My friends and Family.....

So I would like to start a series of "Introducing you to my friends" These will be people whom I am living with day to day and living life with daily...

I want to do this so I can share more of what is happening daily in my life and the kind of friends and people I have the honour of knowing and sharing life with, I hope their stories inspire you and that you will feel more like you know my friends too....

So first I would like to introduce you to my friend Cinthya!! I have known Cinthya since 2014, we have become friends over the time, been room mates, staffed Schools together, done ministry, had fun and been on many adventures together.....

I am thankful to have Cinthya in my life, we are very different to each other which can be very funny, but we love and respect this difference and allow it to makes us both better people, we are a good team!
Cinthya is a loyal and fun friend to be doing life with...... I know she will be going on to do great things and impact many lives around the nations, she loves to mobilise and empower others to go out and run with the dreams that God has given them.....

Hi! My name is Cinthya and I am from Mexico City, This is how is started in Missions.... 

I gave my life to Christ in 1996, about a year after that i went to a OM conference with Operation Mobilization, that conference was about the People in India, in those 3 days of the conference my heart was broken for this people and they country. Since that year i took part in the mission trip yearly with my church, we went to the villages in the South of Mexico sharing the gospel to the people in them places. 

In 2005 God called me to a missionary school which focused on the 10/40 window (unreached people of the world) so i was trained for 9 months, spending 3 of theses in a faraway village here in Oaxaca, living amongst the locals! 

In 2011 after serving full time in my church God called me to YWAM as the place where he would send me from into India, because since the conference God has been confirming in my heart about my call to India! 

So I moved to Ensenada to do my DTS and to be part of the YWAM organisation, i am now staff and have ben for a number of years, staffing different ministries such as Hospitality, Homes of Hope, Youth Street Ministry and working in the DTS Schools. 

It has been a long journey, more than 10years in missions but this is just starting with Jesus and i share his love wherever i go! Also in the last year or so God has been taking me and opening doors for us into India!! 

May God bless you and thank you for dealing my story!! 

A Little Shop of Delight

You know them moments when you just want to walk into a shop and feel like you can relax and feel peaceful about looking around and seeing all the fun little things that it has in store?

Well my cousins new little shop fits the bill!!

It is beautiful, its spacious and bright, it has so many fun, cute little gifts you could buy for others and always you can buy one to treat yourself too!!

It is a shop that is calm and not overwhelming, it's not squidgy and you will not be worried about moving around and hitting things with your bag, it seems to me that it is actually a perfect little gift shop to do shopping, one that is well thought out!!

The other amazing thing about this little shop is that it is run by a very lovely lady named Jill and she just happens to be a very warm, cheery shop owner that loves to welcome you in and talk with you if you like or will let you browse at your own leisure too!



The other great thing about this shop is that it is located in a really lovely town called Ambleside in the Lake District, it's a very nice town where you can sit and enjoy amazing coffee and home made cakes and the incredible scenery that the Lake District offers!!

So this is a shout out to any friends, family or new people that are reading this and are in the UK, if you are going to the Lake District for a holiday or your reading this and live there, then pop along to No 6 The Slack, Ambleside and you will have a lovely time looking around and purchasing some gifts.

So enjoy......... We did!!

We love your shop Jill!

Whats our response?

As this is the hottest topic right now, which it defiantly should be I would like to take a few moments to share what I have been prompted with.

Praying for the Nations!! 

So what is our response to all that we are seeing and reading everyday in the news, with the sad news of the attacks in France, in Nigeria, in Beruitt, I could go on. With the earth quake in Japan, with the floods in Brasil, with the Russian Plan coming down, with the Sex trafficking that is happening daily in basically every country, on our own doorsteps? Whats our response??

Well I know that if this was happening in my town, neighbourhood or street I would want to know that there are people in the world who are thinking in me and praying for me and being willing to come and comfort us and take care of us, build us houses, or make us food, give us clothes

For me the news I have been reading over the weekend has been giving me a wake up call of "what are you doing???" How are you helping, how are you loving others? how am I caring for the world that I am apart of?

Praying for IS

I see so much time and effort put in by people writing statuses on Facebook which is fine i have done too, to share the news and this is good, but we need to put things into action when and where we can too!!

