Pam Akihiro’s Blog

Hi Friends,

The past couple of weeks have been rich in fellowship and blessings.  March 18 and 19 our church had a surrender retreat.  Those who had completed the 1st step in discipling were eligible to go.  It was held at a beautiful area called El Chico National Park, about 45 minutes from Pachuca.  It was an overnight venture for 28 adults, youth and kids.  I went to the one last year, though it wasn’t an overnight venture and was at a different place in El Chico.  There is Bible Study, Prayer, Introspection, and a ceremony of surrender to the Lord along with food, fun and fellowship.  This year I just went to help transport them back to Pachuca.  I took Luna, my dog, who was pampered to no end.  Please pray for our new brothers and sisters to grow and bear fruit.

main house, there was also a cabin

owner's residence

beautiful view from El Chico

Lety and her 2 children, Fannie and Said

dining area

as always, women in the kitchen

packing up to leave

Luna and me

David and friend relaxing

play time

The Surrendered

The next Wednesday started a 4 day Mexico Missionary Reunion.  This is an annual time when missionaries, mainly from Christian Churches and Ministries (including Niños de Mexico), get together for fellowship, share ministry ideas, refresh, network, and be fed.  We have decided to include missionaries from other denominations that we know personally.  One couple from Pachuca who have planted a Bible Church attended this year and were a big benefit to the group.   It was the 2nd one I have attended.  It was in a city called Ixmiquilpan (X me keel pan), about an hour from Pachuca.  It was at a place called Hotel Campestre, which was all inclusive and had areas for children to play and very comfortable rooms (though the beds were quite hard).  The speaker was Michael Sweeney, President of Emmanuel Christian Seminary, who encouraged us with words about Spiritual Leadership.  We had game night, Karaoke, and lots of prayer for each other.  It was wonderful.  Thanks to 3 churches who helped out with finances, including First Christian Church of Florissant, we were able to rent the hotel area so that we were the only ones using it.  All 48 people were blessed and very thankful.  Please pray for all missionaries in Mexico to remain strong, preach the word boldly, and be guided by the Holy Spirit in their ministries.

playground

we all ate meals together

Mike Sweeney speaking

door to my room

inside the room

Praise and worship time

book share

kids' pool

fun slide

soccer

Karaoke

Tomorrow, 11 people from a church that supports Greg and Vicki Syverson (my teammates here in Pachuca) are coming for a week of ministry.  We are going to have a 3 day VBS for kids ages 6-10 (school will be out for Easter break).  There should be some fun pictures of that.  Please pray for the children and parents to experience God’s love through the team and VBS.

I have another request for prayer.  I am still struggling with language.  Since I am the one who is interacting most with our 4 CHE trainers, I really need to be able to understand and communicate better.  Our 4 ladies have kinda lost the enthusiasm and need someone to walk along side to encourage them to complete their projects before we can start the 2nd part of their training. This and my difficulty with language have been a big source of discouragement for me.  We have decided that I need to hire a tutor and also to hire someone to translate for me in certain situations.  I will start 5 hours of tutoring a week until I have improved enough to communicate on my own.  Please pray for God to enable me to speak Spanish well enough to complete his mission for me here. 

Thank you all so much for your faithful prayers and support.  I wouldn’t be here without you.  Please know that I am praying for you too.  Let me know if there is anything specific I can pray about for you.

Hi Friends,

Last week was an event packed week!  I did go to Mexico City Tuesday, March 6, though Thursday, March 8 and had a great time with Pam DeLeon.  We did some shopping, cooking and Kay Carpenter and Daisy, a friend from the church there, came to sample our cooking.  We were able to talk about CHE and discussed the latest spiritual attacks that have been aimed at the program.  These attacks prove that it is a threat to Satan. I know God is going to work a miracle in that area.  The latest attack is that the judge in authority in LaRaza has denied our request to do surveys there.  He believes we are a political organization, even though we are church-based.   Even though Adriana, our trainer who lives there and knows the judge, assured him that we only want to help the people of the community, he refused.  We can do our praise concert there, which involves other praise bands in LaRaza and in other areas near Pachuca. It will be a way to let people know what TIC (CHE) is and how we can help them.  I believe that God will soften the heart of the judge after the concert.  It is important to have the survey so we can find out what the people think are the problems and what is  most important to them.  There are other ways to gather that information, but a survey would be the most beneficial.  We are still going to do a school screening to find out problems with children and get in contact with parents, which will be a way to make them aware of TIC.  Please pray for the judge and for our four trainers to stay motivated to accomplish what they need to before starting our next training session.

