Arriaga, Chiapas Mexico



      Situated along the Pacific Coast of Chiapas is a town called Arriaga.  As you get closer to the water there are many small communities lining the coast line.  Many are poor fishing villages, others work for local ranchers, but they all seem to have one thing in common, a need for clean drinking water.  In the fall of 2008, God lead us to this area and it has been a continual stream of requests ever since.  The water is shallow (around 100 ft deep) and some wells are even artesian, with the water just bubbling up above the ground.  The problem is that most of them don't have the money or resources to have a sealed well dug for themselves.  Spiritually, there are multiple churches in every community, but there is a very heavy spirit of religion among them which causes division among the brothers as well as a host of other  problems.

     God has given us grace with the people and we are welcomed into each community; some even anxiously waiting for 6 months or more for us to come to their village.  Granted we are giving them a well for free, a much needed commodity, but what an opportunity to share Jesus Christ with them in a real tangible way.  For each community we work in, we show evangelistic movies in the plaza, share the gospel with them, give Bibles to the churches, minister to the kids, and teach health and hygiene to improve their standard of living.  Sometimes just sitting and talking one on one is the most effective way to share Jesus.  

     All of our work is in the small villages outside the town of Arriaga, but we work from there because it is where all the hotels and places to eat are.  Right now we have over 30 requests for water wells, so there is a lot of work to be done in this area.  Our prayer is that with every person we meet there will be seeds sown into their lives for the Kingdom of God.

January/February 2010 Trip: 
      Gabe and Vic just returned from a trip to Arriaga.  Unfortunately, as soon as they arrived our truck broke down and wouldn't crank.  Despite the stresses of being in a small town, not having mechanics that know much about this truck, and the fact that it was the 3rd time this truck has broken down in Chiapas; God made a way for the work to get done.  They were able to borrow a truck and finish 8 wells.   They supplied fresh, clean water to 2 clinics, 1 school, and 5 churches.  When they showed a movie about God's plan of salvation there were several hundred people in attendance. 

     We are planning a return trip soon to pick up the (hopefully) now repaired truck.  When we go we hope to drill another 6-8 wells, as well as have kid's ministry, some evangelistic outreaches, and hygiene training.  We will let you know when the dates are planned.  Your prayer support is invaluable on these trips.  Below are some of the pictures from the trip. 




     On a personal note; we are settled into the house in McAllen, TX.  The kids are happily enjoying going to a Christian school and we parents are enjoying the conveniences of American life.  While our focus is still on the ministry in Mexico (and wherever else God leads), the move has been what we needed as a family.  Thank you for your friendship and continued support throughout these changes.  We miss our family and friends in Southeast Texas and hope to get to see you all more often now that we are a little closer.  We love you and God bless you.

Gabe, Jessica, Payden & Audrey 

               

Hello All,

It has been a while since we posted anything and we wanted to give everyone an update.  As most of you know we made the move to live in Chiapas the first part of August and it has taken a little time to get everything adjusted and get back to work.  

We just finished up with 4 new wells down on the Pacific Coast in various villages around Arriaga.  We were blessed to have Mark Halliburton get to come down and spend some time with us and get to drill again.  Due to all of the hurricanes that have passed through the Texas Gulf Coast area over the last few years, he has had to work almost non-stop and has not had a chance to come down for quite a while.  It was great to have him down and I want to thank him for all of his help.

Although we have worked in Chiapas for almost five years now (traveling back and forth from Soto La Marina), living here has been a different story.  We are much closer to our work but everything else has been more difficult.  It is much more difficult for us to get drilling and ministry materials (Bibles, tracts, hygiene stuff, etc.) down here and we are 2 days away from the Texas border where these things are available.  Plus we have Vic working with us up in the Reynosa area and it has been harder to be available to help him in any way.  So, all of this to say, after much prayer and thought we feel that it is in the best interest of the ministry for us to move back up north to the McAllen, Texas area.  Before we made the move to Chiapas we were praying about which place would be better for the family and the ministry, Chiapas or McAllen.  After living here for several months it has become clear to us that McAllen is where God is leading us.  I guess we had to exhaust the other option first so that we could have a clearer direction. 

Between our work in Chiapas and the border area, we will complete over 50 projects this year and for 2010 we are planning around 70.  The work has definitely grown and we have even received 14 requests from various countries in Africa over the last year.  By basing out of McAllen, we believe that it will be easier to manage the logistics of everything that is going on and will make it easier to go into other countries as God opens new doors.  That has always been the vision of MRI, to expand into other countries.

I want to take this time to once again thank all of you who have stood beside us over the years.  It has definitely been an adventure, starting out with only 1 or 2 successful wells per year and not being able to speak the language; to this year completing over 50 wells in many parts of Mexico.  It has been amazing to watch what God can do.  It is not just about the water.  For every well drilled, there are many people who have the opportunity to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  So the more wells and projects we can do, the more people can hear the good news.  I would like to invite all of you to continue in this journey with us as we look forward to seeing what God has in store for the future.  We haven't hosted any teams over the last few years mainly because we have been trying to get established in different areas, but now if any of you would like to get a group together and come down with us, we would love to have you and I know that it would be a wonderful experience.  We look forward to hearing from you.

God Bless,

Gabe, Jessica, Payden & Audrey

The end of May and first part of June, my long time friend Greg Wallace from Lindale, TX went with me on another trip to Chiapas. Jess and the kids were still tied up with school and were not able to go this time. We first went to a small town in the state of Oaxaca near the Chiapas border to drill at a church there but we hit rock about 30 feet down and after drilling for another 3 or 4 hours on the rock without advancing even another foot, we decided to head to our next location the next day. << MORE >>

As some of you may remember from our past newsletters, last year in May we were finally able to finish a water project up in the mountains of Chiapas in a small place named Chimix. There we constructed a cistern to collect water from a small water source that came out of the side of a mountain in order to keep the water clean and also to store enough water to last them through the dry season.<< MORE >>

Hi everyone! We returned home this past Monday from being in Palenque and other parts of Chiapas for about a week. This all came about when Living Water received a request from a church in Houston, Texas. A few ladies from the church wanted to have health/hygiene training for some pastors at a local Bible college in Palenque, Chiapas.<< MORE >>

We had another good trip to the coastal area of Chiapas in January. Vic Spillman and Felix Cedillo went with me on this trip and we were able to complete 5 wells. Three of the wells were for three different schools all from the same community, Villa del Mar. We were able to share with the kids about Jesus by giving them each a Christian coloring book and a box of colors. Our last well in the community of Villa del Mar was in the central park area.<< MORE >>

     2008 has been a record year for us in terms of the number of projects we have been able to complete and the number of people who have heard the Gospel. The first few years of drilling here in Mexico, we were fortunate to complete 3 to 4 projects per year due to the difficulty of drilling here in the immediate area (of Soto La Marina) and also due to financial constraints. But this year has ... << MORE >>

We hope that all of you had a wonderful holiday time with your family and friends; celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior and the many blessings he has given all of us. We had a busy but rewarding month of December. It started with the first two weeks of the month we went as a family down to the coastal area of Chiapas. We worked hard and much was accomplished. << MORE >>

The first week of August we made another trip to Chiapas. This trip was special for several reasons. First, we brought our friend, Isabel, from Soto La Marina with us to teach praise tambourine/dance classes to the Christian women in Nachig. They were eager to learn and asked me if I knew someone who taught classes; I immediately thought of Isabel. << MORE >>