Praying for Easter weekend

Please join me in praying for the church in Cancun this weekend as we are expecting a number of guests in our services.

Not much time to write...I am finishing my message, prepping for the spanish service tonight, and trying to pack for our trip to Houston tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing many of you there.

-nw

Pastoring

Today was a day of investing one-on-one into people: some by sharing dreams, some by praying, some by guidance, and some by correction.

The weird thing is...I feel like a pastor today...not in a positional/prideful way, but as defined as a shepherd/leader. (Other pastors may identify with me on this--you don't always feel that every day) It's still a feeling I am not quite used to...and I will probably never call myself "Pastor Nathan." I am seriously humbled to be used by God in any form, and I have no idea how this was his plan for me all along...it surely wasn't mine. :)

In my short ministry experience, I have worked only in an assistant pastor role...even initially here with Marco. The day after he left, the feeling inside me that was a passion for ministry totally ramped up to another level. It has always been a passion more than a job, but that day I was overwhelmed by this feeling of ownership and responsibility for this church (read: people) here that has been entrusted to me by God. I will give a report to God for this group and our Kingdom impact. Even writing these words again here scares the hooha out of me...and makes me somewhat emotional...and makes me again want to go fall on my face before God as I am hopelessly dependent on Him.

For me right now, this is how it feels to be a pastor.

-nw

Next Houston trip

For all our Houston family and friends: we will be in Houston the week of March 23-28 and we would love to get to see you all.

We realized after our Christmas trip that we may not have planned ahead well enough and time flew by too quickly to get to see everyone we would have liked to spend time with. We are planning to have a hang out / party / love to see you / Davin's 1st birthday celebration on Monday night March 24. You are probably invited. More details on time and place to come.

Hope to see you there.

-nw

Date nights

We have started a monday night tradition that we have been faithful to for probably six or eight weeks now. After a family day with the kids (mondays are usually our day of rest), Kaycee and I leave them with Wendy (our helper) and go out for some quality time as a couple. It's usually something simple such as our favorite café nearby that offers board games and sometimes live music. Tonight we went to starbucks and watched a movie on my laptop that we had rented from itunes (a pretty cool new feature).

As Community of Faith, we are halfway through a series called One Month to Live based on a newly released book. The premise is basically this: how would you live your life differently if you knew you only had one month left to live. Looking at Jesus' life (he knew the number of his days) as well as the lives of other people who knew they were in their last days, this week we talked about "Loving Completely."

Preparing for and giving these messages has been a challenge to me and I want to pass that on to you: purposefully love on your spouse. Our simple tradition has re-ignited a spark that can get lost in the day-to-day...especially if you work together, and have little kids ;)

I try not to wax eloquent in this posts...I'm not that kind of a blogger. But I thought this would be worth mentioning. Thank you all for your continued support and prayers.

-nw

Long night and exciting day

Thank you all for praying.

I knew the enemy was up to something. In the middle of the night while struggling with Davin, (he has been a little sick this week and slept very little last night) I started having doubts about what we were doing, if it was working, should we really start Saturday night services next week, etc. (Probably mainly from a lack of sleep.) Also, Marco’s video message this week was full of moments when the camera would go out of focus and it was weird and distracting. Anyway, I turned it into a very early morning prayer time and just gave everything over to God.

Today, the english service was about normal, but in the spanish services, we had more people than we have had since we came in November. We ended up with right at 300 adults between the three services including near max or over max capacity for the spanish services. (168 adults in the last service). So God confirmed in my heart our immediate need for Saturday night and even more so the need to begin looking for another possible larger venue.

Please keep praying as we try to keep up with what God is doing here.

-NW

the new "normal"

I am failing in my pledge to blog more in 2008.

As I was thinking about why, I realized that early on things were so different and strange that every day created exciting stories to share. Lately, however, we have felt very much at home here. Over time, you adapt to a new environment and create new routines and a new "normal" for your family. I believe that has been God blessing us and helping us feel at home here where he has placed us for the time being.

