Mérida Mission Trip Info & Prayer Request
Dennis is taking along a team of four others to evangelize the city of Mérida during their annual “Carnival”. The Carnival is much like our Mardi Gras, only much more family-friendly. The biggest events of the celebration are the parades that take place over five days. (Dennis went to Carnival last year at this time to scope out the possibilities of evangelizing during this time and found the parades to be reaping with possibilities for sharing Christ with families and others as they make a day of it on the streets.) Officials estimated that last year over 500,000 people attended the last parade. Ripe with possibilities, indeed.
As Dennis and the team prepare for this year’s trip (Feb 20 – Mar 1), we have some specific prayer requests. I hope that you will join myself and others who can’t physically be there as we support the mission trip with our prayers.
- Pray that the team will clear customs in Mexico City without incident. The picture below shows all of the 35,000 Gospel tracts in Spanish (including 20 Bibles) that they will be taking into the country. Of particular concern are the 3,000 “Million Peso” tracts and the 15,000 “Million Dollar” tracts. These tracts look very realistic but have an excellent Gospel message on the back. We’ve taken tracts into the country before, but never this many at one time and never tracts that look similar to real money.
- Speaking of law enforcement – these tracts tend to draw a crowd quickly; pray that during the parades the outreach will not draw the attention of police who want to break up the crowd while the teams are evangelizing.
- Begin to pray now for those who will hear the Gospel, that God would be preparing their hearts to hear His Word and that they will be receptive.
- As always pray for safe travel, good health, and stamina for the team members.
- Pray that God will raise up evangelists from CC Mérida to carry on the work after the team has returned home.
- Pray for our friends Eduardo and Mar (see November 16, 2008 blog) and Santiago and his family (see November 15, 2008 blog) – that they will attend the Way of the Master training session to help equip them for evangelism.
- Pray especially for salvation for Andreus (who has been feeding our mission teams breakfast for many years) and for Pillin, the professional clown who lives across the street from the church.
