact science ("We are from the government and want to know how many people live here? answer =2; real answer 10"). I read one article that said up to 1 million live in the metropolitan area of Tepic. In Tepic, the mountains are literally on the v...

Psalm 96:3 Declare his glory among the heathen, and his wonders among all peoples . Armando is back in the pulpit after visiting his folks in Monterrey for the Holidays. What perfect timing! God never makes a mistake. We had been told that we were going to have visitors in a week or two, but we kept a "wait and see" attitude. After working in the deaf world for 30 years and the deaf world in Mexico for 26 years, you learn not to get really excited until you see them come through the doors. However, God still desire to declare His glory among the heathen. For approximately five years we sought to win the main deaf leader here in Guadalajara because he has so much influence among the deaf. He has been president of the deaf association and for years has been in charge of the education department. One of our young ladies got saved last year and has been working on them to come. Let me interject a bit of history at this point. After rejecting Christ four or five times, he became o...

Happy New Year to all. These photos are the most recent we have which were taken on Christmas day. Our family has grown to the point that it is hard to find a place to assemble all of us together at one time, so we were able to rent a party place cheap. The first price was terrible until we explained to them that we did not want it on Christmas eve (all Mexican families get together on Christmas Eve for the big family gathering), but rather for the afternoon of Christmas Day. They dropped the price to 1/3 of the original price, since no one would otherwise rent it. It turned out to be a play ground and kitchen together, the size of 2 regular lots. Very nice! These are our grandchildren from top to bottom, left to right: Cynthia (Faithann), Lance (Cheyenne), Bryan (Faithann), Alex (Faithann), Johnny (Jonathan) and William (Jonathan). Poor little Cynthia was so sick she could barely hold her head up. The newspaper said the other day that 45% of the population in Guadalajara is suffering ...