December 2013 West Texas District Newsletter Article

The CNMC article for the West Texas District Communication Newsletter

On Saturday, December 14, Cactus Nazarene Ministry Center (CNMC) hosted the first official CNMC event – the FREE MARKET. In early November, we received a trailer load of clothes, household items, and toys from Nazarene Border Initiative. This began a dream to provide a Christmas outreach event for the people of Cactus offering clothes, toys, and more for FREE! Many more donations came in and the local YMCA graciously allowed us to use their building to host the FREE MARKET. Colorful advertising posters in four languages were posted around town, and a flyer went home in every school backpack.  

One of our prayers lately has been for God to provide a way for begin building relationships with the Burmese refugees here in Cactus. Well, God had a great plan! The FREE MARKET was scheduled to open at 12:00pm. At 8:30am, we had our first customers—a Burmese family. We allowed the children to pick out a few toys and gave them some cookies. As the mom was leaving, she turned to Jenni, and in broken English said, “You. Me. We work together. I help you.” By 11:00am, we had multiple Burmese families waiting for the doors to open. Once the doors were opened, we were flooded with people—Burmese, Hispanics, and Americans. In the first 30 minutes we had close to 150 people come through the doors and ALL of the toys, Christmas decor, and household items were gone! Throughout the day, we served at least 300 people and gave away nearly everything!

Perhaps the most touching part of the day was when a young Burmese boy by the name of Asura came in barefoot. By the time he left the FREE MARKET, he had on a pair of snow boots. Asura’s feet will be warm this winter thanks to the generous donations received and the love that was shared with everyone, regardless of ethnicity or religion.

A huge THANK YOU to the many volunteers who came from Cactus, Amarillo, Pampa, Dalhart, and even Mineral Wells to help on Friday and Saturday! Relationships were built, needs were met, and the love of God was shared—To God be the Glory!

-- Vito and Jenni Monteblanco, CNMC Directors 

 

Merry Early Christmas!

This past Sunday we were blessed to be able to speak at Dodson Church of the Nazarene in Dodson, TX. When I say that WE were blessed, that's exactly what it was! Part of our "job" is to speak at churches on the district (and surrounding areas) to share about CNMC, but it always ends up being that these churches BLESS US in immeasurable ways!

God had laid it on our hearts to look at this year's Advent curriculum, Celebrate, from NPH (which follows the lectionary) to see what the Scripture passage was for the first Sunday of Advent. Wouldn't you know that the passage provided was the passage that leads into our theme verse for CNMC?!?!?! Coincidence? I think NOT. That's just how awesome God is! So, we brought a sermon on Matthew 24-25 and shared about CNMC, enjoyed Christmas dinner with the church family, and participated in their Hanging of the Greens service. What a powerful day and a great way to bring in the Advent season!

It's typical for churches to take a love offering for us and/or the CNMC. Well, Dodson truly outdid themselves. Not only did they take a very generous love offering for CNMC, but they gave us a personal love offering AND showered our kids with Christmas presents! Every single present the kids received was EXACTLY what they would have chosen for themselves! Oh, AND they donated several items to CNMC! The blessings just kept coming and coming.

Thank you, Dodson Church of the Nazarene, for loving on our family and for supporting CNMC!

Olivia and Eli in front of their table of gifts!

The table of donations for CNMC.

This is just a fun one . . . the kids had never stayed in a hotel like this before. They were so confused! We explained to them that this was the typical hotels that we would stay in when we were kids. It may not have been what the kids are used to, but it was very clean and very friendly!

October/November 2013 West Texas District Newsletter

We’ve been in Cactus for almost two months now and we’ve learned that the old adage, “Blessed are the flexible for they shall bend and not break,” is so true! Each day in Cactus is a new adventure, especially as we get to know the people and the needs. 

Cactus is a town of about 3,100 people. There are 17 known ethnicities and over 20 spoken languages in this small town! The Texas Panhandle has become the number one location in the United States for refugees to settle. The majority of the refugees in Cactus are from Africa and Myanmar. In addition, there are many immigrants from Central America. As you can imagine, this means we have a lot of learning to do when it comes to relating to each culture. 

