Tuesday, December 3, 2024

Autumn prayer letter

“Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness.” Psalm 29:2 Ramírez Family Serving the Lord in San Nicolas, Tequisquiapan, Queretaro, Mexico Autumn blessings to all of our faithful partners in ministry. God has been doing great things here in Mexico this fall. One major blessing from this fall is that our church has joined an organization of churches here in Mexico called “Lampei”. They are based in Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico. This group of churches is focused on planting churches, not just in Mexico but in the whole world. Our church is now “Lampei San Nicolas”. We are excited to see what God has in store for us with this change. You will read more about an event we did with them this October. You can learn more about them at, https://www.lampeiministries.org/ Women’s ministry: The past two months the women have enjoyed an evening of playing games and learning about first aid from Nidia, an RN that attends our church with her family. The women really enjoy these events and making memories together. Conferences: Twice this fall I had the opportunity to join the other Lampei pastors in attending conferences here in Mexico. This was something that I needed and was a huge blessing to my life. Discipleships: Our weekly discipleships are doing well and remaining faithful. My wife has had the joy of starting a new discipleship with a co-work of one of our church members. Mary is a mother of two small children, she has a hunger for learning more about Jesus and living for Christ. She has been faithful in studying the bible with Alicia and bringing her kids to kids’ club on Saturdays. We also had a young mother and her son come from Morelia to stay with us for a week. During this time my wife was able to share about Jesus with her. Please pray for her salvation. Kids’ club: The kids continue to meet every Saturday and learn about the books of the Bible. This week we will start preparing for the Christmas program. Youth group: It has been great to see youth from San Nicolas join our group even tho they are not consistent in attending. We pray for their consistency and growth in Christ. Farmer’s market: We have started back at being faithful in engaelizm at the farmer’s market every Sunday. It has been a blessing to see more people open up to allowing us share with them and visit them regularly. Day of the Dead Evangelism: At the end of October my family and I went to Morelia to help with a week long Evangelism event with the Lampei church there. A group of Americans from California came to help too. During the week the group of 20 visited schools, parks, town squares and farmer’s markets to share the gospel with people who were out celebrating the day of the dead. We shared with them the God of the living and the hope we have in him. Thursday there was an interactive theater show presented at the church called “The route of the soul.” After each presentation there was a time for counseling and sharing more of the Gospel with those that attended. More than 100 people heard the good news of Jesus Christ this week and many more evangelistic flyers were handed out. Praise the Lord for this time. Prayer requests: Spiritual growth and number of people at church in San Nicolas. That God would bless us with a team of people to help us reach more towns. For the Green Card of Jorge, to be able to visit all of you soon! The health and salvation of my parents, Carmen and Antonio. For our relationship with God. That Boaz and Ana will know Him as Savior too. For all the plans we have this year, that God will use each event to build His Kingdom. Our financial support. Praise the Lord that more support has come in. Pray that more will join in supporting us. We continue to pray for the car situation. The same problem happened again. We are praying for a solution to this issue. Thank you!! Blessings, Jorge, Alicia, Boaz and Ana jramirez@fim.org awhitmore@fim.org

