Marshall Family on the Way to Mexico

We are so excited! The Marshall family is on their way to Mexico! Praise, praise, praise God! Wow! Who could imagine? Besides the Marshall family, we are excited because Dr. Escamilla and Victor are on their way back with the Marshall family after spending over a week promoting the new Yahweh Rapha Medical Center project. (You will hear more about that later!)

Mark and Lucy Marshall first came to Refuge Ranch as part of a work team with Shiloh Christian Church, Logansport, IN, in Febuary 2004. It was the first work team we hosted at Refuge Ranch! In fact, we didn't even live here yet! The team helped finish the home we currently live in. During, and after, that trip the Lord began to move in a special way in both Mark and Lucy's lives. Mark felt called to go back to school and study for full-time ministry. After four years of school, Mark graduated this past December!

Then, in June 2006, Mark and Lucy returned to Refuge Ranch with another work team from Shiloh Christian Church, but this time with their chidlren, Aaron and Joanna. Shortly after that trip, we got a phone call from the Marshall family sharing with us the call that the Lord had placed on their hearts to join us as part of the full-time ministry staff here at Refuge Ranch! Wow!

Since then, the Lord has confirmed time and time again in each of their lives, and in ours, that this His perfect will for all involved! We admire Mark and Lucy, Aaron (15 yrs. old) and Joanna (13 yrs. old) so much!

They are leaving their lifelong church, family, employments, friends, activities, home (continue to pray that their house will sell soon), culture, language and food to obey God's call on each of their lives! We know that He will only prove more and more real and faithful as each day goes by!

Please pray for their safe trip as they spend the next five days on the road. Pray that the time in the car may be a time of sweet fellowship and anticipation of all that is to come! Follow the maps below to keep track of the Marshall Family, Victor and Dr. Escamilla!

Day 1: Red line: Royal Center, Indiana to St. Louis, Missouri

Day 2: Yellow line: St. Louis, Missiouri to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Day 3: Green line: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to San Antonio, Texas

Day 4: Orange line: San Antonio, Texas to Matehuala or San Luis Potosi, San Luis Potosi, Mexico

Day 5: San Luis Potosi to Refuge Ranch - Home at Last!

These maps kind of look like those maps of Paul's missionary journeys in the back of your Bible, huh?

With love and great anticipation,

Julie Zaragoza

Yahweh Rapha Medical Center Promotional Team

We are in the midst of exciting times! (All times are exciting when you are walking with the Lord because you never know quite what to expect, other than you know that He goes with you!)

Victor is in the United States right now with several other Fishers of Men volunteers promoting our latest endeavor - the building of the Yahweh Rapha Medical Center. In Hebrew Yahweh Rapha means "the Lord your healer", which sums up Fishers of Men's vision and mission for the medical center. Yahweh Rapha Medical Center will be a hospital and medical school complex that will seek to meet the needs of those in Mexico who do not have access to government nor private medical care. Quality care will be given in a respectful way, seeking to share the love and hope found in Jesus Christ through the way in which the staff treats the patients with love and excellence. The goal of Yahweh Rapha Medical Center is not only to meet the physical needs of those most in need, but also to meet their spiritual needs by sharing with them the Good News of Jesus Christ.

An architectural rendering of the Yahweh Rapha Medical Center

to be built to the southeast of Mexico City

The medical school will seek to train up medical missionaries with both medical and theological training to then go out to the neediest communities throughout the country and establish satellite clinics to meet the physical and spiritual needs of those communities. The satellite clinics will then be able to send their most difficult cases to the central hospital located just outside of Mexico City.


Victor has been gone for nearly a week now, visiting several churches, foundations and The Toledo Hospital sharing the vision that the Lord has given Fishers of Men for the Yahweh Rapha Medical Center. Victor travelled with the Mexican architect who has volunteered his services for this project and has already drawn up the initial plans. The architect has already returned to Mexico, but Victor continues in the U.S. with Dr. Escamilla and Dr. Gisela. Dr. Escamila is a retired military colonel from the Mexican army and physician who volunteers on all of the Evangelistic Medical Mission Crusades, as well as volunteering as the medical director for the hospital project. Dr. Gisela is another volunteer physician on the crusades who grew up in the United States and is serving as Victor's translator during his visit.

Dr. Escamilla, Victor and Dr. Gisela on their visit to The Toledo Hospital

to promote the new Yahweh Rapha Medical Center project

We are excited about the new contacts that the Lord is providing through this visit and new opportunities to share about what the Lord is doing here in Mexico in and through Fishers of Men.