Through each new adventure, we continue to see God’s hand in the ministry here. For example, we have noticed that many of the Burmese ladies are pregnant. This is a culture that we are not very familiar with, so we felt that providing baby care kits might be one area in which to reach out. This was just one of the stories that we shared with Prairie Point Church of the Nazarene on October 6. After the service, the ladies stepped up and provided CNMC with four boxes full of baby-care supplies and blankets! Just one week later, a neighbor introduced us to a friend of hers who was in need of some legal assistance. The very next morning, the neighbor came to us to ask for help for her friend. Her friend has given birth early that morning to a baby girl. The baby was early and she had nothing ready. We were able to reach out to this family by putting together a care kit for this brand new baby. Thank you, Prairie Point, for your faithfulness in giving. God provides just in time!

We would love to share more stories like this with your congregation. God is definitely alive and working in Cactus! We have one Sunday available to speak in January, and several available in the spring. Please contact us if you’d like to support the ministry of Cactus Nazarene Ministry Center by having us visit your church.

Please be sure to check out the CNMC website at www.cactusministries.org. We have recently updated our needs pages. There you will find more specific needs to your congregation might be able to meet.

We regularly post pictures and updates on our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/CactusNazarene. Like our Facebook page and keep up-to-date on what is happening at CNMC!

September 2013 West Texas Update

Every month we are providing a CNMC update for the West Texas District. I thought I'd share them here as well.

So, catching up . . . here's September. An abbreviated version was also published in the Nazarene Communications Network Newsletter. You can find it by clicking here.

9-3-13

By now, we hope you’ve heard about Cactus Nazarene Ministry Center (CNMC)! CNMC is a new compassionate ministries site located here on the West Texas District in the diverse Panhandle town of Cactus. CNMC seeks to serve the 17+ nationalities in Cactus and surrounding areas (primarily immigrants and refugees from Central America, Africa, and Myanmar) through ESL classes, legal assistance, health clinics, sports ministries, after-school programming, family services, and more! CNMC will also host Cactus Iglesia del Nazareno, and hopefully several other congregations in the near future.

We envision that CNMC will be a Christ-centered community center offering the message of hope in Christ through services that empower people to live successful lives and to reach their full potential. We realize, though, that this will take a lot of time and work. We are finally onsite and are truly enjoying getting to know our new town. God is already opening doors that we never thought of! This week, we will meet with the program administrator of the Moore County YMCA as they’ve offered to partner with us through the Cactus YMCA.

Our biggest need right now is Work and Witness teams to get the work in Cactus started. This past week, the first load of fill dirt for the building was delivered and compacted. We have several projects that we can use your help on—construction, campus and city beautification, sports camps, Vacation Bible School, and more! Please contact us at workandwitness@cactusministries.org for more information about bringing a team.

We’d love to visit your congregation to share more about what God is doing in Cactus, and about His vision for CNMC. We can share in Sunday School classes, as a "commercial" during the worship service, preach the sermon, or do a faith-promise type of service/weekend. We're trying to book our fall calendar now, so please let us know if you'd like us to visit your church!

God is already doing amazing things in Cactus! Thank you for your prayers and support.

 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me’” (Matthew 25:40).

Vito and Jenni Monteblanco
CNMC Directors

For more information about CNMC, visit:

www.cactusministries.org – CNMC website

www.underthecactustree.blogspot.com – Monteblanco family personal blog

www.facebook.com/CNMC - Facebook page

Water, water every where, Nor any drop to drink.

It took forever for us to get internet access. The internet company told us that it would take 2-4 weeks for them to get a line run to our house. At  4 weeks, we hadn't heard anything from them. At 4 weeks and 1 day (after a few phone calls) the internet company was on our block running cables. At 4 weeks and 2 days, we waited from 8am-5pm (as they had told us to), and no one showed up. A few phone calls later we learned that our project was "complete." Ha! The cables down the street weren't hooked up to anything and no one had been here to install anything. Thankfully a very nice installation tech was nearby and came at 6pm to check things out. After just a few minutes, we had internet using the phone lines that had been on our property the whole time!! But it was just a temporary line that was strung across the yard.

The next week, after several more phone calls, the internet construction crew was here again. This time to bury the line. It was a lovely Thursday afternoon. Vito was in Wisconsin for a wedding he was officiating. The kids were playing. Life was good. Then, BOOM! They hit a water line! Thankfully they had the water back on the next day.

It took about a little over a week to finish burying the cables and fill in the trenches. And as of Friday, we have official internet. Nearly 10 weeks since moving to Cactus and we have all utilities! What a trip its been!

