Dear Pastors, Churches and Friends,

August 1, 2018 (Jun. – Jul. ’18)

June was a very good month.  We had a record Wednesday night attendance in June of 103 and 10 saved that same night.  Pastor Larry Leonard and his wife, Crystal, visited us from Pennsylvania in June and were a huge encouragement to both Mary and I and our church.  They understood the poverty here and desired to be a blessing; they brought down skirts for the ladies in our church and ties for the men.  We have been trying to get into a girls’ orphanage close by and were finally able to during the Leonard’s visit.  Mary is now teaching the orphans guitar, and we are praying that they will come to church with us soon.

Praise the Lord that we were able to buy a church van in June.  Thank you to those who gave towards this project, but also thanks to those who prayed.  Though not a big van, due to the seating layout we can very comfortably seat 23 people, but we have had over 35 before in the same type of van.  Pray for our vacation Bible school next week, and pray for our first missions conference on our church’s second anniversary next month which happens to also fall on Mexico’s Independence Day.

Thanks for your prayers for our health and safety.  In June Mary & I both had problems with sinusitis, bronchitis, and other infections even though it is the rainy season which helps cut down some of the pollution that cause these problems.  A few months ago and again last month Mary has struggled with bad cases of parasites which seriously affect her digestive system.  Even this month of August Mary is not well but is taking a lot of prescribed medication from her gastroenterologist.  In June while in the van, I had a man pull a pistol and point it at my head, though he didn’t shoot – PTL.  I also had someone steal my cell phone that month.  In July, we did have someone shooting at us while we were knocking doors in a new area, but God again kept us safe.  Mexico had it’s presidential & general elections in July.  In previous elections six years ago, 9 candidates were assassinated.  With violence getting much worse in Mexico, during this election period 132 candidates were assassinated.  In 2017 there were 29,168 murders reported in Mexico (though many go unreported).  However, this year is on track to be the most deadly year in history and records should be broken as the murder rate is already up 21% from last year.  Apart from the violence we recently had a 5.7 and 6.0 earthquake felt in our area.  A few weeks ago a fireworks factory exploded on the north side of the city killing over 25 and injuring more than 50.  Apart from the violence, pollution, poor sanitation, natural disasters, accidents, etc., God is doing a great work.  Though not multitudes, we do see souls genuinely saved weekly.  Furthermore, many follow the Lord in baptism and are faithful to attend church.  Only two families in our church have a car, and one of them called me recently to say their son borrowed their car and was in a terrible accident.  They asked if I could take them to him, so we did and picked up the son, Noel, and his wife, Eva, and took them to the hospital where they were later released.  When they got home I told them how good God was to spare their physical lives but asked them about their eternal destination after death.  Not being saved, they both said they would go to hell, but I shared the gospel with them and they were both spiritually born again.  We have also had others saved recently in amazing ways.  We’ve had several saved recently who bring visitors and the visitors get saved, too.

Our daughter, Hannah, & son-in-law, Mark, went with their church and took a group of teens on a mission trip to Mexico with Bearing Precious Seed last month.  It was about 15 years ago when Mary & I took our children on the same trip, and it was at that time God called us to be missionaries here in Mexico.  God is so good!  We are “…your servants for Jesus’ sake” (2 Cor. 4:5).We are “…your servants for Jesus’ sake” (2 Cor. 4:5).

Bro. Mike Wallace & Family