So, in short, here are a few updates as part of our new "normal".
1) we have now had three weeks of video messages with Marco and my fourth week of preaching in the english services. Both have been well received, we have continued to add people each week. This weekend, we had around 280 adults between the three services...including 40 in the english service.
2) As a language update, I have now completed the rosetta stone program and can follow a conversation pretty well. I am also trying to force myself into situations of having to speak the language more...that is usually the last piece that comes. Kaycee is sometimes a little too busy for formal lessons with two little kids right now, but she is learning and practicing with our helper Wendy who now lives with us. Emmy just yesterday spit out her first few un-prompted spanish words that I have heard. She spouted "hola" to Wendy as she saw her in the morning, and was telling me "Ven daddy" to get me to come follow her. The latter of which was not taught by us. Amazing how sharp the 2-year-old mind is.
3) Our message series are now in sync with Community of Faith - Houston and so we are set to begin a series called "One Month to Live" on Feb 16/17 here in Cancun. We are working on marketing the church through this series and hope to bring in new people who are un-churched and do not know Christ. Also, we are planning on new service time schedule starting that weekend to hopefully spread out the crowds a little better between the services and to accommodate growth. We will have a Saturday night spanish service at 7:30, Sunday morning at 9:30 (english), 11:00 (spanish), and 12:30 (spanish). The good thing about our Spanish preacher is he doesn't get tired no matter how many services we do. Please pray that God will bring people to hear His word and experience Him.
4) We are excited to be hosting my mom for a long weekend coming up. "Grammy" is coming to see the grandbabies primarily (without a doubt), but is also bringing a gift for Emmy and the family...a 6-week-old, white, bishon-mix, puppy. We are planning to call him Morpheus since he fits the image so well.

Well, we hope to hear more from you guys as well...we covet your continued prayers.

-NW

First weekend with Marco on video

This Sunday was very well received. Marco's message via video was excellent, but more importantly, God met us there yesterday. At Marco's request, I took some pictures of the new-look worship room.

setup complete

after a crazy-long day, we now have the room ready to go for this weekend's video messages. I spent all day Wednesday with a crew of guys hanging a 7.5' x 10' screen and a projector, then running appropriate cables to the projector to get the room ready. I plan to take some pictures of the action this sunday and post them here. Overall, everything went pretty smooth and it looks really good in there. The quality is very good, so hopefully there are no distractions for people to hear God's message through Marco this week.

This is a big answer to prayer that the school where we meet is letting us hang these as fixtures in that room, because there would be no good way to do that portable every week. I left the school at about 6:30 last night very pumped up after getting to test the look of it.

I can't wait to see what God has for this weekend.

NW

First weekend preaching

Ok, there is no looking back now. Marco and Carina left with their family on Thursday and are now busy getting settled in Houston. This was our first weekend without them here as well as my first weekend preaching. Overall, it went pretty well. (I have yet to hear the audio from my English message to critique myself, but I did get positive response...even from Kaycee). Marco's presence will be missed, but we have been purposing to keep the energy positive in talking about the changes. I think people are still in a wait-and-see mode for the video messages. So pray for us this week as we finish setting that up and begin video messages next weekend.

As a tribute to Marco's leadership over the past five years, there has already been people stepping up and filling in various gaps. Our right hand people are now Luis Garcia and his wife Aleda. (their 3-year-old daughter Renata is Emmy's right hand as well). He has now started in his role as the "face" for the spanish church and she is now leading the children's ministry. They are an awesome young couple and already good friends (thanks more to their english than our spanish).

Tomorrow morning is our first leadership meeting without Marco as well, so I am going to go on to bed to be fresh for that. He may be joining by video eventually, but I don't think he has his internet service set up yet.

We will keep you posted.
-NW

Happy New Year back in Cancun

After a very enjoyable visit with families in Houston for the holidays, we are back in Cancun today...refreshed and ready to get back to work. It was great to see all of you that we were able to.

Along with trunks of Christmas gifts, we brought several things back with us for the church, including a upgraded projector and an acoustic/electric guitar for worship. We are excited about these new tools to help people experience Christ.

We need your prayers because now is when we hit the ground running. Marco and Carina and their family (our strong support system here) are leaving tomorrow for their move to Houston and the final stage of operation "pastor swap". We will miss their friendship and leadership dearly. Pray as we go through another level of adjustment period with culture life and church life.

Part of my new year's resolution is to blog more...so be checking in. That's all for now.

