Today the Tzeltal Bible arrived…all 35 tons of them! A tractor-trailer packed with 1670 boxes, which contain 20,000 copies of the first Bible available in the local language of the Tzeltal people arrived at the Alpha and Omega Bible School. On a beautiful Chiapas morning, 35 Pastors, students, teachers, missionaries, paramedics, both men and women spent over 4 hours unloading the truck. The truck was not able to enter the bible school campus because of a low power line and there was not a forklift in sight, so we formed a human chain and carried the boxes 100 yards to the storage area.
The Bible will be dedicated on November 25 at a ceremony to be held at the bible school. We are expecting over 3,000 people to attend the celebration. It will be an historic occasion that I feel fortunate to have a small role in.
You can see some pictures of the unloading process at our picture site.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/millsfamilymission
Peace,
John
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Sunday, November 12, 2006
The Fall US Tour
For the last six week, Pablo, his wife Jan and I have been in the US visiting churches and telling the story of the ministry in Chiapas. Pablo and I drove 1,000 from Ocosingo up to the Texas border in late September, then flew to Chicago where Jan met us. This began our eight state tour of 25 churches.
Along the way we experienced the warm hospitality of 13 families who opened their homes to us for lodging, prepared our meals and ministered to our needs. One family even bought a used car for us to drive while we were visiting! It was truly a blessing to reconnect with previous travelers and make new friends along the way. It was also a blessing for me to be able to see Ginny, Holly and Maggie when they arrived for their unscheduled visit to help with Ginny’s mom. Since I will be in Chiapas on Thanksgiving, we enjoyed some time with Jim and Pat and my sisters while in NC.
We jokingly called our itinerary the “rock star mission tour” because it seemed like we were on the go all the time visiting churches and eating way too many “pot luck” meals and buffets. More than once I said how good it was to be visiting this church and said the wrong name. But the fellowship was wonderful and we helped people better understand the breadth of Pablo’s ministry in Chiapas. We encouraged new churches to send mission teams and those that have experienced cross-cultural missions to adopt Pablo and Jan as their churches missionaries. We now have 13 groups scheduled to come to Chiapas in 2007 and three new supporters for Pablo’s ministry.
As the weeks went by we were able to share new pictures of the progress made on the construction of the medical clinic. Our 7 member work crew has been putting up the exterior walls and preparing to complete the floor. Each Saturday we downloaded pictures from our email account and huddled around the computer to see what the guys had been able to accomplish back in Ocosingo.
We wrapped up our tour on Nov. 7. Jan and I flew back to Chiapas and Pablo left on another adventure. He will join over 100 others from Mexico and attend the COMIBON Latin American Mission Conference in Granada, Spain.
Along the way we experienced the warm hospitality of 13 families who opened their homes to us for lodging, prepared our meals and ministered to our needs. One family even bought a used car for us to drive while we were visiting! It was truly a blessing to reconnect with previous travelers and make new friends along the way. It was also a blessing for me to be able to see Ginny, Holly and Maggie when they arrived for their unscheduled visit to help with Ginny’s mom. Since I will be in Chiapas on Thanksgiving, we enjoyed some time with Jim and Pat and my sisters while in NC.
We jokingly called our itinerary the “rock star mission tour” because it seemed like we were on the go all the time visiting churches and eating way too many “pot luck” meals and buffets. More than once I said how good it was to be visiting this church and said the wrong name. But the fellowship was wonderful and we helped people better understand the breadth of Pablo’s ministry in Chiapas. We encouraged new churches to send mission teams and those that have experienced cross-cultural missions to adopt Pablo and Jan as their churches missionaries. We now have 13 groups scheduled to come to Chiapas in 2007 and three new supporters for Pablo’s ministry.
As the weeks went by we were able to share new pictures of the progress made on the construction of the medical clinic. Our 7 member work crew has been putting up the exterior walls and preparing to complete the floor. Each Saturday we downloaded pictures from our email account and huddled around the computer to see what the guys had been able to accomplish back in Ocosingo.
We wrapped up our tour on Nov. 7. Jan and I flew back to Chiapas and Pablo left on another adventure. He will join over 100 others from Mexico and attend the COMIBON Latin American Mission Conference in Granada, Spain.
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