Monthly Letters
Updated November 7, 2001
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November 2001Dear Friends in Christ,
The Lord continues to bless our ministry for which we give HIM all the glory and praise. During the month of October, Maranatha Bible Baptist Church celebrated its Ninth anniversary as an organized church. To celebrate the occasion, we held a four day revival meeting with Bro. Juan Antonio Arellano, a fellow missionary here in Monterrey. During the meeting, there were ten (10) people who trusted Christ as their personal Savior.
Friday, October 26, we hosted the regional fellowship meeting in conjunction with our anniversary. There were over 400 people present for this special meeting. God blessed the services and everyone had a great time in the Lord. Many positive comments were made about the good meeting.
Our new mission is doing well. We have received some offerings and now are able to buy some new chairs. It will be refreshing to be able to sit during the service for a change. Thank you to all who have sent a special offering towards this project.
The average attendance at the mission is 32. Many new people are stopping by to visit and "check us out." We welcome them and make them feel at home. During this past month, seven (7) people have made a decision to trust Christ.
The mission at the Colony Nuevo Leon is holding it's own. We have now moved our services to the newly finished auditorium. The auditorium looks great. "Now we have the task to fill this place" said Bro. Raul, the pastor of the mission. That is exactly our next project. Thank you to all who had a part in the construction of this building. I hope to place some pictures on our web page soon.
Lastly, we would like to inform you of a change in our phone number. The government has made some changes in the local area codes. To contact us from the USA, you will need to dial the following numbers. 011-52-81-83-56-78-65. Let me break these numbers down for you. 011 is how you access International Long Distance. 52 is our Country Code. 81 is our new Area Code and 83-56-78-65 is our actual telephone number.
Also, please remember that you can always reach us via the internet. Our email address is: ronsmith@prodigy.net.mx If there is anything that we can help you with, please let us know. We appreciate so much all you do for us. May God continue to bless you is our prayer.
Yours for SOULS in Monterrey,
Ron, Lou Ann, Elisabeth, Aaron & Ryan Smith
Dear Friends in Christ,
The work with the children continues to be a blessing. This past month of September we have been working with the children from our APEN Bible clubs. In each club, around 30 children are meeting and being discipled by our ladies. Many of these children are starting to attend our church.
Maranatha Bible Baptist Church is growing again. Several of our ladies have given birth and our nursery continues to grow. We have already had to knock out one wall and expand the nursery to accommodate all the babies. On any given service, we have an average between 8 to 12 babies. Lou Ann is in charge of the nursery and loves every minute of it. She has the nursery looking so cozy that everyone wants to help her so they can be in the nursery.
With the start of September, we began a one year program which we are calling Families by Faith. Simply put, it is one family inviting another family (who does not go to church anywhere) to come to our church. Just in this first month, we have had two new families join our church as a result of this program. What a blessing this has been to us. We are looking forward to many more families joining our church.
The average attendance for Maranatha has been 183 with a high of 198. In our services and on visitation, we have seen eight (8) people trust Christ as their personal Savior. Among the children in our APEN classes, another 12 children have been saved.
The new mission is doing well also. We have had an average attendance of 32. Four (4) adults have been saved in this past month. We are still in desperate need of folding chairs. If you could send any amount towards this urgent need, we would greatly appreciate it.
Construction is not fully complete at the mission in the Colony Nuevo Leon. The floor has been put in, the hand rails and the walls have been plastered and we are ready to grow. The benches have been moved up into the new auditorium and it all looks great. We would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you who have helped us with this project over the past few years. Now our job is to fill this new building for the Lord. Pray for us in this regard.
As always, thank you so much for making it possible for us to be able to minister here in Monterrey. It is by your faithfulness that we are able to work for our Lord here in Monterrey. As always, may God continue to bless you is our prayer.
Yours for SOULS in Monterrey,
Ron, Lou Ann, Elisabeth, Aaron & Ryan Smith
Greetings in the name of the Lord!
The weeks following our Daily Vacation Bible School were busy ones for our church. Several of our ladies took a course from APEN (A Home Bible School Program) and put the program to practice during the last half of July and all of August. Six home Bible school programs where held in the different part of our city at several of our church members' homes.
The program consists of teaching the children Christian songs, having a time of crafts, a couple of men in our church dress up as clowns and have a fun time with the kids, then the message is presented. After the six weeks of this program, there were three hundred forty-four (344) boys and girls that trusted Christ as their personal Savior. Now, our task is to go back and disciple as many of these kids that attend our follow-up services. We praise the Lord for this program and how HE has blessed our church effort.
Everyone has returned from vacation and our average attendance is back to 165. We have been blessed with many visitors in the past few weeks. Seven (7) people have responded to Christ and have received Him as their Savior.
Our new work is such a blessing. We average around 16 children and 10 adults. On an average, six to eight people from our church accompany us to this mission to help in visitation and in teaching the children.
We are in need of some folding chairs for our new mission. Our Sam's club has them for about $20.00 for four (4) of them. Would you like to help us buy some folding chairs for our new work? If the Lord should touch your heart to help us with the need, please send your offering designated "chairs." Also, pray with us as we are looking for a house that we can rent in the area to have a larger meeting place.
God is so good to us. We believe that we have the best supporting churches in the world. We appreciate so much that you make it possible for us to be here in Monterrey. Thank you for making our ministry possible. May God continue to bless you is our prayer.
Yours for SOULS in Monterrey,
Ron, Lou Ann, Elisabeth, Aaron & Ryan Smith
Background & Graphics courtesy of:
