I hope you enjoyed a Christ-centered Christmas and that 2020 has begun well and will be full of the Lord’s blessings for each of you! I did sit down on several occasions in December to write a prayer letter, but the server was down for an extended period of time. So, as usual, a lot has happened since I last wrote.
The Ladies’ Group had a fun Christmas celebration. Back in May, I spoke at the spring meeting of the ladies’ group of a supporting church and their activity was making earrings and decoupaging notebooks to send as gifts to the ladies of El Faro. They wrote a message in each notebook and sent them to me individually wrapped. I translated the messages but wouldn’t know which gift it went with until they were opened. The supporting church ladies and I were praying that God would match the gift to the recipient and it was fun to see how He answered our prayers. I laid all the books out and the ladies came up one at a time to select a gift. The only catch was that the pastor’s wife wrote a note specific to the pastor’s wife here, Betty, and I had no idea which gift it was. Once the gifts were opened, I asked who had the message from the pastor’s wife. It was Betty! Another lady opened her gift and it was pointed out to her that the word “Grace” on her notebook is her name in English. Several of the ladies spontaneously told me that the message in their notebook spoke specifically to a need in their life. I opened the last gift and later was shocked to see that the uncommon colours used for the earrings perfectly match a sweater I use here. It was a neat lesson to show how God is concerned about even the minute details of our lives. (Matthew 6:25-34)
I was asked to coordinate the Christmas program for church a few weeks before the event. Fortunately, they had the list of participants, so I just verified that they would all be ready, ordered the participations, and assured that the church would be decorated. That makes it sound easy!
Before the end of the year, I had my new assignment. Thanks for praying about that and please uphold me in prayer in each of the areas. The totally new role is that I am now the liaison between TEAM and the El Faro church. This has meant a myriad of meetings, phone calls, and reports. I am teaching at the Ladies’ meeting Tuesday mornings, but now I’m also working with a group of ladies on Wednesdays to prepare them to teach. Last week was our first meeting and there was lots of enthusiasm. 
The pastor asked me to lead the cohort training for implementing the PD strategy on Tuesday evenings. We’re working on the homework/implementation from the first unit and should start the next unit soon. Those preparations involve a lot of time invested in adapting materials and preparing visuals for the cohort to review and then updating and processing the materials for use in the El Faro church. As liaison, I also attend the Leaders’ Meetings Thursday evenings. I don’t have to prepare for that meeting, but most of my time is invested in preparing for the other meetings as those are my major responsibilities. When a team comes together, I’ll train them to resume the audio ministry, but that and other activities are for some point in the future. As I asked before, please pray for wisdom, insight, vision, sensitivity, grace and patience as we work through issues and plan for the future of El Faro.
Earlier this month we held our TEAM Mexico Annual Conference in Loreto, about four hours north of La Paz (where I saw this fall male Lazuli Bunting). 
It’s great for all of us from the Baja and the mainland to be together for fellowship, for spiritual refreshment/challenge, and to plan for the future of our growing field. Some upcoming events I’m looking forward to are: this week the church’s founding missionary, Martin González, will be visiting and next month we’ll be receiving a short-term team from Crossroads Bible Church. In conjunction with that team, Belkis will be leading another interactive workshop and I’m in a support role. Please pray for the Lord to manifest Himself in all our activities.
Grateful for your prayers and encouragement,
Brenda
