Home Again, Again,..

Maria is back living at Una Esperanza

I just returned from my first solo trip to Una Esperanza in well over a year and it was not quite the same without Lesli and Noah (or Dina) along. Our finances are at an all time low right now so I made this trip alone to save money. Please pray for us and for Gods provision as the financial resources required to sustain the Una Esperanza ministry center have been steadily growing as we minister to even more children each week!

The Una Esperanza store nears completion and the proceeds will help to financially sustain the ministry center.

Maria returned to Una Esperanza last week so I flew out to help her get settled in and I also brought her some new clothing and other essential items. She has grown quite a bit since we last saw her in August and she’s very happy to be living back at Una Esperanza. We’ve been told that Mariquita will be back in three months as well so please keep this in your prayers.

I’m happy to share that the war with the Indians over the Mariquita rescue seems to have ended peacefully. All of our regular Tarahumara children are back at the center and we even have quite a few new kids. The place is crawling with kids each day and most often filled to capacity! The children are really responding to the daily Bible lessons and we're seeing glimpses of the spiritual breakthrough that we’ve been praying for. Our staff is really focused and excited about this new year and there’s an excitement in the air about “making much about Jesus”.


I’ve posted a new photo gallery from this trip on the website.

Mariquita and Maria Update:

Maria is back at Una Esperanza!
Maria returned to Una Esperanza this past weekend and I will be flying out to welcome her back tomorrow afternoon. Her sister Mariquita who we rescued last July after she was abducted from Una Esperanza is currently living with her mother on a ranch south of Juarez and is doing fine. We’re still fervently praying for Mariquita’s quick and safe return to Una Esperanza and we’re praising God for Maria being back with us! This is indeed an awesome answer to prayer! Please continue to pray for the safe return of Mariquita.



I’ve posted a new video from our last trip on our homepage.

God Knows My Name

Friday afternoon we had a great time at Una Esperanza. In the morning before the feeding, Patsy and I had the children help with painting and decorating poster boards that depicted Creation and what happened on each day, and then late in the afternoon Patsy taught a Bible lesson on Creation and had some of the children present a play about how God created light on Day 1 and that each subsequent day, He created the things that His creations would need, all because He loved them so much and wanted to provide for them.

After we sang a song together with the children, Patsy shared with them that Jesus is the Light, and that He seeks to live in each one of us and wants us to know that He loves us. Several children indicated that they wanted the Light of Christ to live inside them and came up to receive Christ as their Savior. Following this, she had several of our staff members as well as Brad and myself come to the front of the room, and invited the children to come forward and receive a hug from each of us that was a tangible means of them feeling the love of God the Father for them each personally.


As the children came through one by one, I was reminded of a song we sing in church and had played during the lunch feeding -

I am not forgotten, I am not forgotten, I am not forgotten,
God knows my name, He knows my name.

Light over darkness, strength over weakness, joy over sadness,
He knows my name.
Father to the fatherless, Friend to the friendless,
Hope to the hopeless,
He knows my name.

I will praise You, I will praise You
For I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
(I Am Not Forgotten, Israel Houghton, Integrity Music)

Knowing the family situations of most of these children coming into my arms for hugs, I was brought to tears many times, knowing that this was perhaps the first time they had received affection in a long time, if at all in their lives. Boys and girls alike were in tears, feeling loved and not wanting to let go. Even the ones that can tend to cause trouble at times melted into our arms and received the love that was offered. We've been praying for a break-through, and we believe that this was a step in that direction.


This is a photo of me hugging Benito, who is the older brother to Maria and Mariquita. Benito recently returned to Kilometer 33 after being taken away several months ago. Right now he's on his own, staying at a friend's house, but we know that he's going hungry and the biting cold is taking its toll on everyone right now. It was both heartbreaking and encouraging to hold him and tell Him that God loves him and so do I, and that God knows his name and has not forgotten Him. I told him that because he has no earthly father, God is His father and he is a special son in God's sight. He is just one story out of so many more. Benito told us that Maria and Mariquita should be returning to Kilometer 33 in two weeks, so we ask for your prayers in this matter, that God would indeed bring them back to Una Esperanza.


