September/October Prayer Letter

Dear partners in the Lords work,

The Lord has greatly blessed us in the past few months as we have finished up one school year and headed into another one. The end of the past school year was quite eventful due to the onset of the H1N1 virus. Classes were cancelled for several weeks, resulting in a cancellation of our annual pastors conference. The H1N1 virus proved to not be as dangerous as initially feared, and we have returned to normal activity. Because of an unusual calendar that the Mexican Department of Education has imposed on universities here in Mexico, we ended up having several different graduations. Between preparatory and university we had 31 graduates. Here are the church music and pastoral theology graduates.

(For more photos of the different graduations, please click here and here.) We are thankful for the way the Lord has allowed us to be a part in shaping a new generation of servant leaders.

This summer was much busier than we had anticipated. With university classes not ending until the end of July (once again, due to the Department of Education), we continued with a busy schedule even during the summer months. In addition to the usual activities, we had several mission teams that we hosted. The Bob Jones Mexican Mission Team was here for about a week. We also hosted a small group of people from Inter-City Baptist Church. As usual, we greatly enjoyed our time with that group. During the month of August, I was scheduled to be at two conferences. Although one of them was cancelled, the other one was a great blessing. I taught three 2 hour sessions to the Sunday School teachers of Iglesia Bautista Emanuel in Poza Rica, Veracruz, where Ivan Garca, a university graduate, is the assistant pastor.

University classes started up again the first full week of September.Because of the worldwide financial crisis, we were unsure how our enrollment would do this year. As students began to arrive we were grateful to see that we had one of our largest enrollments ever.

Please pray that the Lord will help the students as they grow in their walk with God and develop their gifts. One of the new aspects of the university ministry this year has to do with a translation ministry.Spanish-speaking churches have a great need of quality, doctrinal, God-centered material. We hope to help provide some of those materials through a translation ministry. One of our university graduates, Elisabet Piqueras, is working on translating good materials into Spanish.

Her first translation project is the Milk, Meat, Fish, and Bread books published by Positive Action for Christ. This material, geared for young people, perfectly complements the universitys focus on young people. Although the university will pay most of her salary, we need to raise another $1500 to pay the rest of her salary for the year.

If you would be interested in helping with this project, please contact me at mbixby@tcmissions.org.

After discussing our church planting ministry at Santa Mnica with Pastor Julio Montes, we are ready to pursue the next step in that ministry. Please pray as we aggressively seek to find a new location that will be large enough to hold Sunday services. Please pray that the Lord will provide the funds and lead us to the exact location.

(Pictured here is our current location.)

After a year of homeschooling, our children are attending the church school. They are greatly enjoying the renewed contact with many of their friends from when they were in the school two years ago. Please continue to pray for Aaron, Ana and David as we seek to teach them to love God above all things. Family life is always busy, and this semester will be extra-busy. This semester the Lord has allowed Susan to teach a Bible class to the young ladies at the university, as well as leading a Bible study for some of the church ladies on Wednesday mornings. Please pray for her as she takes on these additional avenues of ministry.

Next summer we will be visiting several of our supporting churches.

We also are seeking to visit a few new churches as we need to raise more financial support. Between a 10% inflation rate and a growing family, the support we had raised eight years ago is no longer sufficient. Please pray with us in that regard.

For His Names Sake,

The Bixbys

Pictures from Tampico Conference

You can view pictures of our Tampico pastors conference at our co-workers blog: http://thegibsonsatucla.blogspot.com.

October Prayer Letter

October, 2008

Dear Friend and Supporters,

I have been recently reading in 1 Peter about the wonderful privileges that we have received in Christ. Because of the blessings of Christ, we can rejoice no matter what our circumstances are. As we reflect on God’s gracious mercy towards us, we can’t help but be filled with joy and gratitude.