While we continue construction here at Refuge Ranch in order to continue expanding the ministry to children here, we have felt led to undertake the Yahweh Rapha Medical Center project with full confidence in our Lord's ability to provide for the needs of each ministry. It has been exciting to witness individuals get excited about crusades and the hospital project who have felt little attraction to Refuge Ranch and vice versa. Hence, we are the body of Christ, each with his and her own passions, interests and abilities, but together carrying out the Lord's work here on earth.

The other exciting aspect of Victor's visit to the U.S. is that he will be travelling back to Mexico by highway with the Marshall family from Indiana as they move to Refuge Ranch to obey the Lord's call on their lives to become full-time staff members! While the ministries of Fishers of Men are unique and distinct in their own ways, it is always exciting to see they ways in which they all mesh into one. For example, most of our children at Refuge Ranch have come through the Evangelistic Medical Mission Crusades. Victor is now in the U.S. promoting the Yahweh Rapha Medical Center, but will be returning to Mexico with new staff members for Refuge Ranch. The new medical center will provide a place in which our children here at Refuge Ranch can receive medical treatment. The medical school will provide a place for those children at Refuge Ranch who want to go into the medical fields to study and serve the Lord. How exciting!


Thank you for being a part of this through your prayers, giving and active participation!


We continue to covet your prayers for:

• Victor, Dr. Escamilla and Dr. Gisela as they finish up their promotional tour


• for save travels for Victor, Dr. Escamilla and the Marshall family as they travel to Mexico beginning next Monday, October 19


• for continued grace for Julie, kids and the staff of Refuge Ranch as they carry on life without Victor for these two weeks

Let's live for Him with reckless abandon!

The Latest EMMC

Victor returned last Saturday from the latest Evangelistic Medical Mission Crusade. This trip took the volunteer crusade team to the state of Michoacan, northwest of Mexico City. This state is most famous as housing the Monarch butterfly sanctuary where, every winter, all the monarch butterflies from North America congregate.

However, the crusade took place in an indigenous village, Janitzio, located on an island in the middle of a large lake! This required the team actually moving all the medical equipment by boat to the crusade worksite!

The view from the island

The view of the island from the lake

The local believers were so grateful to have the Fishers of Men crusade team present that they lent their traditional garb (quite expensive outfits) to the women on the crusade team for a day. This was even more special because we were honored by the presence of a U.S. volunteer on this crusade, Emy Bridge.

The crusade volunteers in traditional indigenous clothing of the region

Emy has been a dear friend of Fishers of Men since the very beginning and has been to Refuge Ranch on numerous occasions. However, this was her first Evangelistic Medical Mission Crusade. She thoroughly enjoyed the experience and gained a whole new perspective on Mexican culture, the needs here and Fishers of Men's ministry.


Witchcraft runs rampant in Mexico and is a widely accepted practice, even by government and religous leaders. The villages visited by Fishers of Men during this crusade are well-known for their witchcraft practices. While the Fishers of Men team bathes each crusade in prayer and spends time in daily devotions together, this particular crusade provided opportunities for greater spiritual battles and warfare, driving the team to more fervent prayer, Bible reading and worship. As a direct result of their increased dependence on the Lord for His deliverance, a "bumper crop" was harvested of people accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior! 517 individuals prayed to make Jesus the Lord of their lives! Some of these included entire families! The local missionary, a seminary student, covets your prayers and she now seeks to disciple and teach these new believers, as well as looking for other believers to aid her in this great adventure!


As always, we give God all the honor and glory for giving the opportunity to serve and for moving in people's hearts and lives. We also thank you for your prayers and financial support that make this ministry possible!

Word Fun

The last several days here at Refuge Ranch we have experienced some comic relief through words! I hope you get a laugh too!

At each meal we draw names to see who gets to pray to bless the food! We had had arguments before nearly every meal because several of the kids would want to pray! For awhile, I let whoever wanted to pray go ahead and pray before the meal, but we quickly discovered that our food was getting cold during the process, so we instituted the prayer box. Everybody's name is in the box and at each meal we pull out a new name. That card then gets put aside until everybody has had a turn and all the names are put back into the box again and we start the cycle over again.