Nope, there's not supposed to be water here!

Eli loved the trenches. He's really enjoying living on a construction site.

Even Olivia is getting into life here--look at those bare feet!

"Let the little children come to me . . ."

Nearly 10 years ago, God added to my (Jenni) call to ministry. I had known since I was ten years old that I was called to full-time ministry. At that point, I felt called specifically to be a missionary. In 2002-2004, I really struggled with my call. I knew that God had called me/us, but what was taking Him so long to get us into ministry? So, in 2004, God whacked me upside the head (He has to do that to me from time to time), and showed me that He could use me right then and there if I was willing. Then He opened doors into children's ministries. I had always enjoyed helping out at VBS and being a camp counselor, but I had no idea the joy that would come from being a Children's Pastor. It was through children's ministries that I received the call to become ordained. It was through children's ministries that I learned about all of the strengths that God had given me. It was through children's ministries that I developed a passion for discipleship of all ages. Over the years, my involvement in children's ministries has varied dependent on where we've been and what the needs were. So it shouldn't surprise anyone that I'm already involved in children's ministries here in not one, but two churches! And it shouldn't surprise anyone that I absolutely love the days when it's my turn to teach!

On Wednesday evenings, I'm teaching the elementary class at Dumas Naz once a month. We've been using a VBS curriculum and I get the memory verse and games night. Right up my alley! I've absolutely loved teaching this class and getting to know the kids at Dumas Naz.

Ms. Rena and Ms. Jackie helping some kids with their memory verse activity.

Isn't she a cutie?

My two little monsters working on their memory verse.

And then there is Cactus Iglesia del Nazareno. I've agreed to teach children's church every Sunday evening that we're in town. So far its only worked out for me to teach twice, but we should be around for me to teach the rest of the year. The first week I taught, I only had Olivia, Eli, and a 3-year old little girl who only spoke Spanish. Thank goodness I had Iris, my teenage helper, there! She was a big help with the 3-year old. I can get along okay in Spanish, but I'm quite rusty and little kids are so hard to understand in another language. Still, it was a great class!

Iris and the kids at children's church

Then there was tonight . . . I was very excited about the lesson I had prepared from the EPIC curriculum (GREAT curriculum from www.nph.com!!). But, oh boy, was it difficult! We had 8 kids ranging from age 2 years through 4th grade. 4 spoke only Spanish, 3 were bilingual, and 1 spoke only English. Iris took the two youngest into the nursery. I asked Vito to come help me so I could teach in English and he could translate for those who spoke Spanish. I had games, crafts, Bible story, questions . . . all prepared and ready for a great class. It didn't go quite as well as planned . . . culture barriers and language barriers abounded. Let's just say that I need to get a bit more creative! Thankfully I had play doh in my bag and that seemed to do the trick!

Play doh reaches all cultures and languages!

Working on creating their favorite thing that God created. We had tigers, vegetables, and trees!

"Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Matthew 19:14

Culture Shock?

I didn't think we'd have any culture shock with moving to Cactus. Sure, we knew it would be the mission field . . . but I grew up in the Texas Panhandle, so it should be like "coming home." Right?

For the most part, I was right . . . it is like coming home, especially the climate and the wide open, blue sky spaces.

It has been the mission field . . . complete with the multiple stray cats and dogs everywhere, the music blaring at all hours of the day (and night!), the dirt, the bugs, the people walking all over town, the many cultures, the kids playing on mattresses leaned up against house, the horses grazing in the middle of the street, etc. etc.

Kids playing on a mattress propped up against their house.

Horses grazing in the middle of the street.

But oh have we hit the "small town" culture shock!

- There is no hurry to do anything. "We'll have someone call you back" means . . . "Maybe we might have someone call in the next week or so, but likely you'll need to call us back several times before you get any information." 

- Neighbors and non-neighbors alike stop by at any hour of the day. And when they do, it's perfectly acceptable for them to expect you to drop everything and deal "with the moment."

. . . . not to mention there is next-to-nothing in town. Seriously, what is a woman supposed to do when she's craving ice cream at 10pm and doesn't have any in the freezer?!?!?! :-)

Ok, so it's not that bad. Sure there are some adjustments we need to make, but I think we'll be okay. ;-)

Snack Pak 4 Kids

Yesterday evening, we had the privilege of helping to prep food for the Snack Pak 4 Kids program. Dumas Church of the Nazarene volunteers regularly to help with food prep and the pastor, Steve Swanson, delivers the Cactus paks every week.