Today in our school we had our Compassion in Action moment, we have one every week and we learn and understand all the things in the world that are important on Gods heart, such as Adoption, Taking care of the poor, the prostitutes, children, and we can go on. But today we looked at our response to the sad state of our world right now, with the terrorist attacks around the world and IS causing devastation and pain and hurt.

So whats our response, well you know what we are called into war, we are called to take a stand; to fight against principalities and powers and to proclaim the truth, to pick up our swords and to fight!!

Knowing God and praying form there!!

So with Ephesians 6 in our hearts and the knowledge of Who our GOD is, the word of God in our hands, we stood on this truth that is so strong, powerful and concrete, we walked into battle and we prayers, intercede, spoke life into darkness, spoke freedom into slavery, spoke hope into hopelessness.

This was our response today, maybe we can do more too and we will keep seeking what we can do, maybe we can send clothes to the refugees, maybe we can send workers for the Red Cross and organisations who are helping, encouraging words or care packages, or we can even go and share our time, maybe there is something on our doorsteps we can help in and be a part of to show love, and to work in the opposite spirit of the evil in the world and we can LOVE......

Whats your response??

An active morning praying for our world!!

A Father's Word's....

Last weekend Homes of Hope built a house for a single father who lost his wife to cancer and now has three children to care for on his won. Here is what he said: “I was struggling with nightmares of looking my children or even my own life and I didn't have much hope left. It was in that dark moment when God showed himself to me in my life and I came to know him.

 I’m so ready to see my children with a better place to live. I’ve done all I can do but when I heard you were coming, I knew that they Lord had heard my cries. 

Thank you so much, as a father of my family I am very grateful for your lives and what you’ve decided to do for us. God Bless you” 

We are blessed to be a part of this ministry here in Tijuana, Mexico!! 

This is something so beautiful that Words cannot even explain! 

Each weekend we are receiving teams who come and build a home for a family that is without!! This weekend 3 more families are receiving a home, how many of us reading this have a home and we don't even think of being without a home, with our children and partner, what would we do? where would we even begin? Where do they get food for that meal time? will they be safe tonight? Can they protect their children? 

There are so many families world wide that face these questions every day. What can we do? We can pray, we can see if there is anything that is happening local to where we live that helps provide food, love, a friendly face, a listening ear, somethings these things we consider small can mean the world to others. 

You can't build a house for these precious families without shedding a tear of Thankfulness to God that we get to be a part of bring His hope here in the World! 

Home  of Hope Ministry is amazing, if you want to know more please click on the link below: 

http://www.ywamsandiegobaja.org/homesofhope

David was excited about his new house!! 

Feeling like a tree....

Ever feel like you are a tree? Ever feel like you have to change, be shaped and grown, like a tree that needs to have its branches pruned and cut so that it gets rid of the stuff that is not good, that is dead in order for the new branches to grow and bloom and make something even greater!!

Well thats what I am doing right now and will be doing for the rest of life, but right now I am asking God daily how can I grow as a leader, how can I be more like him, because if there is one leader I will like to be like it will be Jesus, not the Queen (although I really like her a lot), or Obama or whoever else we look at as leaders.

My Bible School studying Nehemiah 

I have been studying for the last number of weeks the book of Nehemiah in the Bible  and it is about a Man that loves God and has lived through the times of Exile but has clung to God, the truth of who God is and has allowed God to shape him. He went through a time of pruning and change of character, to the point that God used him for something very significant and something very great for the nation of Judah and the people if Israel.

Nehemiah was a cup bearer for the Persian King and He heard that his fathers city was in a bad way, it had been burnt and the walls which in these times were the cities defence were in ruins still and the rebuilding of this city and the temple (where Gods presence was to dwell) was not complete and needed to be, so that the People could have somewhere safe to live and rebuild their city and nationals identity at the same time being renewed in heart and spirit by knowing and living in relationship with their God.

In this book, we can see about 19
different qualities of Nehemiah's leadership that are highly admirable and someone that you would want to follow and be lead by, below I will leave a list you can look at yourself.

But he is a man of integrity, of love and patience, he is a man that is selfless, willing to give up his position in the Persian Kingdom to serve his people, he is a leader that is humble and honest. He is one that brings organisation, unity, truth and peace, he protects his people and he creates a place of safety for them.
My bible school here in Mexico have been studying the truth of this book and asking how they can be changed, grown and pruned to be more like Christ, to love, serve and walk like him daily!!

