Smith Prayer & Praise - May/June 2008

Thanks for continuing to keep us in your prayers. Here are some things to consider as you pray for us:

PRAISE:
1. For a baptismal service this Sunday, June 1 – we will be joining another Bible church in our city for the baptismal service. At least five people from our church, including our daughter Kendra, plan to be baptized.
2. For the Rosales family – Jose Luis and Estrella are showing much growth and commitment to the Lord. We praise God for a weekly prayer meeting they are leading and for the desire they have to serve and grow.
3. For new evangelistic and discipleship opportunities – it seems the Lord is opening a few new opportunities for these ministries in our church, both for us and for our national & missionary co-workers. Pray that we would fully take advantage of these opportunities.
4. For our children – we praise God that our children continue to do well in their health, growth, and schooling. Kendra and Tara are finished with 3rd and 1st grade, and Ben is finishing out his year in a local kindergarten. We praise God for our children and the way God is molding and using them. They continue to open doors with our neighbors.

PRAYER:
1. For the Moronatti family – we are working with various members of this extended family from our church. God is bringing many issues to a head in their family. Pray that we would have wisdom in helping them, and that they would see God-honoring changes and growth in their lives.
2. For a refocusing of our mission – today we will be hosting a town hall meeting in our home for our Bajio region having to do with the refocusing of our mission, CAM International. Please pray for our mission leadership as they guide us through these changes as a mission. We are excited to see what God is doing and will do!
3. For consistency in being disciples – the Lord is making us keenly aware that in order to make disciples we need to be disciples. Pray that we would continue to comprehend all that this entails and make it a reality in our lives.
4. For a men’s retreat on June 13-14 – we, along with three other area Bible churches, are in charge of planning this men’s retreat for 100 men from our Bajio region. Pray that God would use this time to teach us men how to better care for and nurture our families.
5. For three youth from our church who plan to be Summer Missionaries – please pray for Karla, Kaylyn, and Hugo as they plan to receive training along with other youth and be involved in teaching kid’s clubs all over Mexico this summer. We plan to have two clubs in our area – one at our church and one in our home. Pray that God would grow and use these youth greatly and that many kids and families would be impacted for Christ.

We will update our website with new pictures soon, and will let you know when we do so.

Being and Making Disciples in Central Mexico,
Bryan, Lori, Kendra, Tara, & Ben

Photo Highlights - Spring 2008

Go to the following link to see some photos, or see a small version of the slideshow below:


http://picasaweb.google.com/bryanandlori/PhotoHighlightsSpring2008

Smith Prayer & Praise - April 2008

Dear Prayer Supporters,

Beyond the prayer requests given please use our April calendar to keep us in your prayers this month. We really depend on them. Thank you!

- We praise God for Ty Stingel, an intern from Canada who was with us last week. Please pray for God’s direction in his life as he considers future plans.
- Please continue to pray for Gerardo and Ivonne’s marriage. As I write this we are reaching a critical point in our involvement with them. We had a meeting with Ivonne earlier this morning, and we will have another one with her later today. Pray that God would work in both of their hearts. Pray for God’s glory to shine through in their lives and marriage.
- Please pray for Rodrigo, a drug addict that God brought into our path. We are trying to reach out to him in obedience to God, but it has not been easy. Please pray for his salvation and deliverance from his bondage to drugs.
- We praise God for an opportunity to start an evangelistic guitar class with four of our neighbor teens later today. Please pray for the continued relationship building we are doing with our neighbors, and for their salvation.

Our April calendar:
April 3-4: Lori will be hosting SAT testing in our home, and Kendra and Tara will be testing
April 3-5: Bryan to a attend our national leader’s conference in Puebla, Mexico
April 6: Lori and the kids travel to Puebla to join Bryan for a farewell gathering for our field director and his wife, Jim and Cheryl Eberline. They are soon headed to Uruguay to open a new CAM field.
April 6-9: Bryan will participate in Mexico field council meetings in Puebla
April 10-15: We will meet and host Alex Gulart from Uruguay. He is the fiancé of Dinorah Pinto from our church here in Mexico. She is currently serving her second year on the Logos II OM ship where she met Alex, and they plan to get married next January here in Queretaro
April 18-27: Bryan and Lori will attend a leadership training seminar in Texas while Bryan’s parents “grandparent” Kendra, Tara, & Ben

We will e-mail you again after we have a chance to post some pictures.

God Bless You!
Bryan. Lori, Kendra, Tara, & Ben

Winter 07-08 - Highlights

See some highlights from the last couple of months by clicking on the following link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/bryanandlori/Winter0708Highlights

Or see a slide show below:

Answered Prayer - Radio & TV Spots

Thanks so much for your prayers concerning the radio and TV spots. Things went well, and it appears that we will have a weekly opportunity to share a verse from the book of Proverbs! We gave a Bible away to a caller on the TV show, and later found out that others had called in wanting a Bible as well. This may be another way to make contacts and open doors – give away Bibles to callers including an invitation for a Bible study in the front cover. We’ll keep you posted on how this develops. We will also send or post pictures of our new church meeting place soon.

With much appreciation,

Bryan & Lori

Special Prayer Update - Feb. 15, 2008

Greetings from Queretaro! We would appreciate your prayers for us this morning/afternoon. God has opened up a door for me to share the Word of God during two live 5 minute spots on local radio and cable TV stations a little later today – between 12 and 1:30 CST. This may turn into a regular opportunity for our church. The neat thing is that we are paying absolutely nothing for these times! God opened the door through our national co-worker, Mauricio Perez. The spot will be called “The Proverbs Corner” and will be focused on practical applications from the book of Proverbs. I will also be allowed to give our phone numbers if people are interested in studying the Bible further.

Please pray that:
- I would have clarity of thought and that only and all of what God wants me to say will come out of my mouth
- My nerves would not get the best of me
- This might be a continuing opportunity for us
- We might see much fruit as a result of this opportunity

On another note, we praise the Lord that we have found a new place to meet as a church starting in March. Thanks so much for your prayers about this. The place has a lot of potential for us to consider buying in the future. We will keep you updated on this as it develops.

We also would appreciate your prayers for the health of our family. One person or another has been sick in our house with pink eye, ear infection, and/or throat infection for the last three weeks, and we have had several doctor office visits.

Thanks for your prayers! These are exciting days we live in!

Bryan, for our whole family

God's Care and Protection

It was around 8:00 PM and we were traveling down a dark and dangerous two lane highway when the car began to bump and shimmy. How would God help us through this one?

This past Thursday we traveled to Texcoco for the farewell meal of a fellow CAM Mexico missionary, Cindy Bishop, who worked with my parents in that town for a number of years. We stopped by San Juan del Rio to pick up fellow missionaries Paul & Grace Becker who traveled with us. All was going well, and we were close to getting to Texcoco when we came to the realization that we were driving in Mexico City on a Thursday! For us this is bad news! In order to help with the pollution everybody has a day that they are not allowed to drive in Mexico City according to the last number on their license plate - our day is Thursday, and it had not even crossed our mind until Bryan saw a couple of police cruisers at a toll booth. That is when we started praying in earnest that God would cause the police not to look at our vehicle. If you get stopped for driving on your day off it can be a fine up to $300 US and your car can get impounded. Thankfully we made it through the danger zone without getting stopped, and we enjoyed a wonderful time at the goodbye party.

We decided not to risk going home the same way we went, so we had a take the long way home. The long way home takes us 4 hours instead of 2, and some of the road is two lane through hills and dangerous curves. It is also the preferred route of many truckers as there are no tolls. We got off around 5 PM, and all was going well until we hit the two lane stretch of highway after the town of Ixmiquilpan. It was dark, and there was construction on both sides of the highway - in other words there were 2 to 3 foot drop-offs on either side of the road with just white painted rocks as warning every 15 feet. All of a sudden the car began to bump and shimmy and we realized that we had a flat tire. Thankfully, just as we were looking for a place to get off the road God provided one! There was a wide spot only on our side of the road where we were able to pull off.

Paul and I got the jack and tools out and began to take the tire off, only to find out that one of the lug nuts was almost completely stripped. We tried every tool that we had in the van that might possibly work, to no avail. We decided that one of us should go and try to find help. Just a little ways up the road there was a little town of sorts, and a few small businesses. The first place I came to was a taco joint, and they said that there was a tire repair shop just up the road, but that he was closed. I decided to head up that way anyway to see what I could find, and as they had mentioned, it was closed. A little further ahead I found an electrician - I might add a very drunk electrician - working on a vehicle. I asked him if he had the tools to help me get a stripped lug nut off, and he said, "I don't, but you can ask the tire repair guy. He just pulled up to his shop." I turned around, and sure enough there was a truck there now!

He got some tools together and drove his truck back to where our van was. He had the lug nut off in a flash, and put the spare donut on for us. We went to his shop, and he was able to repair the tire. Earlier in the week when I was driving on a dirt/rock road the tire had been punctured pretty badly by a rock. It had been repaired at that point, but obviously not well.

During our time there another man came up to the tire shop and started talking with us. In the course of conversation he asked us what we do and he found out we were missionaries. I asked him if he knew of any Christian churches in the area to which he replied in a rather sarcastic way, "Why don't you ask 'brother Daniel' here. He could tell you." The tire repair man just smiled. He was a believer! He did an excellent job on the tire, and only wanted to charge us $200 pesos (about $20 US). We insisted on giving him more, and he finally took it. We exchanged telephone and address information - he has two sisters who live in our city of Queretaro - who knows, maybe God will use this to bring more people into his family.

As we look back on everything we see God's protection and care in many ways:
1) We decided to go the back way because of our no-drive day in Mexico City. The tire that went flat was a tire that had been damaged earlier in the week, and probably would have blow out either way. Had it blow out on the highway it could have been much more dangerous. We were going fairly slow when it happened.
2) Just where it happened there was a place to get off the road safely when just before and just after there was no safe way off the highway due to construction.
3) It happened just before we got to the curvy, hilly part of the highway where there are also very few safe places to get off.
4) There was a tire repair shop not to far down the road, where the tire repairman was just getting back to his shop from another job.
5) The Beckers were with us, and were able to stay with Lori and the kids while I went to get help. It can be dangerous after dark in that area. Having them there with us added assurance and safety in a rather tense situation.
6) The tire repairman, Daniel, was a Christian and treated us nicely, did his job well, and charged us very fairly.
7) We trust we were able to be an encouragement to Daniel. Being a believer in that area and environment can be very difficult.
8) We may have at least two more contacts in our city of Queretaro as a result of the incident!

We made it home by 11:00 PM, thankful for the way God protected and cared for us and worked everything out for His glory. Why do we doubt at times?