I know that it has been several months since we have communicated with you. As you know, we traveled in the United States this summer. We were able to visit 10 supporting churches and 3 new churches. Please pray that the Lord will allow some of those churches to take us on for monthly support. The Lord has also provided for us financially in at least two ways. The first is that one of our supporting churches has increased our monthly support by $50. Another way the Lord has provided is by a momentary bump in the strength of the dollar. After having lost steam steadily for the last 4 or 5 years (though only to the tune of 15%--not like the 40% it has lost against the Euro), the dollar recently spiked back up about 10%. We are grateful for that. For us personally it would be wonderful if it stayed up or even went up a little bit higher. Through all of this, we are grateful that the Lord has promised to abundantly provide for our needs. He has done this and will continue to show himself faithfully generous towards us.

The school year began a bit later this year than is normal because of some changes the Education Department instituted. We got into full swing on September 8^th. We are grateful for the new students the Lord has brought this year. Although enrollment was down a little bit this year, we are thankful for the strong group of men the Lord brought to us, and for a small increase in enrollment in the theology program. Pray that we will be instruments in the Redeemer’s hands in the lives of these students.

Last week the Lord allowed us to travel to Tampico (a city on the Gulf of Mexico) to be part of a pastor’s intensive course (a three day modular class for pastors). We were excited about the attendance of 35 pastors and church leaders. This is the third pastor’s intensive course we have held and it was the best attendance. The pastors were very excited to receive the additional instruction they crave. Many pastors expressed their appreciation for the biblical focus and depth of teaching.

Pray for our mission church in Santa Monica. We are still asking the Lord to provide a location for Sunday services. We are excited about a few new things we are wanting to implement this year. Pray for the discipleship of the believers, particularly Gabriel. The Lord has been doing some wonderful things in him and his family. Pray that the renewed hunger for the things of God can be nurtured and developed further.

Our children continue to grow. Aaron and Ana are doing school work with Kim Chapman (our sister-in-law). They are enjoying that greatly. While we were in Tampico, Ana had a little accident while we were playing soccer one afternoon. She tripped and went head first into a column, resulting in a trip to the emergency room to stitch up her forehead. Pray that the wound will heal cleanly, leaving as little scar as possible. We are thankful for the birthdays our children have in the fall. David turned two on September 20^th, and Ana will turn 5 on October 28^th.

Thank you for your prayers and support. We need them as we serve God here in Monterrey.

Engaged in His service,

The Bixby Family

The Lord our Shield

Psalm 115:11 Ye that fear the LORD, trust in the LORD: he is their help and their shield.

As most people who follow the news are probably aware of, Mexico is suffering a wave of drug related violence that has resulted in the death of thousands of people. You can Google “Mexico drug deaths” and catch up on the latest news. As the Mexican army has been cracking down on the drug cartels, the violence has increased dramatically. Police, rival drug gangs and soldiers are all fair targets. During this phase, the drug cartels have diversified their tactics. Recently the Mexican nave seized a submarine loaded with cocaine (click here fore the full story). Another tactic they have begun using is kidnapping. Thousands of kidnappings have taken place. Many of them are high profile (like the coach of one of the professional soccer teams). Most of the murders and kidnappings only affect people that are either in the drug world, fighting the drug world or are extremely rich. That means that until now, we have not felt in sort of danger or threat. However, the result of the inability of the police to do anything about the high profile kidnappings has resulted in a wave of small-time kidnappings all around Mexico.

This has become a matter of concern for us here in Monterrey. Just a few weeks ago, the cousin of one of our staff members was kidnapped. After beating him and using the contacts in his cell phone, they kidnapped about 5 more of his family members and co-workers. Several days later they were released after their families and businesses had paid a significant ransom. During the time there were there, several police men came by to talk to the kidnappers to make sure everything was ok.

Just a few days ago, one of our graduates and staff members was driving a van he wanted to sell. A man approached him and asked if he could test drive it. The man drove the van to a shop, supposedly to have a friend look at it. When they arrived at the shop, two men came out with guns and knives. After tying up and beating him and the teenager that was with him (the son of another staff member), they forced him to write a check. They went to the bank and cleared out his checking account. For about three hours they held them, attempting to get more money out of them. Finally convinced that they didn’t have any more money, they released them, taking a new laptop that Luis had recently bought. Thankfully and surprisingly, they didn’t steal the van as well.

