BSM Valley Summer Project Missions Blog 2011

Wednesday, June 3, 2009:

We finished painting the interior and exterior of the semi-trailer/classroom, cooled off with delicious paletas, led the Wednesday night service at Memorial Baptist Church in Edinburg, TX, and prepared for our first block party on Thursday.  -Ali

The first week of missions has come to an end. Blessed be the name of the Lord!

Many things occurred during this period and He provided the strength and perseverance to complete them all. The team painted a semi-trailer, prepared for VBS, hosted block parties and later painted a house, amongst other things. A few accompanied Robert to North Carolina and served the Hispanic youth. Indeed, all things are possible through Christ.

Week 1 was very encouraging altogether. Though we encountered trials since the beginning, we had the victory day after day. Praise God! Communication and a strong foundation in Christ has made the 2009 team strong and united.

I urge you to maintain this team and missionaries around the globe in prayer that we may continue to claim victory. We will fight back. We shall not yield.

Thank you,

Att. Martha Altamirano

Tuesday, June 2, 2009:

We painted the inside of the semi-trailer turned classroom at One Way Road to Heaven Church in Donna, TX, ate at Pizza Hut, and prepared for the Block Parties at which we’d be helping.  We’ll be posting more pictures from our eventful week soon, so keep checking for more BSM-er goodness!

We are so thankful to have blog & Twtter followers and want to thank you for ALL of your prayers, words of encouragement, and pictures you’re sending to our photo frame.  =)

God is truly working in our lives and in the lives of people around the Rio Grande Valley!  The following verses from Psalm 86 have really been resonating with me lately, so I thought I’d share them with you. 

Love, Ali Cepeda

 ⁸ Among the gods there is none like you, O Lord;
       no deeds can compare with yours.
⁹ All the nations you have made
       will come and worship before you, O Lord;
       they will bring glory to your name.
 ¹⁰ For you are great and do marvelous deeds;
       you alone are God.

Psalm 86:8-10 (NIV)

After six days of first experiences and working by painting, and scraping walls and ministering to kids of all ages at the Block parties,  we all have really seen God’s hand over us because of all the blessings that have come with doing His work.  This week some of us learned how hard it is to paint walls and even ceilings, and how you have to take care of all the little details when it comes to painting four walls (especially because we do it for the Glory of God).  Also some of us have conquered our stage fright, and others have mastered the puppet ministry, while the rest of us like me still try to work with those cool puppets.  We have done from singing, to Bible classes and recreation for kids and I want to congratulate all of you out there who are good with arts and crafts just like Ali because she is an expert at it. 

So like I said before after six days of hard work we finally came to the seventh where we can rejoice in our Lord’s house.  Today we want to thank Calvary Baptist Church for having us at their 11:00 a.m. service where we were able to delight ourselves in beautiful worship and received great spiritual food to last for a while by Pastor Sergio Ramos.  We also want to thank all the church members for praying for us today and for their warm welcome.

Later, we prepared for VBS at “Iglesia Cristo del Rey” at Mission and also at “Iglesia Primera Bautista de Hidalgo” at Hidalgo”.  It was a challenge because our team had to divide in half because both VBS are at the same time and they are so far apart but God provided help from others BSM’rs like Jessica, Suheily, and Yara, and it was amazing how God even provided for another puppet stage so that we won’t have to alternate our original one.  Today was a blessing working with the kids and we are really happy that we get to work with those kids from today until Wednesday.

I thank you our readers again for keeping up, tell others about our blog, and please don’t stop praying for us; we need prayer for this upcoming busy week, we will minister to kids at Buckner Children’s Home in some mornings while doing two VBS in the afternoons, then we also will be attending UTPA’s freshman orientation so that they can know about our organization on Wednesday, and we will close the week by ministering to high schoolers at a camp, and attending a children’s home again.  So as you can see we need lots and lots of prayer, so that we can be prepared and have sensitive ears to God’s voice in order to do his will.  I thank you again and I close this week and start the next one with this verse of encouragement and confirmation from God’s Word:

Acts 13: 47

For this is as the Lord commanded us when He said:                                                                                                                                    “I have made you a light to the gentiles, to bring salvation to the farthest corners of the earth”

                                                                                                                                                                                                          God Bless   

                                                                                                                                                                                            Att: Zaira J. Heredia

Today was a beautiful day in the Lord.  It is incredible how God knows all twelve of us so well.  Today we had the task of painting a lady’s home. We were very confident about it because we already had practice from the trailer that we painted earlier this week.  Plus we only had to paint the outside.  We arrived at the home at 9 a.m. and we found out that we had to scrape the old paint from the entire house. We thought it would be impossible because we only had today from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. to finish.  Thankfully J.R. the Buckner representative told us that we only had to scrape and paint two of the walls and that he is going to have another team to finish tomorrow.  But it was not over then; to our surprise we only had one scraper for ten people so we did what we could with brushes and wooden sticks we were tired, no we were exhausted.  Just when some of us were starting to get frustrated the owner of the home got arrived from her job and when she saw what we were doing she busted into tears and said just one phrase over and over again “Thank you so much.”  After taking a picture with her we all felt very encouraged to continue working because we realized how God uses us to impact other people’s life.  “She told me that no one has ever done anything like this for her in her entire life,” said J.R.  It was a blessing to see that woman’s reaction and God knew that we would be encouraged as soon as we saw her, so now we know that he sent her on time; later J.R was able to provide us with more scrapes and the job was finished.