On Friday, we had our 2nd Missionary Women’s Fellowship. Four women came.  Kay Carpenter, our Mexico team leader and Darla, a young woman who is interested in ministry in Mexico were there too.  We had a really good prayer ministry time and time just to talk.  One young woman, Lauri, and her family are moving back to the US soon.  Please pray that God will bless each woman in her ministry here in Pachuca.

The next day, Saturday, we had a Women’s Breakfast.  The night before I made 3 chocolate cakes for it.  That was an interesting night–The gas in my oven exploded when I was trying to relight it.  When I got over the shock and surveyed the damage, I only had a small cut on my nose.  My hair wasn’t even singed.  I was standing right in front of the oven when it happened.  It was like there was a shield around me to protect me.  The rest of the kitchen was a mess.  Things flew out of the cabinets, the stove and cabinets moved 6 inches away from the walls.  It was so powerful that the windows in my living room blew inward and my neighbor’s windows rattled.  I can only say that God evidently has more for me to do here on earth!  I called Greg and asked him to check the oven so I could finish making the cakes.  The oven checked out fine and the cakes got baked.  Gerza, the church elder who made the cabinets, came today and  put things back to normal, repairing some cabinet doors  and the living room window.  Please praise God for his protection and mercy.

small cut on my nose and a little bruise

The Women’s Breakfast was a success.  It is a great outreach to this community.  Quite a few women came that don’t attend our church.  A number of women have started to attend after coming to one of our breakfasts.  Kay Carpenter gave a program on who we are in God’s eyes.  Please pray that many women will come to Christ through this ministry.

women's breakfast

The next day our sister church, Jubileo (Jubilee) Christian Church, had its 5 year anniversary.  Some of our members went there to do children’s Sunday School so their workers could take part in the special service.  What a blessing!   The church has more than doubled in the past 5 years.  Vic DeLeon (Pam’s husband) preached, even though he had just returned from the US at 1 a.m. that morning and he and Pam had to drive 2 hours from Mexico City.  After the service they had a dinner.  The anniversary for Iglesia Christiana Nueva Vida (New Life Christian Church), our church is in May.  God is blessing both churches in a mighty way!  Please pray that God will continue to bless both churches and guide their leaders to help them grow.

Monday evening was our Leader’s meeting.  We planned a Surrender Retreat for this Sunday and Monday in a beautiful area called El Chico Park.  It will be an overnight event for new baptized believers who have completed the first step of discipleship.  I really wish we had these at our church in the US.  Many people have accepted Christ as their Savior, but never completely surrendered their lives and their past to Him.  There were lessons on surrender from the Old Testament and New Testament and how we cannot bear fruit without it. It is a time for them to search souls for any obstacles that have come between them and God, make a list, and then  burn their lists together, praying that God would cleanse and fill them with His Spirit. It is very powerful.  I went to the last one, but am not going to this one.  Please pray for these new brothers and sisters (many of them young people) that they will grow into mature, fruit bearing followers of Jesus Christ.

Wednesday I went to a cell group that I normally don’t attend because Marina, one of our church members lives near.  She has been quite ill for a long time and just got home from the hospital after having some biopsies.  We went to her house for our cell prayer time so we could pray for her again.  (We went to her daughter’s house in El Chico a few weeks ago.  I told you about it in a previous blog).  She doesn’t look good, but much more cheerful than the last time.  Her son and his wife are taking care of her now.  She will get the results of her biopsies today.  Please pray for her and her family in the difficult time.

