July 11th & 12th - Mexico Missions Testimonies

As we were getting ready to pray and depart for our short term missions trip to Mexico this past Sunday, Johnny Villa asked the seven of us to be mindful of God’s Word and meditate on a verse of scripture throughout the day. Immediately, I blurted out Nehemiah 6:3…”I am doing a great work and I cannot come down…” (NKJV). I believe the reason I did so was because the last time I did anything similar to what we would be doing that day, I was on top of a ladder in Wichita Falls, Texas, painting an elderly lady’s house with a bunch of guys from our church’s men’s group. You guessed it…I was singing this verse all day long, driving everybody crazy! Naturally, I found myself doing the same thing, this time in Mexico and Johnny and I couldn’t get the verse off our minds.

Nevertheless, one of my favorite stories in the Old Testament is the true account of how Nehemiah rebuilt the wall in Jerusalem in just 52 days. There is so much to be gleaned by a thorough study of his book and what God was able to do in and through Nehemiah. However, what I will never forget is Nehemiah’s response to all the chaos, distractions, and naysayers around him, and perhaps some doubt and confusion in him as well, in that verse. Likewise, there were tons of details that could easily have distracted Johnny and Ray this past Sunday, but like the great leader and man of God, Nehemiah, they were single-minded and focused on getting the schoolhouse painted and getting us safely on our way home. As you can tell from the pictures, our mission was accomplished and a job done well by all.

That was my 5^th missions trip to Mexico with Pouring Out Hope Ministries and Lamb’s Fellowship and you would think that it would start getting old by now. After all, the novelty of going down there, sweating in the heat, getting filthy dirty, and waiting 3 hours in line at the border crossing would somehow begin to diminish my spirit but not so this trip. We were ‘doing a great work…’ and getting busy about Kingdom business and that verse that stuck in our heads conveniently reminded us so! But that wasn’t all that made this trip special. We had the wonderful opportunity to re-visit the family that my wife, Janice, discovered last year that really needed a helping hand, to put it mildly. In fact, the kids had grown so much that we hardly recognized them and they were actually smiling and having fun, like they were enjoying being children again. Oh, how I pray that Almighty God will make a way to allow us to build them a house as well. It was so difficult to leave them and it turns out that they did not want us to leave them, so I went and wrestled with little Antonio (cool name!) on his brand new mattress one last time. Then, I pulled myself away and loaded up in Linda’s truck for the long ride home.

Needless to say, I can’t wait for the next Mexico Missions Trip and the privilege of “doing a great work, so that we cannot come down” and to do so alongside my amazing brothers and sisters in The Lord Jesus: ‘Jumpin’ Johnny Villa, Ray ‘Let’s stay and pray’ Orozco, Bobby ‘Cheeps, Coke, Pepsi’ Morales, ‘Sergeant’ Angela Williams, Linda ‘I never forget the toilet paper’ Hayes, and Eric ‘I wear my sunglasses while I paint’ Uber!

Doin’ A Great Work by God’s Grace,
Tony ‘Where’s the food and a clean restroom?’ DeVeto