After lunch we started preparing for the second Block Party at “One Way Road to Heaven” church and for both of the VBS that start this Sunday.  Even though that we struggled without Ali, Arnold, Brian, Belinda, and Martha we were able to do just fine and God allowed us to have a wonderful fellowship time over dinner.  We are really excited about tomorrow and finishing small details about the VBS but we really know that God is with us throughout this whole path.

Today’s scripture was 1st Corinthians 1:24-31

24 But to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  25  For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. 26  Consider your own calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.   27 Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, 28 and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, 29 so that no human being might boast  before God. 30 It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,  31 so that, as it is written, “Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.” 

Another reminder that all glory belongs to Him and only Him and that without him we would have never been what, and where we are today.

Again thank you, make sure to look at the pictures and keep us in your prayers. Specially pray for those who are out and will be back on Sunday

                                                                                                                                                                                            God Bless

                                                                                                                                                                                           Att: Zaira J. Heredia

 Yesterday  was another busy day.  We spent our morning and part of our afternoon planning for the Block Party at the “One Way Road to Heaven” church.  We had a very good program for the kids at the party, from a puppet show and bible classes to awesome games and arts and crafts.  Everyone worked very hard to prepare for this event and we were all very excited.  When we finally arrived, it was very neat how we set everything up faster than a speeding bullet. We enjoyed worship at the church led by the pastor and then finally we had everyone come out for the block party.  Praise and Worship went great and thank God the puppet show was a hit.  Yesterday we also witnessed how God sometimes has better plans than we do, because eventhough that we had prepared for specific age groups the Lord sent a large group of youth to us and it was more than obvious what we had to do.  So we took action and God gave the right words and scriptures to share to the youth and everything went on smoothly, just like I am sure God had planned it. We had a great time serving and seeing how God uses us to do His will.  God gave our group this verse and we want to share it with our readers and encourage you to take it to heart:

Isaiah 42:6

“I, the LORD, have called you to demonstrate my righteousness.  I will guide and support you, for I have given you to my people as the personal confirmation of my covenant with them. And you will be a light to guide all nations to me.”

With this verse  God confirmed us that we are doing His will and that he has chosen every single one of us.  And we encourage others to be a light also to all nations.  Thank you so much for following us every day through this blog and also thank you for your prayers.  We ask support in prayer for preparation of our hearts before we present ourselves to the people we will minister and for healing because we already have a cold. Also we ask you to support us by praying for all of our lives and to be free of any spiritual attacks that might come in the future.

                                                                                                                                                   Thank you and God Bless

                                                                                                                                                                Att: Zaira J. Heredia

Three weeks of living in community, I knew, would be challenging, but hurdles were not expected so soon. The task of painting a semi-trailer did not seems so challenging to a team of twelve, but even our characters were tried in the details. It was amazing how such little things try a person’s character.  After a day of hard work, additional tasks were delegated and future plans discussed that seemed intimidating. Furthermore, these things appeared complicated when in reality, we made them that way. However, God rescued us just in time, and the day ended just right with a team devotional on Isaiah 49:1-13. To God be the glory.

A big difference was noted today, praise God! Though the same little things were there, we now look back through God’s eyes and see opportunities to extend God’s love, develop character, claim victory and inspire hope. The Lord, I imagine, smiled upon our efforts to paint and transform a place for children to meet and learn about Him. After reenergizing and organizing our efforts, a youth rally followed.

Once more the Lord used us, His vessels, to minister to people and even each other. The BSM band led worship and the team was renewed in strength and perseverance through the Holy Spirit. Karen, Fabian and Zaira shared their testimonies. Each was different yet spoke of the transforming power of the same God. It was awesome! Finally, Arnold preached on the importance of being rooted in Christ and what He can do through an individual that perseveres and is patient in the Lord. As we exited the church, we were surprised by a pleasant storm (we appreciate a storm in the valley:)

Time flew and the girls were left to chat (communication is important!… seriously). Zaira shared an exciting scripture as a preparation of things to come in Isaiah 61:1-2.

¹ The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me,
for the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted
and to proclaim that captives will be released
and prisoners will be freed.
² He has sent me to tell those who mourn
that the time of the Lord’s favor has come,
and with it, the day of God’s anger against their enemies.

Praise the Lord for all the wonderful things He is doing and will do! In all truth, we can identify attacks of the enemy since day one, but in Christ we have the victory even in the little things. Communication within the team and your prayers have supported us and defended us. Thank you. I yet encourage you to continue.

Day 3 just ended and we welcome you to join our walk through this mission trip through our blogs, pictures, twitter and your comments=) God bless you and your loved ones.

Att. Martha Altamirano

Wow!!! Today was amazing.  All the bsm’ers worked really hard today.  We began painting a semi-trailer for the “One way to heaven” church.  It was a though task, some of us had no clue what to do but thankfully God put people in the valley missions group who had experience in painting the right way.  So, some of us painted walls, others worked on smaller details like window frames, cleaning, and fixing mistakes.  Tomorrow we go back and advance some more, the trailer is looking great even though we are no experts.  Anyways God is really working with all of us it has been great working together, and it has been a blessing to have already started making a difference in people’s lives even if we have not met them.  God gave us all this verse today and we want to share it with our readers:

Isaiah 49: 4–Then I said,’I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain; Yet surely my just reward is with the LORD, and my work with my GOD”

Thank you for following our updates and keep us in your prayers so that God can prepare the hearts of the people we will reach in these three weeks so that his name can be glorified.

God Bless you all,

Att.  Zaira J. Heredia

We have now started our orientation!  We will be posting more soon.