Look what HE has done!

This is all 3 groups united plus a few new groups that have now joined! YAY God!


Annie showing off how God has healed her!




Hours after the accident in the hospital in Michoacan. Tough little girl!




About an hour before her accident as we prepared the food over a fire in my backyard.



This was a few hours before her accident as she played with friends in our living room.


This was a group of my friends all cooking together. I had just thanked God for how well everything was going!

One year ago we sent out a prayer request asking people to pray for a medical mission team that was coming to serve our people. It was our first attempt at having a medical mission team come here and we were going to use it to try and open doors with our people here in the village. However, our main goal was to try and bring the three small groups of new believers we had been storying with, together in some way. We thought that we could do so by having all the women from all 3 groups make the food for the Drs.

This all seemed to be going well until Annie was walking backwards in our kitchen as she was talking to our friend and she didn't know that the boiling salsa was on the floor behind her. That is when she accidentally sat in the washtub like thing of salsa and was badly burnt. She burnt 22% of her body. Most all of the burns were severe second degree with a small part on her upper thigh that they said were close to third degree. We were flown to Galveston, Texas where Annie received excellent care at Shriners Hospital and we started on the road to recovery, both physically and emotionally.

Now, through all of this our friends whom we had wanted to bring together had been awaiting our return. Some were confused and mad at God and didn't understand how He could allow that to happen to Annie when we were trying to help the people. I must say although I never really blamed God, I didn't really understand either. I guess that is not our job, to understand. I know one thing, He has promised never to leave us nor forsake us.

Joshua 1:5 As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.

And He never did! He was with us each and every step of Annie's healing process! Now I can tell you the rest of the story! Once we returned here to our village we told our friends how we desired to join them together into one group. They agreed to do this and so we started meeting together for the first time. Little by little we grew. Then we moved from meeting in our home to meeting in a room which they now call their church. On Monday night they will be voting on a name for their church. There have been two leaders within the group to rise up and they will lead the group over the next year while we are on stateside assignment. (furlough)

Today we will celebrate the anniversary of Annie's accident with the wonderful action of baptism! There will be two men in the church who have decided to make their decision to follow Jesus public, by following Jesus' example and be baptized by immersion. Both of them were sprinkled as infants but they both decided that since Jesus wasn't baptized as an infant, and that since He teaches to do so AFTER your decision to follow Christ, that is what they wanted to do as well. We can't think of a better way to celebrate this day! God has definitely answered the prayer request that we sent out a year ago today. He definitely used that day to bring our 3 groups together and they are now one strong group of believers. We praise God that He can turn something horrible into nothing short of a miracle!