End of summer ministry events

The Ramírez family Serving the Lord in San Nicolas, Tequisquiapan, Mexico “Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.” Psalm 136:1 VBS: The last week of summer vacation 6-9 kids attended Vacation Bible school. The kids “traveled” to 5 different countries, learned about the culture and missionaries there. The last day was Mexico! I encouraged the kids to share the good news of Jesus Christ with the people around them here in Mexico. Kids’ club: The kids club is sable with two sets of siblings and a friend who attend every Saturday. We continue to study the books of the Bible and learning them in order. Youth group: Growth!! Our youth group has grown by two members. One of our kids’ club boys moved up to middle school and he and his older sister have started attending together. Praise the Lord. Bible studies: Three nights a week I continue to meet with our in home bible studies. One is reading the Gospel of John together and the other two are studying Evangelism. Sunday services: Our church continues to grow. We have two new Word of Life students serving with us this school year, Pablo and Devanay. This month I was able to preach at the Tequisquiapan church also. Women’s meeting: The women at church look forward to their monthly meetings. In August they made different types of oven mitts and my wife gave a study on incorruptible beauty. Stewardship conference: While at camp in July I made friends with the pastor and leaders from “La Roca Fuerte” church in Puerto Vallarta. They invited me to come and give a conference about good stewardship. In August my family and I spent a week with them. On Thursday evening the men and women were in separate groups, my wife and I both shared from the Bible this night. Friday, Saturday and Sunday I shared and encouraged the church in what the Bible says about being good stewards of our time, gifts, money and bodies. We were encouraged greatly by the people of this church. The week after we spent as a family enjoying time at the beach and visiting old friend of my wife’s from her time in Puerto Vallarta. Mexican Independence day: September 15th we had a special service and time of fellowship at church to celebrate Independence day here in Mexico. It was a time of great encouragement for our church and we celebrated our freedom in Christ. Prayer requests: Spiritual growth and number of people at church in San Nicolas. That God would bless us with a team of people to help us reach more towns. For the Green Card of Jorge, to be able to visit all of you soon! The health and salvation of my parents, Carmen and Antonio. My mom is doing better, please continue to pray. Thank you! For our relationship with God. That Boaz and Ana will know His as Savior too. For all the plans we have this year, that God will use each event to build His Kingdom. Our financial support. Praise the Lord that more support has come in. Pray that more will join in supporting us. Pray for our car. We continue to work on fixing our larger car or selling it. We need something more reliable. Praise the Lord we do have one working vehicle. Evangelism outreach in Morelia. October 28 to November 4. Our church will be traveling to help share the Gospel with the people in Morelia. Pray for this event. Thank you! Blessings, Jorge, Alicia, Boaz and Ana jramirez@fim.org awhitmore@fim.org

July prayer letter

The Ramírez family Serving the Lord in San Nicolas, Tequisquiapan, Mexico “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” Jeremiah 17:7-8 What a busy summer it has been. We have been so blessed to see God working here in Mexico. We are thankful to God that we have three Bible studies every week. The Morales and Silvestre families are studying Evangelism. With Maribel and her family we are studying the Gospel of John. The youth group girls continue to meet faithfully, we have changed their meetings to every other Saturday evening. Please pray that God will add members to this group. At Kids’ club we have been working our way through the Bible book by book. The kids have been working on learning the books of the Bible in order. We have few kids but they continue to invite their friends, we average about 5-8 kids each week. Please pray for these kids and their salvation. The ladies at church have enjoyed that last two meetings. In June Rosa taught how to weave a basket and in July my mother in law brought supplies to embroider tea towels. Each month my wife has more ladies attend, it is a great time for them to fellowship and be encouraged in the word. One Sunday this summer Israel Millan came and preached at church. He and his wife have a Christian school in Tequisquiapan. Israel use to help us with music classes. I have had the blessing to serve in two camps this summer. July 8-12 I served with Rosa, a member from our church, in the kitchen at young adult camp at Word of Life. We cooked for 600 people that week. July 22-27 a group of 12 from our church went to camp. Thank you all for praying and supporting us that week. It was a week of blessings. I had a great team of workers in the dish room. Everyday I gave a break out session about “Don’t get caught in the web!” Encouraging the youth to not spend so much time on the internet and challenging them to think about what they do, see and hear on the internet. Boaz had a great week in the kids’ camp area with new friends, crafts and puppets. Also this summer at church my wife and I presented Ana Jean to our church family and committed to be Godly parents and raise her to know and serve the Lord. This is a commitment we don’t take lightly and ask you to please pray for us as we seek to raise our children to love Christ. Prayer requests: Spiritual growth and number of people at church in San Nicolas. That God would bless us with a team of people to help us reach more towns. For the Green Card of Jorge, to be able to visit all of you soon! The health and salvation of my parents, Carmen and Antonio. They are having health issues and live in a different state, it is hard to be far away at times like this. Pray for us too in knowing how to best handle this situation. For our relationship with God. That Boaz and Ana will know Him as Savior too. For all the plans we have this year, that God will use each event to build His Kingdom. Our financial support. Praise the Lord that more support has come in. Pray that more will join in supporting us. Pray for our car. We fixed the car as we said in the last pray letter. But it has broken down again and it has not worked for a month now. This complicates things for our movement for ministry. August 6-10 we are having VBS. Pray for the kids and their families. Thank you! Blessings in Christ, Jorge, Alicia, Boaz and Ana jramirez@fim.org awhitmore@fim.org