Next Wednesday through Saturday we have our Mexico Missionary Retreat in a town about an hour from here.  Many other missionaries come to share with each other.  There will be a speaker from the US to feed us spiritually and we will get to know each other, relax and have fun.  I’m looking forward to seeing people from Niños de Mexico and other ministries whom I met last year.  It is really a blessing and a wonderful time for refreshing.  I’ll be sure to have pictures from then.  God bless you.  Thank you for your continued prayers and support.  I continue to life you all in prayer.

Our weather here has been fantastic!  high in the upper 70s.  It has been great to be outside.  I’ve been walking to the park with Luna (my dog) a block from my house and catching up on reading.

my dog, Luna. She's camera shy.

It has been a great opportunity to meet some people.  The first day I went another dog came and was bothering Luna. (Luna doesn’t know she’s a dog, so avoids having her butt sniffed).  There were 2 boys there and after watching how we would handle it for a while, they shooed the other dog away.  As it turned out, one lived adjacent to the park.  His name is Alberto.  They were very friendly and I was able to practice Spanish with them.

The next morning, I was looking for my iPhone and couldn’t find it anywhere.  I asked Vicki to call me so I could find it, but it never rang.  The only place I had taken it the day before was to the park.  I think it fell out of my pocket when I sat down on the bench.  I was really praying that God would help me find the cell phone, but didn’t have much faith because if I had left it in the park, I was pretty sure it was gone for good.  Here the motto is “finder’s keeper’s”.  I went to the park and searched, but didn’t find it.  I kept looking until late afternoon and I then decided I would have to go buy another SIM card so I could use an old phone I had saved for just such a time as this.  I went out to buy the SIM card (which is about $12) and also had to buy time, so spent another $16 for time.  I came home and my home phone was ringing, but didn’t get there in time.  I looked at the number and it was my iPhone number!  It turns out that a woman had been trying to call me 6 times to tell me she found my phone.  Even more, she speaks very good English.  She works near to my house so, later that evening,  Vicki and I met her at a store close to my house.  Come to find out she is not Mexican but Polish, married to a Mexican.  She teaches English at a language school near my house and found the phone in the park, where she went for lunch.  She was very sweet.  I thanked her for being honest and for meeting me.  She asked me why I live here.  I told her I am a missionary and asked her if she goes to church.  She said she was Catholic and goes to the Catholic church.  She had to leave quickly to get to work, but I hope our paths will cross again soon and I can share with here how wonderful it is to know Jesus personally.  I believe God orchestrated this meeting, so I don’t think he will let it drop.  I am so thankful that God takes care of me–he’s been really busy doing that all my life!  Please praise God for this miracle!

I had been pretty discouraged with how our trainers were continuing the projects they need to do before we can start the 2nd phase of training.  Nothing seemed to be happening, even with frequent encouragement from me and Pam.  Last Sunday I told 2 of them we needed to have a meeting with people from Youth With A Mission (YWAM) who had offered to help do our survey.  I also talked to one of the young men from YWAM (my friend Efra) and told him they would contact him that day.  I had to leave before this happened so I could take someone to the doctor.  Monday, I emailed Efra, when I could not reach the women by phone, to find out when the meeting was scheduled.  He told me Tuesday at 5 at my house.  He came at 4:45 and no one else came, so we finally reached Vicenta and Norma and decided to go to Vicenta’s house to meet. I was hoping that we could find the other 2 while we were there.  God is so good–Norma brought Adriana and we found Lola, so we were able to plan the survey that day with all four trainers.  They decided to ask the church if more people could help them do the survey.  Efra really was good a encouraging them and firing them up.  They were very excited when we parted.  I felt much more encouraged about the whole thing.  Even more–I was able to speak and understand almost everything during the meeting.  I am sure your prayers worked these miracles.  Thank you!  Please praise God for his faithfulness and pray for the enthusiasm to continue until the work is done.

Next week is going to be exciting!  On Tuesday, I am going to Mexico City to Pam deLeon’s.  Her husband, Vic, is going to be gone for a few days and she invited me to come and hang out and cook yummy things together.  I also thought is would be a good time to do some TIC (CHE) planning.  I plan to stay until Thursday.  Then Friday we have another Women Missionary Fellowship meeting.  I always look forward to that.  I’ll fill you in on all the fun.