Wow! Can you believe it is already December? We have now been down here in Tlaxiaco, Mexico for three months. Time is flying by. Which is really odd for Mexico. Everything here moves at a much slower pace (except driving, which is a very interesting contradiction to the usual warm climate culture) but yet time moves incredibly fast. Soon the first semester of school will be done and we will be on Christmas break. We need it. And we hope that all of you get some time to relax and enjoy the time too.
I’m trying to figure out what to put here. There’s lots going on so it’s difficult to narrow it down into comprehensible words and sentences. It also hasn’t helped to listen to Katria screaming, pardon me, SCREAMING from teething pain. Kind of scrambled right now! But overall things are good. Chelsey and Jared have been phenomenal in dealing with their little sister and her vocalization skills which is pretty cool to watch. So that’s a neat praise report. And just to ensure everyone that she is still herself, here’s a little video from our kids Christmas party on the base: Click Here
Oh ya, speaking of praise reports. We promised you a month ago in our November “Not another missionary support letter” missionary support letter (got that?) that we would give you praise reports on two items. The house and our finances. Well we’ve got some good news and some bad news.
The bad news is that we won’t be coming home until May 2009 which we originally had planned. So all of you who wanted to shower us with 52″ plasma TV’s and fresh baked lasagna’s will have to wait a few more months. Sorry to do that to you, but it is the right thing.
So on to the good news (were you worried about the bad news?):
The house rented out for December 1st which is really cool. We feel it is a perfect situation and that God had something incredible in mind for all of this. Not quite sure what yet, but please pray that He would continue to glorify Himself with our (ok, His) house.
Also, there have been so many friends who stepped forward to provide extra financial support to us in November. We thank you all for taking the time to ask the Lord if He wants you to help and how. In all, over $8000 was given to our trip. PRAISE THE LORD! The money will be used to pay our monthly room/board/tuition as well as other expenses. We are also pumped about the fact that we are getting closer to the goal of enough funds to fly Michelle and Katria home at the end of our nine months. Please know that we are so grateful for each and every gift that was provided. Also please continue to pray that the Lord will provide every need.
Sanity check, why are we down here again?
Did you know that Jesus will not return until every tribe and tongue has received Him? Revelation 7 helps us visualize what it will be like at the end of time and it includes a description of the worship around His throne. Worship consisting of people from all nations (not countries though, people groups) in every language.
Are we there yet? Well, about one third of the world’s ethnic groups have not heard the name of Christ yet. So we’re a little ways off. The good news is that if every church in North America each sent one missionary to a different unreached group that we could have this done in our generation! It’s that close! And that’s completely ignoring the impact of the Chinese and other national churches who are multiplying believers rapidly and have a massive heart already for the unreached peoples of the world.
Global Frontier Missions (www.globalfrontiermissions.com) exists to reach the unreached peoples of the world. They started in the Tlaxiaco region of Oaxaca, Mexico as there are numerous unreached groups of Mixteco indians here. Each with a different, distinct dialect. Their goal is to move into the 10/40 window where the vast majority of unreached groups now exist. Thailand and India are planned future locations as well as somewhere within the Muslim nations.
If you want to get a vision of what the end goal of missions in the Christian church are really about, then I suggest you check out one of the short term trips, or summer internships offered by GFM. Or, investigate coming down for Missions Training School (MTS) in September 2009. That is what we are doing right now and it has changed (at times painfully) our world view.
Back to our regularly scheduled program
OK. So we ask that everyone continue to pray for us. The older two kids are doing great in school but still need lots of prayer for health and language learning. Katria is approaching two and appears to be the kind of kid who will have lots of ups and downs. The ups are awesome, the downs are trying times for all of us. So Michelle and I need prayer for patience and wisdom to discipline and teach her in the manner she needs. Finally, Michelle and I continue to work on our Spanish learning. It’s tough to accomplish when there are so many other responsibilities to attend to. But it is coming along.
Quick story to finish off this update. I was sitting in church today trying to understand the pastor, who thankfully is a pretty clear speaker. The nice thing about listening to a sermon in Spanish is that the main themes are repeated. So if you miss it the first time you will get it the fifth time! I didn’t get much of the sermon but what I did get was this:
We all need to pray more (Spanish word is orar and I was able to figure that out)
And there are lots of reasons to pray (sorry, couldn’t catch them but I suspect we can figure them out ourselves!)
And we should be on our knees (Spanish is rodilla. I couldn’t remember at first if it was knees or elbows. But then I put it altogether and decided that not many people pray on their elbows so it must be knees!)
See, I am learning!
We would love to hear from anyone, especially to pray for you. We’re not saying we’re amazing prayers who can move the heavens and have your request granted. But one more voice will never hurt, right? So please send us your prayer requests ( allofus@diks.ca ) so we can partner with you. Or if you just want to say hi and ask us how our day is going, please do! We love to talk with all of our friends back home.
/RD
financial gifts can be sent to:
Canada: Airdrie Alliance Church, 1604 Summerfield Blvd, Airdrie, AB T4B 1C7
– make cheques payable to AAC with a note designating it for the Diks Family to receive a tax deductible receipt
USA: visit http://www.justgive.org/nonprofits/donate.jsp?ein=31-1738321 to use your credit card at JustGive.org which will forward the amount to GFM for us. Just include our names in the designation field. You will receive a tax receipt for this gift from JustGive.
Praise the Lord for your finances! YAY! 🙂 That’s so exciting! Can’t wait to see you guys in 9 sleeps! 🙂