You can visit www.armoniamexico.net and link to our different websites: Armonia Updates and Armonia International Network. You can also visit to the Armonia US and Armonia UK trust websites through it.
Lupe, Joaquín, Nicasio and Josías are four of the Yalálag students who are now with us in Mexico City. They are all having adventures whilst getting to know the city, working hard in different places and areas of Armonia and being part of the different communities that we are involved with. Joaquín is doing very well with his studies, he is also part of the chess team and has done very well during their tournaments; Lupe, Nicasio and Josías are soon presenting their admission exams and praying that they will all be able to start school this coming autumn and be some of the very few or only people from their towns that obtain a University degree. They are fun, kind and very enthusiastic about studying. They are also very encouraged by all the new possibilities that they see God is giving them through Armonía.
Armonía is planning to have 8 more students coming this year and is hoping to have many more in the city of Oaxaca (the capital of the state from where they all come). We hope to continue to serve, support and share the gospel with many more regions of this mountainous state. Saúl and Dani have recently found a very good piece of land that could be bought for this purpose and where, God willing, the construction will start this summer. Please have this in your prayers as we need wisdom, and the resources to buy and build the best possible place for this project.
Oaxaca is the state that has the most ethnic languages in Mexico and one of the most of any comparable state in the world. It is also, at the moment, an area of political conflict and is one of the poorest states in Mexico. We believe it is a very strategic place to continue working to bring the good news of God, a voice of reconciliation and peace, and facilitate community participation. We pray that many more indigenous students will continue with senior high-school and also with University with Armonía’s support and involvement.
Dear Friends,
Here is our most recent news. We hope you are all very well and thank you again for all your prayers and support!
Eidi Cruz
One of our recent joys is seeing Laurita’s and Alejandro’s home being rebuilt. Twelve years ago they were married in one of the community weddings in Armonía in Jalalpa, and a few months later Armonía helped them build their first house. They had been living in a little cardboard shack and were so grateful to the Lord for having a proper place to live. Now, after many years of savings and work Laurita and her husband are building a new house. They are deeply thankful for the house God provided for so many years, and now that their family has grown they are able to start building a bigger house by themselves. To tell you more about Laurita’s story, she continued participating in Armonía and became part of the Staff after attending one of the Transformation courses that Saúl gave during those years. She was determined to see her life and her family’s life transformed by God and also to work hard to be an active and loving member of her community. Laurita is now the coordinator of the Jalalpa Community Center, and is doing a great job participating with the communities to bring about possibilities that help them with their needs, sharing a transforming gospel and involving her family in these projects too.
Alejandra, her eldest daughter, is a wonderful example of this, being a very good student, she holds an Armonía scholarship, and participates in as many activities as she can, she is a natural teacher and helps with Sunday school children. Alejandra is now 16 years old, and will start preparing to go to University in a little over a year.
Please pray for Gaby, one of the ladies that lives in the Hornos community in Jalalpa. She has a little cardboard shack where she lives, and, as she puts it, has been ‘fighting’ to get a piece of land so she can start building a room with good materials, that would hold through the rainy season. She is a very strong woman, lives by herself, close to her mother in law, and her daughter who recently had a baby.
As some of you know, Jalalpa is a community in the west of Mexico City, built in a sandy area around a sewage canal. It is an extremely difficult community to live in and presents many dangers in terms of violence and also for the health of the over two million people who live there. Please pray for Jalalpa and be grateful to God with us for all the Armonía leadership that continues to be formed there.
Presidentes continues to do wonderful work. Led by Socorrito, who as Laurita, started working for Armonia after being part of a Transformation Course in Jalalpa, many years ago. She has worked really hard for her community, developing her leadership skills. Saúl Jr., acting as an advisor, and Socorrito, have coined projects that through community participation, a homework and remedial club and also through counseling, are building new solutions for the community. Attending one of their meetings, we realize the need for care and interaction in the community, how grateful they are to have Psychologists talking with them, listening to their stories, learning about their lives, dignifying their suffering and getting involved with them in seeking solutions for their community.
