Questions from teens in Acapulco and our answers to them

Here are some questions that were asked by the youth that we took on a weekend retreat in Acapulco. There are some really good questions that we thought you might like to read. Hope they might even answer some of your own questions. Later Amanda

Answers To Your Questions

How do I know I forgave someone that hurt me?
The first way of being able to tell if you forgave someone is if you don't get angry when you see or think of that person. The best way to forgive someone is to pray for them. This helps cleanse you of resentment and bitterness. Remember everyone has sinned and is in need of forgiveness. The bible tells us if we don't forgive then we are not going to be forgiven either(Mark 11:25-26). This is hard because a lot of us have had scrap dished out to us in our lives and we don't feel that we need to forgive, but God says that, vengeance is mine, (Romans 12-19). So to answer your question, if you can pray for that person and not get anger in your heart and be able to pray for blessings for that person then that should do it.

Why do adults judges us instead of help us?
I want to be the first person to tell all of you guys sorry for this one. I know that adults don't understand a lot of your issues that you guys go through. This is not biblical and at anytime we should be able to talk to our elders, but because this don't always happen we need to learn how to rely on the Holy Spirit more. This is also one of those things that you as teens need to start to realize that you are lacking in. If you are all having a hard time with this then you need to start to stand with each other. You need to understand that you are going to be the ones that reach your generation. Why because you understand the problems each other is going through. Also you need to learn patience with your elders. Our generations don't do this any more. It is biblical that we have respect for our elders. Learn to ask your questions when you are not so angry or upset. Control your temper and remember just because they don't always understand you does not mean that they don't love you. They just want whats best for you. It is hard as a parent to let your child grow up. We do understand this because we are parents ourselves. Your parents are also learning how to be parents just like you guys are learning on how to be adults. Just want to let you know though that you always have us to talk. We are good listeners a lot of times. We may not always have the answers for you but we will try the best we can. We are always here for you guys.

How can I be passionate about Jesus without religion and customs?
This is such a great question. The answer is by having a real relationship with Him. If you just want to do the church thing on Sundays or when your parents tell you to you will NEVER have this happen. What do you want from a friend? Do you want someone you can talk to about anything and everything? Someone that will listen to you without judging you? Someone to show you love? Someone that understands you, this is possible if you want it. Jesus will do all these things for you, but to have a good friend that means you have to BE A GOOD FRIEND. If you want to be passionate about Jesus then you need to show Him passion also. I read a great book one time that talked about out heart and how it is Jesus' home. If we put crap into it we will receive crap in return. SPEND TIME WITH HIM, TALK TO HIM, WORSHIP HIM IN EVERYTHING THAT YOU DO. You don't have to be a cheesy Christian to do this, you just need to pray, read and spend time with HIM not only the church. The church is great for learning and fellowship but it will never be the thing that will get you close and personal with God.

How can I be happy when horrible things have happened to me?
Because this is one of the fruits of the spirit that God talks about. I always tell my daughter that if she can try to see the positive things out of life then she will be a happier person. I am not saying to just forget about all the horrible things that happened but you need to first start off with the process of forgiveness. Because if you don't do this then you will always be hurt and unhappy. It is amazing how the cloud of depression will lift if you are willing to forgive. Everyday you need to wake up and say it is going to be a great day and thank God for all the things that you do have. I am not talking about only material things either. I am talking about the health that you have, the breath that you breath, the freedom that you have. These are the things to be thankful for. If you can be thankful for the little things God will trust you with you bigger things. Keep your head up high. I know that our world is a unfair place but know that we have a King that see all our pains and sorrows. He will someday soon take all the pain that is in that world. Till then keep searching for His face and accept the healing power that can come through knowing Him as you Redeemer.

Is religion contagious?
HAHA this is a question I have asked myself at times. Yes I believe it can be, not like a sickness but by a religions spirit. I am going to give the same answer I gave for one of the last questions. If you are only in the church to do the whole church thing than yes you will get infected by this. IT IS A RELATIONSHIP THAT IS WHAT IS IMPORTANT NOT A RELIGION. Be sure that you are not one of those people because you will be one of the worst witnesses for Jesus if your are religious. Do you know the reason more people are not coming to Christ. It is because Christians are not doing our job. If we would get the whole relationship thing down and actually care and love people, then we could be a better example. If your are going to talk the talk of a Christan you better do the walk also. Don't be a transformer and change when you leave the church doors. Because us Christians that are living the life Jesus asked us too don't need any more work to load us down. If you want to change this then you need to look in the mirror and first look at yourself to see if you are the religious hypocrite that you are asking about.

