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