Camp update

“Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. 1 Timothy 4:12 Ramírez Family Serving the Lord in San Nicolas, Tequisquiapan, Queretaro, Mexico CAMP!! We are at camp this week. We arrived Monday afternoon. Our church has 11 people here. My wife and I with our two kids, Rosa and her two teen aged daughters, 3 youth from San Nicolas and my in laws. My wife and I are serving with my father in law in the dish room, Rosa is cooking all the meals with the kitchen team, the 5 youth are campers and my mother in law is helping us with Boaz and Ana as well as doing crafts for the kids’ camp. PRAY for the youth, there are still 15-18 campers that have not accepted the Lord as Savior. Praise the Lord that 12 campers accepted the Lord as Savior this week. Tonight is a special night for the campers. There will be a bon fire. At the bon fire the youth are encouraged to make a decision for the Lord. Those that are already believers make decisions in their growth. Thank you for joining us in prayer. I have been giving a break out talk daily. “Don’t get caught in the web”, I have been challenging the students to think about their time and what they see on the internet. THANK YOU! We reached our goal for camp!! Thank you for being a part of getting us to camp and allowing these youth to grow closer to Christ this week. Thank you!! Blessings, Jorge, Alicia, Boaz and Ana jramirez@fim.org awhitmore@fim.org

May news

“For the joy of the Lord is your strength” Nehemiah 8:10b Ramírez Family Serving the Lord in San Nicolas, Tequisquiapan, Queretaro, Mexico A lot has been happening here the past month. Here is an update in photos! Enjoy! Kids’ club has been going great! In June my wife will start a series of lessons on an overview of the Bible, this will go along with what I have been preaching on Sundays. Just like the kids, the youth group girls continue to meet faithfully. I prayed for Abdy, a young lady from our church, who went to another state for a 4 month internship this summer. Praying she will be a light there. A normal Sunday evening church service. The kids all took a flower home to their mom’s. The flowers were donated by Uncle David, we will share more about his visit below. Happy Mother’s day! Ana and Uncle David. He is the kids’ great great uncle. Boaz and Tío David. He was so excited to see Uncle David again. Uncle David came and spent 10 days with us in May. He brought us close to 50 Bibles in Spanish. He also helped me with some work at the church. Gabriel and David helping make the church more secure. Finished project! This will add safely to the church building and allow us to play games outside with the kids. Fixing the plumbing at church too. This month at women’s group they had a great time “clowning around”. Arely lead fun activities about laughter and talked about the importance of laughter in your lives. My wife then lead a bible study about the joy of the Lord. They shared cookies and ice coffees and fellowship to end the night. May 16th, 2021 my wife and I, by the grace of God, started Sunday night church services in San Nicolas. There were just three of us then. God is good and we are excited to see what He is doing in San Nicolas. On May 26, 2024 we celebrated our 3 year anniversary of church services. We met in the morning and after the service we had a time of fellowship with lunch. Praise the Lord for these 3 years of His faithfulness. Prayer requests: Spiritual growth and number of people at church in San Nicolas. That God would bless us with a team of people to help us reach more towns. For the Green Card of Jorge, to be able to visit all of you soon! The health and salvation of my parents, Carmen and Antonio. This week and the next we will be in Guadalajara visiting my parents. It will be a great time to see family and for them to meet Ana. Thank you for your prayers. For our relationship with God. That Boaz and Ana will know Him as Savior too. For all the plans we have this year, that God will use each event to build His Kingdom. Our financial support. Praise the Lord that more support has come in. Pray that more will join in supporting us. Praise for our car. Our car is back up and working! This makes things in ministry and life much easier. Thank you for your prayers. Camp support. We thank you so much for supporting our summer camp trip. We have gotten a few offerings this past month. If you would like to help please specify in your donation that it is for camp. Contact my wife for more questions. Thank you!! Blessings, Jorge, Alicia, Boaz and Ana jramirez@fim.org awhitmore@fim.org