As each of these precious children came through and was held in our arms for just a moment, it was a reminder to us that God does indeed know each of their names - Maribel, Manuel, Aaron, Carolina, Adelita, Josue, Perla, Rojo, Juanita, Denise, Lucy, Benito - He knows their names and their situations, and He has not forgotten about them. He loves them and has given His Son to ransom them, and that is the message that we must continue to share with them, loving them on a daily basis and taking every opportunity to tell them that Jesus is the hope for their future.

Greetings from Una Esperanza

We’ve been enjoying our stay at Una Esperanza and the place is crazy as ever with kids everywhere! Things are going great but as usual, we’ve had our share of issues. For starters, someone broke into our Una Esperanza store last night which is under construction, and they stole the doors right off the building.









They also took the material we had just purchased to finish stuccoing the building along with a bunch of tools for the construction work. We posted a wanted poster on the building and we’re hopeful that someone in the neighborhood will turn the thief in so we can recover these items.









Students In Free Interprise (SIFE) from Texas State University is funding this store and it has taken us months to get this project near completion and we really don’t need any further delays. Please join us in prayer that we would recover the stolen items so that this store can open on schedule next month.









More to come…

A Call To Battle

The rugged but beautiful area of Copper Canyon Mexico


Each New Year I find myself reflecting back over the previous year of ministry. Doing so really seems to help in identifying the strengths of the ministry and at the same time often shines light on the areas of weakness. It also reminds me to give thanks to God for all that He’s done in our lives. Thanks for the good times and even the tough times knowing that God uses both to bring us into a deeper knowledge if Him. I also like to use this time of reflection to reaffirm our commitment to giving God 100% in all that we do.

We established the Una Esperanza ministry center in 2004 and we often compared it to a newborn baby with great potential but like any baby, we knew that this baby would require some nurturing before it could walk on its own. By January of 2007 this baby was well on its way towards this goal. We had a new church, an eager new staff, and the ministry center was most often teaming with children of all ages from toddlers to teens. The ministry center was healthy and growing.

In July of 2007, Mariquita, a six-year-old Tarahumara Indian girl and regular at Una Esperanza was abducted from Kilometer 33 and taken to a remote ranch in the Copper Canyon area of Mexico. Mariquita is just like our very own daughter so when we heard the news, we organized a rescue team and set out to find her. We knew that in doing so we would probably be starting a war between the Tarahumara and us because they do not like outsiders getting involved in any of their affairs. We were successful in the rescue but a war with the Tarahumara did indeed follow. It’s taken months to finally bring peace to the situation and while things are calm for now, our relationships with the Tarahumara have been strained to say the least.

Most of the Tarahumara of Copper Canyon live in primitive conditions often living in caves or mud homes.

The enemy has held the Tarahumara captive for generations and our goal has been to break the stronghold that Satan has on these people and bring them to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Before the rescue, many of the Tarahumara (children and adults) attended our church and regularly hung out at the ministry center. Most of the children and several of the adults even made commitments to Christ. Ever since the rescue, many of the Tarahumara children and most of the Tarahumara adults have been absent from the daily programs at Una Esperanza. We believe that by venturing into the remote mountains of Copper Canyon to rescue Mariquita, we awoke a demonic giant that has held the Tarahumara captive for hundreds of years and he is not willing to give them up without a fight.


Dina with her new Tarahumara friends in Creel, Mexico


We know that Gods LOVE for the Tarahumara is greater than this demonic giant and that Gods desire is for the Tarahumara of Kilometer 33 and the Tarahumara of Copper Canyon to come to Him. This year we hope to establish our second Una Esperanza ministry center, Una Esperanza-Creel in the heart of Tarahumara Indian country in the Copper Canyon area. We also know that by doing this we will be venturing into another area of darkness held captive by the enemy and we fully anticipate another battle on our hands. We also know that God will go before us and through His strength, we will be victorious!

Please join us in prayer that God would restore the relationships with the Tarahumara Indians of Kilometer 33 and that He would go before us to prepare the way for the Una Esperanza-Creel ministry center.