28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30
28 Luego dijo Jesús: «Vengan a mí todos los que están cansados y llevan cargas pesadas, y yo les daré descanso. 29 Pónganse mi yugo. Déjenme enseñarles, porque yo soy humilde y tierno de corazón, y encontrarán descanso para el alma. 30 Pues mi yugo es fácil de llevar y la carga que les doy es liviana».
Mateo 11:28-30
This past week we celebrate and thank the Lord for sustaining us a year on assignment. The open arms of Christ, pictured above, is Him welcoming us. Jesus welcomed familia Martinez in many ways this season of our lives. 1) He has welcomed us into his family and adopted us as His children with the promise of the riches of His glorious inheritance. 2) He is also welcoming us to His peace as we get tossed about the uncertainties, trials, challenges and stress of this world. I don’t know how we would’ve humanly taken on this much change without His love, grace, peace, mercy and willingness to give us rest. 3) He also continues to welcome us to His great commission. We are all commissioned to make disciples of all nations and to be His witness in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth. We not only get to be a part of His work but He promises that He will always be with us to the very end of the age! 4) Lastly, He continues to welcome us to Latin America! We are called and reaffirmed on the journey the Lord has for us, as we pursue serving alongside Latinos committed to making Christ name known throughout the earth.
While this ride has been a roller coaster of extreme heights and abyssal lows and constantly challenges us to grow in our faith, we walk forward wearing the boots of peace with the confidence that His will for us is good, acceptable and perfect.
A very common occurance for us is cramming our entire team into an elevator. We can do this for now, but as our team grows, we will need to consider taking two. This evening we celebrated our 1 year anniversery with a dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse, ice cream and a movie at the Flynns.
A brief synopsis of year 1
Our first eight months in Lima we spent our time assimilating and getting familiar with our new settings to include; country, culture, language, community, ministry roles, church, family dynamic, online school, etc. Jen and I were hoping to get to spend another year with Alyssa after her high school graduation but her desire was to return to Austin. After our eight months abroad we traveled to Lynchburg, Virginia for Alyssa’s graduation with other Liberty University Online Academy seniors. We celebrated her high school graduation by spending a few days in Washington DC and NY. From NY we sent Alyssa and Elijah ahead of us to Austin, while Jen and I proceeded onward to Southeast Asia for field staff training with the CMM.
Field Staff Training in SE Asia
The training took place over the course of two weeks, at the end of May through mid-June. It was an invaluable learning experience for the work of mobilization and meeting our new co-laborers who will be assigned on location throughout the globe.
There were three major goals for the training:
1) We would all fall deeper in love with Jesus
2) We would be better equipped and prepared to do this work of mobilization
3) We would grow in unity as co-laborers but more importantly as the body of Christ
These goals were accomplished as we heard from senior staff and leadership from all over the world on how to steward the vision God has given us for frontier mobilization. We participated in over a dozen training modules, ranging from “How to Spark a Movement” to “Measuring & Reporting” to “Planning your Work Week.” We also spent time worshiping & praying together and participated in culture-learning exercises like prayerful observation and interviewing locals.
The two studies we spent much time going through, Xplore and Go Mobilize ,are pictured below:
Southeast Asia in photos:
Photo descriptions from top left, clockwise; 1) Manny sharing one of the many tools to explain the strategy behind frontier mobilization 2) Jenny and Megan learning the culture 3) Sharing a street food meal with future Lima field team members 4) Dinner with the gang
This short trip and training challenged our core. Spiritual warfare coupled with our heightened levels of stress surfaced fears and anxieties we had not felt this strong in years. Our field training was over and it was time for us to travel to Austin, Texas.
A Texas tornado within
Our goal in returning to Texas was to raise the financial support needed to enroll Elijah in the International Christian School of Lima. Praise Jesus, He provided within two weeks of arrival in Austin! We were encouraged by the hearts of the many committed senders within our faith community in Austin.
Our visit in Austin was packed with much-needed support, encouragement and wise counsel. We honestly had no idea of the heightened levels of stress we were operating in and it took some of our closest colleagues to identify areas we needed refinement in. We are eternally grateful for those who took the time to pour into us so that we could relaunch to Lima in a much healthier spiritual, mental and emotional state.
A fitting study for Jen and I during this time has been Priscilla Shirer’s, The Armor of God. While this study is designed for women, I really enjoyed it and would encourage anybody to work through this.
While the enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy, Jesus came so that we may have life and have it abundantly! That’s His promise and I’m sticking to it.