Well, yesterday at breakfast it was Ruth's turn to pray. Ruth will be 4 years old in November. After she had prayed for Victor's safety (he has been on an Evangelistic Medical Mission Crusade since last Friday) and after she had asked the Lord to help Ana stop making ugly faces at her because "Ana is too pretty for ugly faces", Ruth prepared to wrap up her conversation with the Lord. Mind you, Ruth has been a huge book kick lately! She has always enjoyed being read to, but she will now take 10-20 books off the shelf, surround herself with them and "read" away. Ashleigh, Ruth's preschool teacher here at the ranch, has further encouraged Ruth's book binge by having Ruth and Bernabe "write" their own books in school this week. So, in keeping with her unsatiable thirst for books, Ruth finished her prayer with a resounding "THE END" rather than Amen! We all burst out laughing while she hadn't even realized her creative slip!

Angie, our eldest daughter, and I were studying her science material yesterday. The book is in English and is quite challenging for her, so I make her read it out loud to me in English and then translate it into Spanish to make sure that she understood what she read. Besides the challenge of dealing in two languages, she is learning to deal with two cultures. Here in Mexico the metric system is used, which means temperature is measured in Celsius and not in Farenheit. So, innocently enough, when Angie got to the "F" abbreviation for Farenheit she proudly said "Featherheit"! I started to laugh and she looked at me rather confused! Well, they both start with "F", right?

Our newest staff member, Magda, has an 11 year old daughter, Erika, who now homeschools with us. She is also being introduced into the wonderful world of English. Last week, Ashleigh was going over English flashcards with Erika, reviewing vocabulary words. They got to the card with the picture of a watermelon and Erika proudly, and without hesitation, said "flowermelon"! Ashleigh and I started to laugh, Erika got red and then remembered it was "watermelon"! However, I have since decided that the word "flowermelon" is a wonderful word and should become a part of our English language. So, if you discover a new breed of plant or a new hybrid fruit we have a name for it - "flowermelon"!

Love you all!

Julie

Fun Stuff

Today is Mexican Independence Day - like your Fourth of July! On this day we celebrate our independence from Spain - won on September 16, 1821. Normally our family would attend the military parade held in downtown Mexico City, but with Victor leaving on an Evangelistic Medical Mission Crusade on Friday, there is just too much going on!

However, our church held a special service and then a fellowship time this past Sunday where different ministries prepared traditional foods and games and we spent the afternoon together. It was lots of fun, and delicious too! Our pastor had encouraged us to dress in traditional Mexican outfits - so some of us did! I got teased by several church members for being more Mexican than the Mexicans! Victor had bought this outfit for me in Monterrey and, while several of you may recognize the outfit since it is the one I use when making presentations in the U.S., I had actually never worn it in Mexico! My kids were quite horrified that I was going to dress up, but once they saw me dressed I got their seal of approval!

Here you can see me with Magdalena, our newest staff member. We had great fun because she even wore fake braids and a traditional print skirt (we had never seen her in a skirt before!)

Now, here is a totally unrelated story! Several days ago I found a super easy peanut butter cookie recipe, so I made cookies with my first graders for school (Caleb and Jocelin). Well, my older girls got inspired and so they made more cookies yesterday. However, being one of their first attempts at cookie baking, the first batch came out a little too late and slightly burnt/quite hard! Ruth grabbed one of those cookies after it had cooled and tried to take a big bite. She promptly came up to me and said: "Mommy, why doesn't this cookie let me eat it?" I am so thankful for the moments that the kids make me laugh!

Fidel and Daniel - Putting Them Back Together

This picture was taken over a month ago when Daniel had been a part of our family for a little over a week. This was the first time that Fidel, our 8 year old adopted son had interacted with Daniel at all since he had arrived. In fact, the night that Victor and I arrived home with Daniel, while the rest of the family came running downstairs to meet their new sibling, Fidel stayed in his room. I had to go up to say good night because he never came down.

I had noticed that while we got ready for Daniel's arrival, Fidel was having some trouble assimilating the arrival of a new brother. A few days before we were to leave and go pick up Daniel, I was getting his crib ready and Fidel walked into the bedroom. He asked me why he couldn't sleep in Daniel's crib. Fidel's logical reasoning isn't one of his strengths, so that question in and of itself didn't surprise me. He can ask some pretty crazy questions! I nonchalantly explained that he was too big for the crib and that it could break. His reasoning? "Mom, I don't weigh that much!" We laughed and left it at that.