Spring update

The Ramírez family Serving the Lord in San Nicolas, Tequisquiapan, Mexico Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. Ephesians 6:11 In March a group of students from Word of Life came and did ministry with us over the weekend. It is always a huge blessings to have these extra hands to help us reach more people in San Nicolas. They helped us with a medical brigade, kids’ club, a special youth group meeting, evangelism at the farmer’s market and the Sunday night service. Holy week and the week after Easter are vacation days for the kids. We did a VBS for them during Holy week this year. We studied the Armor of God from Ephesians 6. Each day I taught about a piece of the armor and the kids made a piece as part of their craft. They also enjoyed singing a song about the armor of God. By the end of the week they had learned the majority of Ephesians 6 as well. Our church family spent a day together during Holy week at a hot water springs pool. Days like these really help church members get to know each other better and make memories. Kids’ club is going well. The kids are faithful and few. We are currently learning about the main people in the Old Testament. Please pray for these kids and their families. The youth group girls have been busy the last few months. The second week of Easter vacation 4 young girls from church spent a week at Word of Life to see what the school is like. They all enjoyed the week there and one is seriously thinking about attending when she graduates from High school. Each month the church in Tequisquiapan invites our girls to a special all girls event. The month of April was a picnic theme and painting event. A missionary from Word of Life shared her testimony and the Bible study was about waiting for a Godly husband. The girls really enjoy these events and connecting with other Christians their age. Women’s ministry has been going well. There have been several visitors and have a group from church that is constant. The crafts they have done are key chains, painting and molding clay. They look forward to this Saturday every month. I have been preaching an over view of the Bible going through book by book. This week will be 2nd Samuel. I also have enjoyed inviting friends to help with preaching. The most recent was a missionary from Word of Life, David Hidalgo. Prayer requests: Spiritual growth and number of people at church in San Nicolas. That God would bless us with a team of people to help us reach more towns. For the Green Card of Jorge, to be able to visit all of you soon! The health and salvation of my parents, Carmen and Antonio. They are having health issues and live in a different state, it is hard to be far away at times like this. Pray for us too in knowing how to best handle this situation. For our relationship with God. That Boaz and Ana will know His as Savior too. For all the plans we have this year, that God will use each event to build His Kingdom. Our financial support. Praise the Lord that more support has come in. Pray that more will join in supporting us. Pray for our car. This week our larger car broke down. Pray that it will be fixed soon. It makes the weekend harder for us to only have one car. Thank you! Blessings, Jorge, Alicia, Boaz and Ana jramirez@fim.org awhitmore@fim.org