Lima 2.0
We returned to Lima encouraged and just in time to get Elijah off to school and Jen and I back into language school. While we hit the ground running, Jen and I returned with some clear objectives; 1) Deepen our relationship with our Lord, 2) Strengthen and deepen our relationship with one another, 3) Find a church home and community of believers to do life with 4) Collaborate with our team to develop and make clear our vision and goals for the mobilization work we will be doing from Lima. Many of these objectives are ongoing; however, we are hopeful and already seeing the fruit from our prayers and your prayers
We have committed to a small church called Centro de Fuego, Center of Fire. We have had the opportunity to get to know the pastor and his wife and immediately felt welcomed by them. We continue to learn how we can serve the local church considering our minimal proficiency in the Spanish language while serving as a catalyst to mobilization beyond the borders of Peru.
Our Spanish is improving rapidly and we are feeling much more confident and comfortable going about the city doing everyday tasks. This week we complete our basic conversational level courses and promote into intermediate which covers grammatical structures of greater complexity and a broader vocabulary.
In our world of mobilization we praise Jesus for the work He is doing through our leaders, Dave and Liz. We are also grateful to serve alongside our newest teammate from Arkansas, since May 2018, Sussi Servant. A true servant! We continue to encourage and support our local teammate, Yussei, as she raises support in order for her to become the first local Peruvian to serve with the CMM in Lima.
With the Flynn’s help, we have completed the first ever Support Raising Solutions boot camp in Spanish in Edinburgh, Texas. This is super exciting considering the counterculture pressure in Latin America to raising support for Kingdom work. Latin America has a different history when it comes to their religious, spiritual backgrounds and do not share in the same ideals as we do in the United States. This is neither good or bad, it’s just different. Our role will not only be to mobilize goers but also to mobilize senders. We strive to communicate how the Lords provision is abundant and sufficient and how He calls us to be a blessing as He blesses us. The Spanish Support Raising Solutions materials and future boot camps will help us communicate this message.
On October 31st, I will be traveling to Mexico City for a mobilization summit, where I will meet and network with other mobilizers from Mexico. This will be a tremendous opportunity to partner with other Latino’s who are participating in the great commission by mobilizing to the unreached people of the earth. I am humbled that the Lord would allow me to be a part of this.
Familia Martinez Homefront
Jen and I continue persevering through language school with high expectations. We also are being intentional with meeting new folks and continuing with relationships we started when we first moved here. We are starting to feel much more settled in with a greater capacity to spend time with others.
Elijah is fully immersed in his international school and is already one of the top ten most popular kids in his class of ten! He is enjoying the new challenge but mostly enjoying the social interaction he gets to have with kids his own age from all over the globe. He misses his soccer for now, but gets his fix every now and then with kids from his school.
Oh, how we miss our Alyssa! Alyssa continues to reintegrate at home in Austin, Texas. She has found a job, gotten a vehicle and license all within a month of returning home this past summer. She has decided to take the semester off from school to get settled in and is in the process of exploring her school options. We are grateful for our brother and sister, Jose and Sherrie for housing our baby girl.
Photo descriptions from top left, clockwise; 1) Alyssa’s high school graduation in the rain in Lynchburg, VA 2) Alyssa and Elijah visiting with cousins Zach and Josh in Austin 3) Welcoming our dear friends baby Dean into this world 4) Our new way to communicate with Alyssa 5) Alyssa pondering life in NY 6) Mom and Alyssa taking in our nations capital
Praise
- Safety in travels around the globe
- Invaluable field staff training in SE Asia
- Funds provided for Elijah’s schooling
- Alyssa getting settled in to her new life in Austin
- New outlook and level of readiness for our ministry in Lima
- Improvement in language learning and cultural assimilation
- Visa applications have been submitted
- New home church with opportunities for mobilization
- First ever Spanish Support Raising Solutions boot camp and future Spanish boot camps on the horizon
- Momentum in mobilization from Latin America and greater depth in partnerships with local ministries and churches
Prayer request
- Greater depth in our relationship with the Lord
- Strong marriage that shines bright as an example of Christ and the Church
- Approval of our Visa applications so that we have a long term working solution to ministry in Lima
- Meaningful and deep relationships with fellow believers as we seek to multiply as disciple makers and mobilizers
- Boldness to share the truth of Christ to those who have left the Church or believe in false gods
- Continued momentum in support raising and pre-field training with our prospective teammates in Lima, Costa Rica and U.S.
- Abundance of opportunities to serve alongside our ministry partners in Latin America to create a mission movement, never before seen, from this part of the world to people who have little to no access to the Gospel. We are so ready!
¡Hasta ahora! Ir en paz.
Familia Martinez
Familia Martinez Ministry 