Shortly after that, I had Ashleigh go shopping for the last items we needed for Daniel. We had been told by the missionaries with whom he was living that he loved horses, so I had Ashleigh pick up a wooden rocking horse for him (and another for the other little ones in an effort to reduce the fighting!)

Later on that day, our daughter Martha came up to me and commented, "Mom, Fidel is having a hard time with Daniel coming, isn't he?" I said, "Yeah, I've noticed that, but how do you know?" She responded, "Well, because today Fidel told me that he should have had that crib, and the new ball and the rocking horse." She turned around and walked away.

I, however, was left standing there with tears in my eyes. Fidel was having a hard time with Daniel's arrival because it was a blatant reminder of all that he had missed out by not being a part of a loving family as an infant and toddler! He was wishing that he could have come to be a part of our family when he was Daniel's age and gotten a comfy crib, instead of waiting until age 7 to sleep in a bed for the first time. Wow! Talk about taking your breath away!

This is not an uncommon sentiment among our children. Just two days ago, I was in the bedroom of one our teenage daughters when she said: "Mom, I love you. You are the best Mom. I wish I could have been your daughter from the womb." Flattering, but heartwrenching. Our kids deal with regrets that they did nothing to produce. Life was forced on them and they are left to pick up the pieces and put the puzzle back together.

Thank you so much for your prayers that help them through that process and for your financial generosity that helps us walk by their side as the Lord puts them back together.

Our daughter Ana is three years old and loves the nursery rhyme "Humpty Dumpty." We have to read it every night!
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.

Thankfully, this nursery rhyme does not ring true for our children! Our children have suffered fall after fall throughout their short lives - sexual abuse, physical abuse, abandonment, verbal abuse - fall after fall after fall. BUT, with the power, love and help of the King of Kings, His men (you and I) can put them back together again!

It took Fidel over a week to even acknowledge Daniel's presence, but just two months later he is always willing to help take care of Daniel and is quite attentive to Daniel's activities and moods. Praise the King of Kings who can put ANYBODY back together again!

Sunday dinner

It is Sunday afternoon and I have decided to stay back from church and spend some time alone with God here at the Ranch. It has been a week since Julie posted and I thought I would hop on and share a bit!

I occasionally stay back from church to have some time off. Often when I stay back I will end up making something for dinner so that Rosa can have a complete day off without cooking. As it happened this time, I was planning on going to church this Sunday until I was asked to make dinner. I found out that Caleb had been asking for over a month for lasagna. I made it one time last fall for them and was rather surprised that he even remembered what it was. To make sure that he would not be disappointed when I made lasagna, only to find out that wasn't want he wanted, I ask him if he remembered what lasagna was. His reply, "Yeah, it's that food that Garfield eats". I couldn't help but smile about that! Yes, Caleb remembers. :)

However, he somehow missed the fact that it was for this reason that I was staying back from church today. So when Julie was buckling him into his car seat to leave for church he again requested lasagna (with a rather frustrated voice because his request had not yet been fulfilled). Julie informed him that I was staying home and was going to make lasagna and that seemed to appease him.

I just thought I would share a picture of what it was like to live down here on the day to day basis. Caleb wanted lasagna...and I am making it. For those of you who began reading this post thinking that it would have some great spiritual insight or story of God's work I am sorry that you have been disappointed. :)

Although, I can share that I greatly enjoy the Sundays I stay home because I spend my time listening to sermons and devoting as much time as I want to Bible study. I often feel as though I am filling up for the week ahead as my morning schedule never seems to have enough time, I always want more.

Today's insight has been the reminder of how all through the Bible (Old Testament and New Testament) God is calling His children to follow Him from their hearts. It is never about outward actions for Him because He knows that if our heart were truly His then there would be no way we would live outside of what He wants. Us as men look to the outward actions (laws, doctrine, etc.) because they are easier to follow. The Pharisees are a perfect example of this. Even with the Law in the Old Testament, God was trying to draw the hearts of His people to see Him as the only way to be free. That is what Paul means when he said that we are no longer under the law but under grace (Romans 6:14-15). It was not that we can continue in sin but we have the grace through Christ to walk away from sinning. But we have to know Him. Not know lots of stuff about Him but know Him personally.

Sorry if that sounded random. Those are just some of the thoughts in my head as I have been contemplating God's Word on this Sabbath. May you all have a wonderful Lord's day full of His presence!

Ashleigh

Staff at Refuge Ranch