South Mexican Union Conference

We applied, as you know, for a mission site in the South Mexican Union Conference. This conference can be divided into 3 distinct climate areas: Pacific Coast, Central Mexico, and Yucatan Peninsula.

The Pacific Coast area (the blue area on the above map) is located on the south rim of Mexico along the Pacific Ocean. It is lined by tropical beaches and is bordered on the south by Belize and Guatemala.

Central Mexico (the red area on the map above) is known as the “historic core” of Mexico and surrounds the capital city, Mexico City. It sits on the Gulf of Mexico and it is a temperate forest area.

Photo of Mexico City:
The Yucatan Peninsula (the green area seen above) is a jungle region on the Caribbean coast and the Gulf of Mexico. It is host to Spanish ruins and Maya pyramids. Like the Pacific Coast region, it is bordered on the south by Belize and Guatemala.
Photo of Cancun:


Photo of Maya Pyramid:



The official language is Spanish and they have about 60 indigenous languages. In the border cities and tourists destinations, English is the primary language. Elsewhere you will find the higher classes and younger people being multi-lingual. They are a religious people with about 89% being Roman Catholic, 6% Protestant, and 5% Other Religion. The people of this land are conservative, courteous, and loving.

According to the Seventh-day Adventist World Church as of 9/10/08, the Inter-American Division has 964 Adventist churches and 276,216 members in a country with a total population of 9,637,091. They have one Adventist university, one hospital, and 8 secondary schools in the conference.

Once we are given a specific site, I will be able to give you information focused on that region. Until then, keep praying for God to guide us where He would have us serve.

Photos of native fish:

Photo of Mexico by Population Density:

Photo of snow on the Sierra Mountains:

Photo of Jaguar, native of Mexico:

12/21/08 Addition to Blog Entry: Only a few of the climate areas of Mexico are shown above. The South Mexican Union Conference is located across a part of each of the 3 regions listed above. Please see the map below for the area of this conference (located south of the Inter-Oceanic Mexican Union Concerence and north of Guatemala and Belize; its shape is similar to our most northeastern states--Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut).

Holiday Greetings

Happy Sabbath! It is sometimes hard to patiently wait on the Lord yet that is what we still must do. However I do have good news! As of December 13th, we have received $1,759.00 toward our Mexico Mission Trip Building Fund (James, aka Digit, informed me that it is 5.86% of our goal!).

Until we have more news about the mission trip, I’d like to share some thoughts God has placed on my heart. I hope they will bring you peace and a new sense of direction.

This time of year you can hear well wishes of “Merry Christmas”, “Happy Holidays”, and “Happy New Year”. Many people will go to bed on December 24th (and again on the 31st) with hope in their heart of waking up the next morning to find their life some how magically changed. Outwardly they wake to the new day with a smile on their face, but disappointment in their heart. They just can’t seem to find that ‘one thing’ to make them happy.

I suggest to you that happiness is threefold with the first step found in John 3:3: “Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” This is The New Birth. It is a necessary step towards a new life, a life of joy and happiness, and it is based on receiving Christ by faith (John 1:12; 3:16).

Secondly, how happy can you be if you don’t walk in the way of the Lord? In Galatians we are told to walk in the Spirit, be led by the Spirit, and live in the Spirit (5:16-23). While in Ephesians 5:1-16 God tells us to be imitators of God, walk in love, walk as children of light, and walk circumspectly. Romans 13:11-14 states that we should walk properly and put on the Lord Jesus Christ. This is The New Walk (Romans 6:14).

How do you walk The New Walk? By grounding yourself with the daily reading of His Word and by “reckoning yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans Chapter 6, with focus on verse 11).

The last step is The New Goal. In Philippians 3:13-14 we see that Paul had goals. He had past goals, past sins, past failures, and even past victories. He was however willing to forget the past and anything that might hinder him in his work for the Lord. He had a new goal: reaching forward to those things which are ahead. He said: “I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus”.

What are your goals for today, tomorrow, and the upcoming New Year? Do your goals include letting go of the past? Letting go of anything preventing you from doing the work of our Lord Jesus Christ?

The wonderful results of these 3 steps are eternal salvation, a testimony to share with others, and a heavenly reward for a job well done. And on a practical note, you will wake up each morning, regardless of your circumstances, to find the joy and happiness that comes from living in the center of God’s will.

My prayer this Christmas is that you realize that your happiness won’t be found in a gift box under the tree, but through the One whose gift to us was to die on the cross of Calvary. And in the New Year, I pray that you will be blessed with true happiness!

In depth Bible studies can be found at: http://www.omalleysda.org/.

Let the Funding Begin!

JoAnn Stevens, church treasurer, will be setting up two funds for donations:

1. One will be the fund for the actual building. Please designate donations to this fund as "Mexico Mission Trip 2009 Building Fund".

2. The second is going to be a general fund*. Please designate donations to this fund as "Mexico Mission Trip 2009 Participation Fund".

Donations (including participation fee and airfare) are tax deductible.

*General Fund includes: accident insurance, food and water, housing, local travel and ground transportation, outreach, photography and other documentation fees, site visit by Project Coordinator and Construction Superintendent (required by Maranatha 3 months prior to actual trip), preliminary costs (cost of information materials, etc), participation fee, and a contingency fee.

Once our application is approved and we have been given a specific site we will begin the process of creating a detailed budget.

Please pray for God to guide you as you consider your donation to this mission trip.

Father of Lights

I read a quote recently that struck a chord within my heart: “A wise man soon learns that silence cannot be misquoted”. However, today I cannot be silent.