These “express kidnappings” do present a real threat to the average person here in Monterrey at this time. Since most people will not report these kinds of incidents to the police (because they fear revenge and because the police may be involved), the likelihood of these men getting caught is almost non-existent. My current opinion is that they are still not brave enough to kidnap Americans. It is too high profile. They are primarily interested in quick, low-risk kidnappings. However, this could change. Please pray for safety (for us and the believers) here in Monterrey and in other areas of Mexico.

The following is quoted from an article on BBC’s website:

“Whereas the 2,000 or so drug-related murders this year do not generally raise much concern among the public, kidnappings do. And not just high-profile ones either. Many people here can relate their own experiences of something that has been called "express" kidnappings. These are the opportunistic random abductions from the street, where people are driven or frogmarched to cash machines and forced to empty their accounts.”

Even in these situations, we see the Lord’s protection. He is our shield. He is still in control. The Lord demonstrated that in several ways during the van incident I related earlier. Apart from a few bruises, they were not seriously harmed. The van was not stolen. The kidnappers heard the Gospel clearly presented on several occasions during the three hours. Another exciting thing is to see how the teen has responded to this situation. The Lord seems to really be using it in his life.

Ultimately we know that our fate is not in the hands of violent criminals or drug lords. We are shielded by the Lord.

Psalm 33:20 Our soul waiteth for the LORD: he is our help and our shield.

Psalm 5:12 For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield.

Home at last

We have been home now for about two weeks. We are grateful for the protection the Lord gave us during our time away. We traveled about 9,037 miles during our time away. Our van did wonderfully, and, as we explained before, the Lord provided in a marvelous way for our financial needs. Thank you for praying for us.

We are busily preparing for the next school year. Because of government regulations (changes they have made in our calendar year), we are starting our school year in three different waves this year. The first wave (a small group) begins classes on August 18^th (these are the students that are still in the semester program). The next wave comes in on August 25^th. Those would be the Pastoral Theology and Church Music students. Finally, the largest group of students will arrive on September 8^th (the trimester students). We will be having in-service the week before that. We also will be having some strategic planning meetings with our key personnel on August 28-29. Pray for our students and staff this year. Many of our students and staff will be having year-around school. This is because of what the government has done. Pray that we will have wisdom and strength to last!

Yesterday we started a three-day VBS at our mission. We had a good turnout (approximately 60 kids). We were really excited about how the Lord controlled the weather for us. Without explaining all the meteorological conditions of Monterrey, let’s just say that it should have been raining where we were. But the Lord held it off until right at the end (and even then it didn’t rain hard). At one point, it was raining on the front of the property (where we have a tin roof) where one class was going on, but was not raining on the other side of the house (where there is no roof). This lasted for about 15 minutes or so. Right when the teacher finished the lesson it finally started raining in the back! Only the Lord could do that. He manifests His greatness in so many ways

My friend, Matthew Hoskinson

As some of you know, Matthew Hoskinson (a dear friend from college days) was recently diagnosed with cancer. It has been a blessing to read about how the Lord has been blessing, teaching and enabling him during this difficult time of his life. You can read about it to at his blog: http://debtortograce.blogspot.com.

I am sure that he would appreciate your prayers during this time.

Home Stretch

The last few weeks have been full of joy, spending time with family (yes, they are the same!) and seeing friends. We have had the opportunity to spend time with Susan's family. One of the fun things we got to do was go to the lake and spend time on jet skis, tubes and boats. The kids absolutely love that. We also spent some time with my family, ending our time together by visiting my grandma in Virginia. We praise the Lord for the family we have .

On our travels we have been to Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, and now we are in Michigan. We have been spending a few days at Inter-City Baptist Church. They are one of the most active supporting churches a missionary could have. Every year since we have been in Monterrey, we have had a team from Inter-City visit us. This has allowed us to develop a special relationship with many people here. Our kids have been looking forward to seeing many of the friends (of course, they're all adults!) they have at Inter-City. We have been having some fun times!

On Wednesday, we will travel to South Bend, Indiana to be at Community Baptist. From there we will got to spend about a week with Mandy and Brent Olson, our Harvest Rally friends. The kids are looking forward to doing all kinds of fun things on the farm. From there we should be heading home (something else we are looking forward to as well).