Why did God say he would never kill man again with a flood? Why did the tsunami happen then? Because there is sin in the world and people don't want to admit it. God said he would never destroy the whole world again with a flood but HE never said that storms wouldn't come. This country was also a closed country to the Gospel of the Lord. They didn't even want God's name to be spoken there. If you ask God to leave, He won't leave but He will allow Satan to do what He wants. He gives us the freedom of choice. Remember after this storm happened, this was the first time in years that any body in that country was able to hear about the love of Jesus. Many peoples lives were forever change. Some for the good and some for the bad. The Christians that went to help showed the light of God. People were hungry to hear about the saving grace that so many of us in free countries take for granted. We need to realize though that this life on earth is not what is the most important. We need to remember that there is a eternity and if we are not willing to except God's love now then we will not be able to accept it when our life on this earth is finished. God is love, He does all things for the good of us even if we can't see it in the mist of the storms of life that we go through.

When I receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit and I do something that is wrong, can I loose the gift of the spirit forever?
The answer is no, unless you have blasphemed the Holy Spirit. I first want to ask you if you know you truly were baptized in the spirit. Because if you just were water baptized and can't speak in tongues or if you just don't feel close to God then these are two totally different things. If you were filled with the spirit you would know without a shadow of a doubt that you received it. The thing to think about is if you feel like you are not close to Jesus or are not hearing from Him, then maybe you should look at yourself and see if you have any sin that is blocking that passage way. The Holy Spirit is always there with you and is always willing to speak to you. If you asked for it to enter your life then it is there even if you have made a mistake, but you may have other sins that are speaking louder than the Holy Spirits voice. Be sure to pray to God and ask Him what it might be that is in the way of you hearing from Him. Because He never leaves unless we ask Him to, but remember this is not just with the words that we speak but also with our actions. If we are constantly in sexual sin are we going to be hearing correctly or if you have not forgiven someone then this also can be a action that is pushing the spirit away. Remember though that if you pray to Jesus HE will always answer you. Even if it seems a little quieter than the everyday voices that are around us.

How can I understand my family?
Wow, I don't know if I can answer this one. The only thing that I can say is that people that are in a family are usually very similar to each other in one way or another. First look at yourself and see if you have some of the same flaws that they have and then first work on them in your life. Then you maybe able to understand them more. Remember Mathew 7:5 says that, you need to first remove the plank (piece of wood) from your own eye before you can see clearly enough to pick out the plank in your brothers eye.

How can I know what is correct in my life?
You need to pray and ask God this one. No one on this earth can give you the answer for this except the Holy Spirit.
Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find: knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened (Mathew 7:7-8).

Our time with our family.

The last couple weeks we have had a lot of fun but have not had much time to update what has been going on. My mom (Ross) and Mandy's mom came down from the states and spent some time with us. We were able to take a little time off and do some fun things, but we also were able to use there willing hands to help us out. All in all, we had tons of fun over the last couple weeks. We will be updating our pictures tonight so that you all can see where we went and what we did. We were able to go to Acapulco for a three day vacation and stay in an apartment that was for rent. We spend some time on the beach hanging out and we able to reconnect with some of the teens we ministered with last month. We were also able to see a little bit of Mexico City together. In the mist of this we were able to put our moms to work. As many of you know Sept. 15th is Mexico's independance and it is a long weekend of partying and celebrating. Our church put on a BBQ for 3 or 4 thousand people. Mandy, Linda, Polly, and I were able to spend two day cooking and preparing food. Also we did a lot of setting up tables and chairs, moving cases of pop, husking corn, and other things in preperation. It was a blessing to be able to offer our hands as a blessing for the church in that way. The main person of AINDOC was the also the leader of the people for the BBQ, so we were automatically selected as help for the event. We took some good pictures, and if you go to our flickr account you will be able to see them.
Since that time we have some new things on our plate now for us to do here. Ross has signed up for the missions school and are now attending class. We are still working full time for AINDOC, attending spanish class's, ministering almost full time with people hungry to hear about God, starting an indepth Bible study, working with the youth, working with the young adults and trying to balance our family time in the middle of it.
Please keep us in your prayers as we approach the church this week about expanding the ministry of AINDOC which will require more space and more work. It is not that we are trying to go looking for more things to do, but God is opening doors for us to help more people. We see that the more people we help the more that Jesus name is shown as a God of love and peace, and in return more people cry out to God. This is very exciting to us, and it is the reason that we are alive. I have a little story to tell you that I had a lady tell me. She was living in Mexico City and just going about life as normal. One day she ran into someone that was willing to share about the love of Jesus to her. She had never heard about this before. She was very curious and began asking more questions. The person opened up there heart to her and told her more. After a few meetings she finally accepted Christ as her savior. She then went home and told her husband that she was now a Christian. Her husbands responce was not what I expected. She told me that when she told her husband she was now a Christian, he said to her, "What is a Christian?". I was startled! Think about this, living in Mexico City for somewhere around 50 years and her husband didn't even know what a Christian was. This was not a long time ago either, it was just a couple years ago. This showed me how much work we really have to do here. Constanly we are seeing the importance of AINDOC because we are reaching people like that through this ministry. That is the reason that we are asking for more space and the ability to reach more people.
Thank you all for your prayers and support. Talk again soon. Ross, Mandy, and family.

