KEVIN ELWORTH LIVE

Had the opportunity last night to preach at a little church in Jerez, Mexico. Awesome opportunity, I really enjoyed it. I preached on Mark 2 where Jesus healed the paralytic of his physical ailment as well as his more important heart ailment. The main point of the sermon was that we’ve got to be willing to do whatever it takes to get people to Jesus. That’s what these guys did. They were willing to tear the roof off of someone else’s house just to get their friend to Jesus! That’s what we’ve got to be willing to do- whatever it takes to get people to Christ.
Couple thoughts about it:

• There’s a world out there that need to see the love of Jesus more than just the words He said or the words we think they need to hear. They need to see what Jesus can do for them and that means we need to get a bit uncomfortable in our approach to reach people
• Jesus is not obligated to heal our ailments as soon as we ask. He’s much more concerned about our greatest need which is the condition of our heart. Check out Mark 2.5. They never asked Jesus to forgive his sins, in their minds it was obvious what they wanted but Jesus looked right past they guys legs and saw his heart.
  Jesus is not obligated to heal our defects!
• There are so many critics that sit around today and judge what churches are doing wrong instead of standing up saying, Hey we might not agree with everything, but God is obviously at work in this and we want to get involved however we can. You can see that in verse 6
• I’m torn up by the thought of being willing to do whatever it takes to get people to Jesus Christ. There’s not much time left in this world and everyday we come in contact with people who need to love, forgiveness and healing power to Jesus offers
• Had a good time with the kids of Casa Betania
• My wife started her own blog, it’s called Your Little Nest. You should check it out, she’s got some fabulous design advice
• My little boy turned 3 this week
• I started taking classes online at Liberty University this week and it’s stretching me a lot! Probably because it’s been 6 years since I was in school.
• I’m more excited than ever to see what God has in store for me and my family

I’ve been a plumber the last two days. Mexico is famous for water problems. DON’T DRINK THE WATER! Obviously you’ve all heard that one, but did you also know that the water is turned off every day for a period of time, ours about 14 hours, thankfully at night though. To cope with this everyone has a tinako on their roof, a big 100+ gallon tank that will hold your water for the day. Well the water pressure stinks to say the least, so a friend of mine told me how I could bypass the tank and use the city water pressure to go through the house and conveniently when the water is off we can still use the tank. Nice! Well yesterday he came and helped me out and we had problems to say the least. Fix one leak, another starts. Finally it’s all put together and man the pressure through the house is nice, he leaves, Cris, Austin and I go for a walk and within 30 minutes our downstairs bathroom in flooded. At least an inch of water on the floor and all the other bathrooms are spraying water from under the sink! What a mess! So today I had to reverse what we did so we can at least have water until I can get a real plumber in here to fix all the leaks. What a mess. And this is just one day in the life of a missionary.

This was an awesome week for us- to be honest I think it was one of the best weeks of my life! I felt used, purposeful, diligent, and prepared and in hope next week is just as good.

So here’s what we accomplished this week

Prepared and preached my first sermon in Spanish

Spent some time with my friend Renato talking about the Bible, it’s validity, and some other things about Christianity

Hung out at the orphanage on Wednesday, getting to know some other excellent missionaries who have a true heart and passion for reaching Mexicans

Thursday we spent doing research for upcoming groups we hope to have come down.

Friday we went to Aguascalientes and checked out a fabulous hospital, the one we were looking for.

And Today, we rested, hung out together, took a walk, and just relaxed- almost like it was meant to be that way!

Thank God for great days

I had a friend here helping me translate my first sermon this week. He owns and runs a cyber cafe and I usually visit him once a week or so to chat and practice my Spanish a bit. So Tuesday night I went over there and he helped me fix my mistakes and when we were done I asked him how much I could pay him, but he refused to take any money from me. I was going to return the next morning to go over the last part I had yet to write, so knowing of my love addiction to coffee, he asked me to bring him a cup. I stopped by Starbucks the next morning and in my rush for time I selected the drive thru  to grab a cup for me and a cup for him as well. I drove up to the place were you order, I ordered the coffee, a Carmel Macchiato for him and a coffee of the day for me with a bit of half and half. The voice answered back “We don’t have any half-n-half Kevin, can we use whole milk instead?” At that point I was a bit shocked. It’s one thing to be known when you walk in to your local Starbucks, but to know you through the drive thru?! I feel honored!

Hey all. Just wanted to let you know we’re alive and have made it through our first week back in Zacatecas. Austin and I have both been sick this week, Cris is thankfully holding out. I’m feeling better today after resting all day yesterday, Austin still sounds horrible. We took him to the doctor on Friday and he got some antibiotics to deal with an ear infection, hopefully it won’t be to much longer before he’s better.

So here’s our plan for this week. We’re working on some prep for future opportunities we have, we’re heading out on Wednesday to visit the orphanage you all helped us raise supplies for and I get to preach at their church that evening! That’s gonna be awesome, first time I will have ever preached in Spanish, Lord help us all, Friday we head to Aguascalientes and will spend the whole day there interviewing doctors and checking out hospitals so that we can put together an emergency plan in the event of another cyst.

In the mean time and through all this- We’re just praising God to be HOME