It is so easy to focus too closely on earthly matters and forget about the spiritual meaning in all that we have and all that we do. Please allow me to share some thoughts that God has placed on my heart about our mission trip.

When we chose the name ‘The Northern Lights’ as our team name, I instantly liked it. It reminded me of a song about the Father of lights that we sang during praise time at Cornerstone Church. James 1:17 says “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning”. What an awesome God we serve!

Genesis chapter one tells how God, the Father of lights, created light simply by commanding it to be. And it was, and it was good. He spoke again and again to bring things into existence. And it was. And it was good.

Then He did something different. He knelt down and with His hands used the dust of the ground to create man. The same Hands that would later stretch out on the cross to die for us were used to personally and intimately form us into human beings. With great care He formed us in His image, in His likeness. God cared so much for us that He focused on every single detail in giving us form.

The Father of lights didn’t stop with our external design--there was more to come. Genesis 2:7 says “and [God] breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being”. I believe that was the beginning of our spiritual life and in Philippians 1:6 God tells us that “He who began a good work in you will carry it on until the day of Christ Jesus”. What a blessing!

Arthur J. Ferch, author of the Bible study Genesis: In The Beginning by Review and Herald Publishing, noted that:
*God spoke: “God said”,
*God commanded: “let there be”,
*God fulfilled: “it was so”,
*God evaluated: He “saw that it was good”.

The author observed that our God is a God of action in that He separated, He made, He set, He created, He named, and He blessed. His actions gave purpose and meaning to our world and to us personally as human beings. His act, creation itself, was originated in the will of God.

Mr. Ferch continued on to say that “there is an inalienable dignity upon every human being” arising from our very creation. This is something we should bear in mind when serving others on our upcoming mission trip. Let us look beyond outward circumstances and see the God-given purpose and meaning of every person we encounter.

It is important to remember that our hands can be used by His hands--the Hands that created us--to do His will. An excerpt from God’s Best for Your Success by Word Publishing states: “Planning without seeking the will of God is presumptuous and foolish”. The accompanying scripture was James 4:13, 15: “Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”;….Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.”.

In conclusion, please pray for God’s will to be done concerning our planned mission trip. And that Hillside-O’Malley will truly be the northern lights that He uses to shine His truth and love on our southern neighbors.

Preparations Underway

James submitted the application to Maranatha yesterday via snail mail. Now we eagerly wait for the acceptance of our proposed dates and location. Patience will be a necessary attribute for this part of the planning phase!

Here is some additional information about working with Maranatha (taken off their website). Their services include:
*Help in choosing a project that fits our needs
*Consultation and training for the team leaders
*Ensuring the project is completely finished after we leave

Maranatha prepares the project site:
*Completing underground plumbing and electrical
*Pouring foundation and sometimes floor
*Erecting steel
*Purchasing materials and equipment and having them at the project site

Other items provided by Maranatha for our team:
*Construction blueprints
*Direction with the actual building process
*Coordination of a pre-project site visit
*Facilitating arrangements for food, housing, transportation, etc

At this time our goal as a church is twofold: recruit project participants and start raising money for both the participant’s fees* and the building fund. We hope to raise $30,000 for the building of the facility (the type of facility will be determined after the project location is determined and the needs of the community are assessed).

At this time our goal for the project is twofold: During the day build a permanent structure for the community and in the evening give a Power of the Cross seminar.

Guidelines for Project Participants:*We have chosen a team size of 30-35. We feel that this will provide enough people working on the job site while allowing other participants to be available for supportive roles (cooking, laundry, spiritual leadership, project documentation, etc).
*One adult per four youth (14-17 years of age)
*One adult per child under 14 years of age
*Please assess whether any medical conditions would prevent you from traveling and working long hours or doing manual labor
*Please assess whether your youth/child is spiritually and emotionally mature enough to go on a short-term mission project. Will they add to or detract from the physical work and spiritual experience of our team and the community we will serve?

James and I will work with a travel agent to secure group travel for all phases of the trip (U.S. and Mexico). I am currently researching possible sight-seeing excursions that might be available to us and will present these options to the team at a later date.

Please check your passport to make sure it is up to date. It must be valid for 3 months after the mission trip.

*Participants Fees includes: Accident insurance, food and water, housing, local travel and transportation, outreach expenses, excursions, photography, preliminary costs (education materials, postage, etc), site visit, and a contingency fund. Airfare (if traveling as a group) may possibly be included and entrance and exit fees if applicable.

Our First Meeting

We met for our first planning meeting today--stepping out into unknown territory for James and I. Instead of naming our team after our church we chose The Northern Lights. I immediately loved the name since it reflects where we live (Alaska) and because it reminds us that we will be carrying God's light to those in need.

At this point in the planning phase there are many unanswered questions--how will we afford it, can we get time off work, just exactly how do you prepare 3 meals a day for 35 people, and so on. I thrive on being organized and fully prepared however I realize that with this type of venture the only thing you can plan on is the unexpected!

People are stepping out in faith and it is exciting to see them willing to step outside their comfort zone. I anticipate hearing many stories of how God is working in each participants life to challenge them spiritually and to develop them as missionaries who are ready to give Hope to the hopeless.

I think it is beneficial to have a team scripture and a team motto. Until we discover our own, I think I'll borrow a motto from our last mission trip: "Flexibility, flexibility, flexibility" and "where God leads He will provide".

Please add us to your prayer list as we prepare for our trip. We seek God's guidance in all we do and pray that above all His will be done.