-NW

Early Christmas

We decided to let the kids open presents here a few days early to allow for some time to play with new things for a few days before leaving them behind to get on a plane. It was a last minute decision to do it yesterday, so we built it up for Emmy in the morning and then wrapped presents during her nap for her to "discover" when she woke up. So our first Cancun Christmas was at 2:30 pm on December 19 on a warm sunny day. Here is a fun video from our Christmas dinner. We look forward to coming to Houston on Sunday afternoon.

Merry Christmas to all! We will probably begin posting again more frequently after the new year.

-nw

it has been a while

Whenever I have some "down time" on the computer, I usually start up my spanish lessons. Here are a couple updates for all you millions of subscribers:
1) my plans to drive the altima back from houston changed. we should have a car by the end of this week. we found a 2001 nissan pathfinder that we are able to buy from another american...which makes the title transfer much easier. Having a car again will be a significant upgrade for us.
2) believe it or not, we still do not have our living room furniture...seven day delivery has been rushed to this thursday after 2 1/2 weeks
3) only 3 weekends left here together with Marco and his family...which means we are now rushing to get technology pieces in place for video sermons. Or else they will be hearing some really bad spanish :)
4) even though i have never met this family...i feel a connection with them. plus, they are better bloggers, so I will just ditto a lot of what they say. seriously, it's kinda freaky. I'm sure God was smiling through both of our developments
5) Some things are moving much slower than we would like. We are trying to learn patience in adjusting to a different-paced culture. :)
6) Kaycee's parents are coming to visit us for a long weekend, which will be a welcome site from home.
7) I read a good quote on Perry Noble's blog that has been a good reminder for me "I have learned that I can either do ministry from memory or ministry from the overflow of what God is doing in me–the latter is ALWAYS the most fruitful."
8) My prayers lately have been echoing Moses in Psalm 90:16-17

Thank you for your continued prayers. If you are reading this, then we love you.

-NW

new friends

Now that the honeymoon period is over for living in Cancun, reality has set in that we are without our family and friends here. Thankfully, we have made some new friends here to help us cope with these changes and the lonliness. There are six or seven ladies at our apartments that have kids the same ages as ours. They all go outside at the same time with their kids so we go out and play. Emmy has made lots of new friends with names that are hard for her to say (like Yair and Valesqua and Roni) but they have fun together. We have also met two Jewish ladies who live here. Be praying for one of them named Yamit. Nathan got a chance to talk to her a few nights ago. She was raised Jewish but she doesn't believe in anything. She had a lot of questions for him and seemed really curious.

We have also been making friends at church. There is a couple who barely speak English who are missing their three grandkids so they took us to lunch last week and said they wanted to adopt us as their own. David said our kids can call them abuelo and abuela. :) They were so sweet.

Overall I think people here are much friendlier than any where else I have been. I mean, they kiss you on the cheek the first time they meet you! It is so welcoming!

Happy Thanksgiving

Although thanksgiving is not as celebrated here, we are looking forward to the holiday season.
here is an early gift from us to you.

Peso Pobres

We have been looking for ways to get around with no car. Yesterday we decided to take a cab to the hotel zone and go to the beach. We tried to get a cab at the gate of our apartment, but they told us they couldn't call one. So, we walked a couple blocks to the super (a mexican grocery store) to try to find a taxi. We waved one down and jumped in. To the "zona hoteleria" Nathan told the driver. He takes off and we are driving back down the way we had walked. Nathan decided to ask how much this ride was going to take. When the driver told us we realized we did not have enough pesos to get there let alone back too (for some reason, Nathan was thinking the 50 pesos in his pocket was a lot of money...equals about 5 dollars). So, the driver pulled over and we got out, paying him 30 pesos for a ride back to where we started. We were right back at our apartments! hahaha We were laughing and decided to walk to the Extra (convenient store) to get a snack and drinks.

We spent 5 minutes deciding what we wanted and took it all up to the counter...hoping to pay with credit card here. The lady says "Solo efectivo" (cash only) Nathan handed her our one bill of 20 pesos and said what can we get with this? She pulled out the things we could get with the small amount of cash we had and we sat in the store eating our snacks and laughing at ourselves. It is amazing the thousands of cultural cues that are different every day can sometimes overwhelm your brain and make it shut down. Oh well, it makes for a funny story.