Just a quick note for tonight.

Hey, we were just going to drop a line tonight to let you know a little bit that is on our hearts. We were working today with the organization called AINDOC and just enjoying our time moving box's up 3 flights of stairs. We received donations for elderly people to help ease the pains of normal life that we in the United States don't even think of.
While we understand the importance of the work that we are doing we are not always the one's that get to see the fruit of what we are doing. Especially now, we are working so much behind the scenes that we do not get to get out and see the people that God has given us the love for. At times it is difficult, and other times it is extremely rewarding. Today was one of the days that started out difficult, but as the day went on God graciously showed us how important this time here is. As were were moving the box's we walked into an area that we now work in. When we entered the building we noticed that there were 4 people standing in a circle, in a corner, praying together. At first we didnt think anything about this, because it is fairly common. Then we noticed that we didn't recognise all the people. While we were just there moving things around, cleaning, and packing, we were able to find out what the people came there for. It was a couple that was needing help buying school suplies for their children. THis is something that we understand. Jesus literly handed the money over to us this year also for our daughters school supplies. It was so great to see God working and showing His love to others. There was something going on and AINDOC was able to help. To be real with you if you can't buy school supplies for your kids here then they don't go to school. You have to find some kind of organization that can help you. What a awesome way to be able to show people God's love:) I am not going to go into detail, because it doesn't matter, however, we were able to see the fruit of our labor being used by those that needed it the most. God did not have to show this to us, but in His grace and love, He showed us that He is still in charge, and that He has our lives in the palm of His hands. This was a wonderful time. After work, we went home and had supper together. After supper I was asked to come back to the warehouse to help a guy pickup some donations. I figured that it would just be a quick time of throwing some stuff into a vehicle and away we go. Well, we did just that. However, after I got done working with the man I was asking questions about his ministry. He told me that they help Natives that come out of the mountains and have basically nothing. They help them by feeding them, teaching them spanish (they only have there native tongue), getting them in the school systems and etc. Right now our organization supplies enough supplies for them to take care of 100 families, and in the other home roughly 800 children. This was so amazing to me, and he also gave me a couple pictures that he had in his vehicle. I just put them on our flickr account so that you all can see just a very, little glimpse of what the utilities that we are providing are going for. We were invited to come up there some weekend and help out. We are excited to take the oppertunity in the future, however, right now we have far too many commitments in Mexico City. I love how God gave us 2 things, in one day, just to confirmed again why we are here. I also meet with our attorney and they said that our paperwork should be back, hopefully, by the end of next week and we will be official Mexican immigrants in this country. Thank you JESUS!!!! Please keep us in your prayers as we continue on in thisnventure that God has placed on us. We love you all and thanks again for all the prayers and support, we can feel it daily.

PS. If you know anyone that is bored, unemployed, or just wants to get out a little bit and see another area of the world, we have a place here!! There are 46million people living in Mexico City, and is less than 2% Christian. We need people to just come and show what a Christians life is really suppose to look like. In many cases people are not taught what a Christian life is that are told to just change and not do bad anymore. We are being bombarded by questions by many, many people both Christians, and non-Christians alike. We are working hand in hand with 22 ministries strategically placed throughout this city, and they all need help as well. Please be in prayer about coming to Mexico City to spend a week, a month, or a couple years helping. Thank you all and God bless.