Dumas Snack Pak 4 Kids was organized in 2013 as a community effort to help provide food for kids on weekends and school holidays who might otherwise go hungry. Dumas Snack Pak 4 Kids is strictly volunteer and relies of donations from the community. The Dumas Snack Pak 4 Kids also services the Cactus Elementary School.

We had a great time helping with this wonderful program. It was great being able to share this time of service with Olivia and Eli. We talked at length about the program both before and after we served. They both have such a tender heart for helping others.

We also got to meet the leader of the Dumas Chamber of Commerce who invited us to stop by any time. You can bet we'll be scheduling a meeting with him soon!

Olivia and Eli were first assigned to trash duty.

Then they got to help unpack boxes of Pop Tarts.

Vito and Pastor Steve Swanson unpacking applesauce.

The Dumas Nazarene volunteers.

Goooooooooal!!!!!!

We finally have internet! There is so much that I need to blog about now that I have reliable connection, and I'm not really sure where to start. I suppose I might as well start with today.

Eli played soccer this past spring in Wisconsin for the first time, and of course he loved it. He is a born natural. Also, Vito was roped into coaching Eli's team, and of course he loved it as well. Like father, like son. We were a little disappointed that they wouldn't be able to play/coach on the same team this fall.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago. We got an e-mail from the Dumas Nazarene pastor saying he had seen signs for Dumas YMCA fall soccer sign-ups. Dumas is about 15 miles south of us, it is the closest city with grocery stores, WalMart, etc. So I did a little research and saw on their website that they have an option for "Cactus" when signing up. I jumped all over that and contacted the YMCA program director right away.

Long story, short . . . a few years ago the Moore County (that's the county Dumas and Cactus are both in) YMCA had a decent program going at the Cactus YMCA. In fact, in the Cactus soccer program there were over 200 children playing! However, the director of the Cactus YMCA moved to the Dumas campus and the programs here died. It's too much for parents to take their kids to Dumas twice a week for soccer practices and games. This year there is only one child from Cactus who is playing soccer--Eli. So, I told the program director who we are and Vito signed up to coach a team. We're in conversations now about how we can partner with the Moore County YMCA!!

Anywho, back to today . . . Vito is coaching Eli's team, which is a team of 8 kindergartners from Green Acres elementary and Eli. The team name is . . . are you ready for this? . . . Green Acres Kindergarten. Whooo! What creativity! This morning was their first game and they beat the opposing team 13-3! Eli scored 4 goals and its quite obvious that he's better at offense than defense! It was a beautiful morning for a soccer game and we had a great time.

After the game, one of the team member's grandma came up to us and told us that she was here at CNMC for the ground breaking in May. She is somehow related (by marriage) to the family who sold us this property and remembered meeting us at that time. Connections, connections, connections.

I shouldn't be surprised, but I am continually floored by the way God puts it all together . . . in fact, God even works through soccer!

Vito warming up with the team before the game

Good job, Green Acres! (Eli is number 10)

Just What I Needed

Yesterday, I was lamenting about the fact that we had spent the whole day doing things "around the house." We had phone calls to make, a dresser to put together, lessons to prepare . . . seemingly meaningless tasks. I remember asking Vito, "Is this just part of the job or are we missing something here?" Then, this morning, a missionary friend of ours posted on their blog. It was just what I needed to hear. Thank you, Jill, for your timely post and for the reminder that all of the tasks count, especially when done for the Glory of God!

Here's a link to the Fothergill's blog: Life And All Its Glory

Not Forgotten

Don't worry! I haven't forgotten about blogging! We are still without Internet and ran out of data on our phones is last billing cycle . . . so we've had to limit any "unnecessary" Internet usage. But, we're told we should have Internet by the 18th, which is only a week away! So, until then . . .

Home Sweet Home

Our little trailer house is starting to feel more and more like "home." We are SO grateful to Amarillo First Church of the Nazarene and Pastor Shawn for their leap of faith in committing to providing us with a house. Through their generosity and serving hearts, we have a BRAND NEW home. There aren't many missionaries who can say that!

Our home

Vito says, "It feels like home!"

THANK YOU, Amarillo First! We are truly blessed because of your faithfulness!