All of these work interactions allow the community to find out that there are people who care. Wanting to find out why, they find Jesus, His love, His friendship, and start understanding the possibility of building a new reality, a new way of living through a new way of thinking.
We had a wonderful Vision Trip in April. A Vision Trip is a great opportunity to come and get to know Armonia during a long weekend. The main idea of it is continuity. Leaders or even possible donors can visit our ministry and be interested in coming back with a team, talking with their church about getting involved with Armonia, or working with the poor communities that live in or around their own contexts. One of our visitors was Greg Holzhauer, who (among many other things) does a great job organizing the teams that visit us, and participates with the Armonia team describing the richness of its work in a time capsule. We had visitors from Twin Oaks church in St. Louis; from Orangewood Church in Orlando, Florida; and from Titusville also in Florida, USA.
During a Vision Trip the group visits each Community Centre in Mexico City and its surroundings, visits families, and gets to know people that are part of this community. We invite them to come to one of our Sunday Celebrations, see the children singing and see the community dance mexican folkloric dances. We especially invite them to listen to the stories that speak about how God works in the many lives of the people, that give testimony to His grace, His justice, His love.
We look forward to having more people joining these teams in the future. Please contact us (armonia.in@mac.com) if you would like to bring a Vision Trip group or if you would like to be part of one.
In Santa Cruz, Saúl Jr. alongside people from the different communities that surround this Community Center continue with all the exciting work there. Strengthening the relationships between neighbors, having creative and vibrant days, with homework clubs, dance and Bible study and through serving each other. One of the programs they have is the Musketeers, which continues to grow.
The Musketeers was an idea started by Pilar Cruz in Jalalpa many years ago, about children being formed as leaders for the community through service, and the belief that one should serve the other and show our love that way, through participation in one’s community, the idea that children want to be involved, that they can “work” for their community by helping others, having a sense of responsibility and care for each other. Eidi Cruz continued with this work for many years, and is training more people who can lead these groups. Teenagers that were Musketeers since they were children are now looking after other children, and learning to be their serving leaders. This is the case with Alejandra, Coco, and Bertha in Jalalpa and with Maritza and Ana Karina in Santa Cruz, who are learning to develop their leadership and team working abilities.
These children are eager to continue learning about God, through the Bible, to learn to be a caring community as they study, play, sing, dance, and especially as they serve their neighbors.
Together with the Hackney Community in London, we give thanks to God for Ali Adeney Lawrence’s life. We are grateful for her vibrant and loving life, and for her participation and love for Armonía. As the people from her church wrote in their latest Newsletter “Ali was an artist who loved bright, dazzling, gorgeous things. She was all those things herself. Her CV says that she came to London as a volunteer and went on to work with refugees, the troubled, the homeless, the needy, patients and GP’s, in the health service, in the church, in the community..... ” We miss Ali, are grateful for her life, for her friendship, for how she loved God, for her joy, for her work, for her service. We look forward to the day we will see her again. We continue to pray for Chris, Asha and Kirin, and all the rest of her family and many friends who, like us, loved her deeply. Thank you Lord for Ali’s life.
May 2007
This year Armonía will receive many volunteers again! People coming from the USA, the UK and also from Australia, who will, God willing, participate with the building of the students house in Oaxaca; with the summer courses in the different centers; that will be part of the course Life & Community Transformation, (please click on the link for more information); and be part of the Health Clinics at the end of this season.
Please pray that all the preparations continue to go smoothly and that this time together, working, learning about God’s transformation will bring new possibilities, refreshed initiatives, increasing commitment and stronger faith to all of those who will be involved. Please pray that we would create new relationships and have a true sense of being a community for and in Him as we come together from different parts of the world.
This year Saúl and Pilar, among their many other activities in Armonía, have traveled to the USA to speak at mission conferences and fulfill other preaching engagements. At the moment they are traveling in the UK. They have been in London, Cambridge, Gloucester, Ditton, Newcastle and Manchester, talking about God’s work among the poor in Mexico, through Armonia. Please pray that their trip continues to go well.
Again thank you for all your prayers and support!
