Dear Santa... From Adventures in Life Ministry

Dear Santa, whatever you can do to make this list a reality for Adventures in Life Ministry would really be appreciated.  I know you're busy and everything, but who isn't these days.

Anyways, I've tried to be brief and give you some pictures to make it easier to understand.

1. A Few "More" Good Men... no, not the movie... we need a few more men for our Annual Oaxaca Men's Ministry, February 1 - 8, 2014.  We've got a roof to put up, a solar pump system to install, and a host of small electrical and plumbing projects to complete.  If you can help, and would like to join the bunch of guys pictured here, drop us a line ASAP!

2. An Eye Doctor in the House! Our Spring Medical Ministry, March 22 - 29 desperately needs an eye doctor or optician on the team.  Maybe you are the person that can help us round out this local church based ministry.  We pray with, treat, and really get to know the people we serve in the communities of San Pablo Guila, San Baltazar Guelavila, San Idelfonso Amatlan and San Pedro Amatlan.  Get in touch with us now to be part of this ministry.

3. A glass of fresh water... $100.00 will give a family a Sawyer Water Filter that will provide years of clean drinkable water.  This can literally be a life saver for a family that cannot afford to buy purified water.



4. Solar Panels for our ranch south of Oaxaca City... We need an additional four 245 watt panels [just like the ones in the picture] to install our solar pump for our well.  Your donation to this could make sure that AIL and Pastor Chable have the water available for our continued camp and agricultural ministries in this area.

5.  Send a kid to camp!  Want to make sure a child or teenager gets a chance to hear the Gospel at camp?  The cost is $100.00 for each person you want to send.  Want to sponsor the entire camp?  Only $7000.00 for between 50 and 100 kids.  Look at the faces below... you can help make it happen!

6. A new computer for AIL Ministry... here's the deal.  Our office computer is on its last legs.  It is from 2002, has a Celeron processor running XP and a paltry 1 gig of RAM.  Maybe you can bring us up to date.  We're looking at about $1500.00.

So Santa, that's about it this year.  Some big dreams, a few small ones and lots of ways to support our work and mission in Oaxaca, Ensenada and Guadalajara, Mexico. Here's a link to give directly to AIL online, or, if you want to mail a check, here's the address...

Adventures in Life Ministry

3243 East Warm Springs Road

Las Vegas, Nevada 89120

Merry Christmas to you and yours and have a blessed New Years!

Ministry and the Sin of Envy...

Okay, I admit it.  I struggle with envy.

Adventures in Life envy.

No, I am not envious of my employer and mission, Adventures in Life.  I am envious of other missions.  You know the ones.  The bigger ones.  The ones that reach more people, do more things, touch more lives, get bigger donations and seem to have arrived.

I first noticed it one day years ago when we were part of a mission week at a local college in Southern California.  We had all of our brochures on a table along with a few pictures in Plexiglas frames purchased from Staples. 

What we did not have was one of those fancy backdrops common at a lot of conventions.  I think that year we had a foam core board backstopping us.  What we did not have was one of those fancy tablecloths that said Adventures in Life Ministry, complete with our logo.

We had no fancy web site, no IT department and no free gifts to give away.  We also had no stories of thousands of people coming to Jesus around the world through the work of our ministry.

What we did have was a genuine love for the people of Mexico and a hope that with Jesus we could make a difference in the small corners of the world where we believed God had called us.

But I was still envious, as I was reminded last week in Mexico.

Each year we cobble together a small team of medical people to visit the villages where I work in Oaxaca.  This year, one of the members of the team was from a large, okay, really large church in So Cal.  Last year she was part of a medical team that took over 70 people to treat people in another Latin American country.

I was nervous.   

I was nervous because I know there is no way we will ever have a ministry like that.  I was nervous because I feared that in comparison to that other ministry, we’d look small and insignificant alongside all the great things that they did.

As we headed out for our first day of ministry, those feelings of envy and inadequacy started to roil inside of me.

It is not unlike the feeling many pastors have when they look at their congregation of 125 people and wonder why they are unable to reach people like Central Christian Church does here in Las Vegas.

Each day we had about 30 people come through our clinics.  We treated colds, pain, the flu, and even did a few small surgical procedures.  Mostly, we provided people assurance that they were not in serious danger, and we prayed a lot.

Every single patient we saw received prayer, either from us, or from the pastor from our local partner church.  

At the end of the week, the woman from that large church came to me and shared.  She told me how much the week meant to her and how much she appreciated seeing how our ministry partners with locals and connects people to a pastor and a church.

My heart leapt with joy.

AIL Ministry will never be that huge ministry.  We will never have a team of 70 people serving with us.  We will never have the bucks needed to spend thousands of dollars on big conventions, and even if we had the money, we’d probably spend in Oaxaca anyways. 

Our ministry is small footprint stuff. Relationships.  Personal greenhouses.  Medical clinics where we pray for every patient and even make house calls if needed.

Ministry is hard stuff.  When you are a single pastor of a small church, or a lone missionary on the field, you live in a world of what if.  Envy is one of your biggest enemies.  It eats at you from the inside out.

Today, do those missionaries or pastors you know who work in small sometimes under-appreciated ministries a huge favor.

Send them an e-mail, a Facebook post, call them, or send them a text.

Let them know you are in their corner, that you appreciate them, and love and support their ministries.

You will cause their hearts to leap with joy and help strike a blow in the battle against the sin of envy!