("God bless you!")

Thank you so much for your prayers for our team as we ministered in Tijuana, Mexico. While the enemy fought hard to stop us from fulfilling our mission, our Lord prevailed! What an amazing time!

Our schedule was full, as we preached the Sunday service and prayed for those in need at the Templo de Alabanza in Colonia El Nino; worked with the babies at Casa Hogar Sion, a colonia orphanage, on Monday; helped pour one foundation and prepared another for new houses to be built later this month at Colonia El Nino on Tuesday; served lunch to 130 children at the Comedor del Templo Sion on a hillside barrio filled with dirt streets and one-room cardboard shacks on Wednesday before preaching and praying at another colonia church that evening; took supplies to a mountainside orphanage en route to Ensenada, where we preached and prayed for those in need at the Thursday evening service of a local church; met and prayed for the neighbors around our mission base on Friday morning, celebrated February's birthdays with the children at the orphanage in the afternoon and then preached and prayed at the Templo de Alabanza in Colonia El Nino in the evening to round out our week. Whew!

We were thrilled to have several people come forward in our services to dedicate their lives to Christ, as well as one of our team members coming to the realization that (a) she didn't have a personal relationship with Christ and (b) she didn't have to get her life straight before she could. After one of our morning devotions, she asked Jesus to come into her life and her newfound freedom was clear on her face. The theme for the remainder of our trip became "Soy libre!" - which she proclaimed as she shared her testimony that night at church.

With our inaugural trip behind us, we're already planning our next mission trip. We were so thrilled with what the Lord did - both in us and through us - that we can't wait to go back and continue the work to which He called us.

One of those works will be initiating a ministry with a local rehabilitation mission (similar to the Bethel Mission in Des Moines) which God brought across our paths as some of our men were scouting out the land. In addition, we're hoping to add some prison ministry to our outreaches in the future. Another ministry we're feeling called to is music and drama in the parks, streets and colonias of the city.

Would you like to be a part of one of these short-term mission trips? Just let us know! Our goal is to schedule two to three teams each year to build on and expand the ministries of Spirit Midwest. There's room for you!