1. Prayed day and night 1v6

2. Identified with his people 1v6

3. Remembered God’s promises ad trusted them 1v8

4. Patience 2v1

5. Took Risks 2v5

6. With God, Gods favour  2v8

7. Kept appropriate secrets 2v11

8. Sacrificed sleep 2v12

9. Analysed facts 2v13

10. People followed him 2v18

11. Wasn’t intimidated ch4,6

12.Works hard 4v23 

13.thought things through 5v7 

14.Generous 5v14.17

15. Wasn’t distracted 6v3

16:No Fear 6v11 

17. Successful 6v15-16

18.Didn’t compromise  13v8,25

19.HUMBLE/humildad !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Compassion in Action......

What place do you receive over 91 students in a day, representing about 20nations all in one place to study the Bible, God; to be transformed in order to being transformation to their communities? 

It's not a normal occurrence for the schools or colleges I was ever in!!

Well in YWAM its normal ha aha aha 

Across the two bases, Tijuana and Ensenada we have started 4 schools; 2 Discipleship Training Schools with 70 students, Bible school with 17 students and Titus teaching school with 4 students.  So september started off with a buzz in the atmosphere and excitement from students to be in a new place ready to learn, be changed and grow in who they are in God, and learn to live like him. 

Well here in Tijuana I am staffing the compassion in Action DTS and we have 41 students and 3 children, we have one family from Columbia with their 3 children, who literally left and sold up their lives and came to the school wanting to go into missions with their whole family. We have 2 married couples; one from the states and one from Mexico, who again left their home, and sold up their belongings to come and seek the Lord and pursue him!! 

Compassion in Action DTS Tijuana!! 

The rest of the school is singles who are radically, eager daily to run after the Lord seek him and His will for their lives. We have a fun mixture of Latinos, Europeans, and Canada and America!! 

Over this next 3 months they will be learning and being a part of the local ministries here in Tijuana and they will be learning to love the people that get ignored on the streets, or the kids and young people that don't have hope!! 

We will be building homes, teaching after school activities, speaking truth, providing food and most of all bring them a hope and a love!! 

Please be praying for these amazing students that have taken a massive step of Obedience so they can be transformed and they can go out into the nations and serve and love!! 

25th Anniversary......

Last weekend, something amazing happened here in Tijuana, Mexico!!

We Celebrated 25years of the Homes of Hope ministry, building houses for families here in Mexico that are in great need for homes.
This was a small idea about a year ago and last week it came about, we didn't know quite how it would all come together as it seemed impossible to build 25 Homes in one weekend but God is bigger than our thoughts....
So we Celebrated in style....

We are latino at heart so we celebrated with a big party for 3 days!! For 2 days about 400 or more people came form different places, who have been involved in Homes of Hope in the past and we hosted them and we all went out and built 25 Homes for the families and we did this in 2 days!!
Usually a busy weekend build is 8 Houses, but we managed to do 25 houses!!!

This was crazy but so much fun to be a part of this event!!

Knowing that 25 families received homes and that we can celebrate the 5,000 homes that have been built over the last 25years here in Tijuana Mexico!!

Homes of Hope started with one man that was obedient to God and said yes i will build that family a home  they need one, so when Sean went and built this home for a family in need, he took his family to, His daughter was very young and was playing with the local children and saw that they didn't have a home either and said "Daddy can we build this family a home too?" This was the beginning of the last 25years of Homes of Hope that started in 1990!!

God is faithful to one mans obedience, who saw a need and met it!!

We ended our celebration of sunday with 800-1000 gusts come to our home here in Tijuana and celebrate with us, what God has done!! We had children from the local school come and sing, the children fem our ministries come and dance and sing too...

We had music, the nationals anthem, special guests, pastors from all over Tijuana, we had visitors from Hawaii, Costa Rica, you name it everywhere!!

Homes of Hope Tijuana grew so much that we also run Homes of Hope international, so we are growing and building homes in more than 10 other countries too!!

It's amazing what God does when we say "Yes"!!!

So heres to the Next 25 years of Homes of Hope ministry who knows what is next!!