Christmas and New Year ministry

“I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord sustained me.” Psalm 3:5 Ramírez Family Serving the Lord in San Nicolas, Tequisquiapan, Queretaro, Mexico December was filled with many ministry opportunities and sharing time celebrating the birth of the Savior. We made cookies with Rosa and her daughters one day at our house. It was a fun day with Rosa’s family. Even Boaz got in on the decorating, I think he ate more m&m’s than he used to decorate with. It is a family tradition to bring plates of Christmas goodies to friends during the Holiday season. Our kids’ club kids and youth practiced and performed the annual Christmas program this December. They presented the Christmas story from the Bible at our end of the year service. We had several visitors that heard the Gospel preached. Joaquin Cortes came from Word of Life to share the Gospel. We played games to start off the evening. Dinner was shared together as we celebrated the birth of Christ. If you look closely you can see the chairs we got with the offering for the first time this night. We also have gotten some new sound equipment too! Remember that they stole our sound equipment? We were able to buy some with the offerings we received. Thank you for helping. During the last two weeks of December we took some time to be a family of three. We celebrated Christmas at home and New Year’s eve too. It was a great time of rest and relaxation. Also during this time we visited the Mendez family and their ministry in Bernal. They have a Friday evening bible study in their home with several families that attend. I was asked to share and encourage these families to be faithful in the new year. It was a fun night of games, supper and fellowship. In January we welcomed our newest little blessing. Ana Jean joined our family on January 3 at 8am. She and mommy are doing great. Big brother loves her and is always asking where she is. Both Ana and Jean mean grace, my wife says she is our double portion of grace. In Spanish Ana is Samuel’s mom’s name and the name of the woman who sees Jesus in the temple. Both women are prayer warriors, something we pray Ana becomes as she grows up. Jean is a family name on my wife’s side. We can not be more in love with this little girl. January also got all the church activities off to a great start. The kids continue to be faithful in coming to Olympicos and memorizing their verses. One little boy who comes faithfully with his siblings learned the verse for the first time this last week! Praise the Lord. My in laws come for a month to help us after Ana was born. My mother in law helped us with crafts for the Sunday school and also did a craft at women’s group. Thank you to those that helped with this craft; sent the craft, sent extra supplies and came and helped us. This group really is a blessing for the women. Rosa and her daughters have really enjoyed coming up with crafts and teaching them to the others. Sunday evening services are growing. We have faithful attendance. Praise the Lord for the new chairs. We had to add more rows a few weeks ago to accommodate everyone. Carlos Mendez and his family have been attending Sunday evenings and he is helping Jorge with preaching occasionally. I continue to preach at the church in Tequis every two to three months. February was the more recent time I preached there. My family was not able to join me in person but they watched me on TV. Boaz was confused why dada didn’t respond to when he talked to him. Please be in prayer for Boaz. The week of Valentine’s day my wife noticed that he was having pain and swelling, Boaz has a high pain tolerance. We took him to the doctor to be seen thinking it was an infection. It ended up being more than that and needing emergency surgery. They operated that same night, he spent the night at the hospital and came home the next day. Everything came out fine and he is healing well. Praise the Lord for our church family here and the doctors that took care of Boaz. The youth group girls have been inviting their friends to youth group. This Saturday we are going to have youth group at their home. We are trying a different strategy to reach their friends and show them that church doesn’t have to be boring. Please pray for this event and the salvation of these young people. This is a picture of the three youth; Nidia, Abril and Cori. Prayer requests: This THURSDAY February 29 we have a medical brigade at our church. This is a free clinic for the town. Please join us in praying for the town and that many will come to Salvation. This SATURDAY March 2, the youth group event in the home of the youth group girls. Salvation of the invited youth. Spiritual growth and number of people at church in San Nicolas. That God would bless us with a team of people to help us reach more towns. For the Green Card of Jorge, to be able to visit all of you soon! The health and salvation of my parents, Carmen and Antonio. They are having health issues and live in a different state, it is hard to be far away at times like this. Pray for us too in knowing how to best handle this situation. For our relationship with God. That Boaz and Ana will know His as Savior too. For all the plans we have this year, that God will use each event to build His Kingdom. Our financial support. Praise the Lord that more support has come in. Pray that more will join in supporting us. Thank you!! Blessings, Jorge, Alicia, Boaz and Ana jramirez@fim.org awhitmore@fim.org