Gimnasio de San Juan Bosco

Wednesday night after training, our priest is there too!

The kids helping serve as we build a new roof!

40+ guys in training!! The gym is exploding, praise the Lord! We have about 100 people training in classes. We have an exercise class for women, then two Taekwondo classes (one for kids and one for adults), then exercise class at night for men. Through this we are able to form relationships and bring people into our other ministries. Some are coming to our Wednesday night praise, prayer, and teachings. Coming to Mass and we have started a morning bible study/prayer on Thursdays before school with a couple of guys who are choosing to turn their lives around and follow Jesus!! Some of these guys have expressed how the training has made them stop smoking and doing drugs, praise Jesus!! When the training leads them to make the decision to change their life they are open to being led to the Lord! God is on fire and working like crazy! A couple of guys from the gym and a women who Veronica has been discipling have also come with us to the ranchos when we go preach, what a great opportunity for them to be a part of mission work in action with people who live so close!! After we put a roof on a families house here in General Cepeda the guys at the gym said they would like to be involved with helping work to serve the poor too, IT'S AMAZING!! Please keep the "Gimnasio de San Juan Bosco" in your prayers, seriously, God answers your prayers all the time and we need your prayers! We are currently praying for a bigger place, more boxing equipment, and a boxing ring! But most importantly that our students are led to a loving relationship with Jesus! We have another load of equipment to pick up from the U.S. because Gold's Gym donated A LOT of weights and workout equipment for the gym!! Thank you all for everything you have done for the people here and please keep the prayers coming. Peace and God Bless you all!!

Sometimes the Lord works fast!

Taekwondo training in the only place for miles with grass,
well almost, it's fake grass!

We are walking through the streets of our new home in General Cepeda, Mexico and feeling the Lord calling us to minister to the young men here. This is a need because in general, there are a lot of single mother households and not a strong presence of Christ like fatherhood, so boys start working as early as possible and don't have a constant formation at home. God has been putting this need on my heart since we were here for a month in November. How can I get the attention and earn the respect of these guys when I barely speak their language and I have only lived here for two weeks? MARTIAL ARTS!! The need for discipline, respect, and integrity is easily formed through martial arts and the relationships formed open wide the doors for Christ to work and lead to bible study, prayer group, and local mission work. The Lord works fast, we have ten students in our taekwondo class and six young men in our evening weight training. We are praying about getting a location and equipment for a gym/taekwondo school to offer for the community. There is no gym, exercise facility, or martial arts here and it is proving to be a great way to get the young men off the streets! God is bringing his children to us to be fed physically but ultimately spiritually! Please keep us in your prayers as we continue to discern God's Will and seek how to make it possible!

Martial Arts in the Park?!!

We serve such a GREAT GOD! If he wants it done, it will be done!

Outside of the Cathedral with Veronica's amazing family
who has opened their home to us while we are in language
school.

We are in Guadalajara for language school and have been praying about opportunities to start or get involved in some ministries while we are here (with our extremely limited time). After a few days of praying about this and running through some options for starting bible studies, Veronica and I were out for a run late one night (our first time to run together...maybe ever, God is so cool). While we were running we noticed a young couple carrying a baby up to a house, on our next loop around the neighborhood we noticed them again but at a different house, on our third loop we saw them at a different house and it was clear that they were looking for help. Thank you Jesus! So we stopped and talked with them. They needed milk for their baby so we walked with them down to the local pharmacy and got the type of milk they needed. Then we walked with them and bought them some food and had a chance to pray with them! We are just planting seeds with a little bit of love so the Holy Spirit can water them and then the possibilities are endless!

The next night I was running through the park and I saw two guys kicking on a martial arts kicking shield...so I stopped to watch. They were training some kicking and punching drills and it was clear that one of them was really good and was teaching the other. I started to head home when the Holy Spirit stopped me in my tracks...Go talk to them. I said "Lord I don't want to interrupt them...and I can hardly even speak their language." He just simply reminded me of his scripture in The Acts of the Apostles when he tells us not to worry about what we will say when we get there because His Spirit will speak for us. OK Lord, YES LORD, I will go. So I walked over and interrupted their training, in Spanish, and managed to speak enough that they invited me to train with them. After about an hour of training they invited me to come and train with them twice a week for the rest of the time I am in town. They were only training once a week but they are adding another day while I am here. It turns out one of them speaks a bit of english and with my bit of spanish we communicate great. Through training we earned a great respect for each other and I am excited to see how the Lord works through this time! Please pray for these two guys because I know Jesus wants to do something here, pray for me that I can be open and docile to the Holy Spirit so I don't get in the way of His work. It is amazing how He uses our gifts for His will when we are open and ready to listen to Him.