It was a wonderful trip to Toluca… 4/27 to 5/3 2006
It’s so easy to get to Toluca now with the new direct flight.
It used to be a crack of dawn drive to Tulsa, park, leave the car, fly through Dallas to Mexico city and then take the bus for two more hours to arrive in Toluca late that evening. It was a killer all day trip that took another day to recover. Now you board the plane in Bentonville at 6:30am and by 11:30am you’re on the tarmac in Toluca.
 I stayed with Raul and Kim Solis this time in their little guest house out back.
It really helped to be able to rest well. I felt honored when they told me I was the first Gringo to figure out how to use the guest shower and not run out of hot water. They were wonderful hosts with the true gift of hospitality and I want to thank them for taking such good care of me. It was a joy to be around Diego, Isaac, and Angie and to be part of their family for a couple of days.
Friday afternoon I was able to visit with Enrique and Eva Prieto.
Enrique is suffering from kidney failure and has to undergo the difficult process of home dialysis four times a day. The process now controls almost every aspect of their lives. At 8am, 1pm, 6pm, and 12am he has to go into a bedroom they have converted into a hermetically sealed dialysis room and either Eva or their teenage son Enrique has to scrub up and help with the process. They are patiently awaiting a better dialysis machine or better yet a kidney transplant. Enrique never complains and looks good after the dialysis but please keep them in your prayers because it is not easy.
 This was one of my most productive trips since leaving Toluca in May 2000.
I taught a 10 hour seminar on Growing Toward Spiritual Wholeness. It was my fifth time to teach that seminar in Toluca and I think the best one yet. Fifty two students took the seminar. Many of them were young people in their teens and twenties and it is so  wonderful to see them eager to learn about spiritual maturity. A number of the newer members took the class. I had a hand full of students who were taking it for the second and even third time. Some were taking it with their kids who I had taught in the youth group years ago. Man, that makes me feel old! Two other couples, who teach the same seminar to others, were retaking the class in order to teach it better.
Saturday the leaders hosted a men’s breakfast in order to talk about plans for the future. 
Saturday morning when we entered the building the smell of chilequiles filled the air and it was obvious that several women had been working hard preparing a  delicious breakfast for all the men. A large group of men showed up and participated in the planning breakfast. The results were better than they had hoped. Four teams of volunteers were formed to work on four areas of spiritual growth and present their plans at succeeding breakfasts every two weeks. The first will be held this Sat. May 13 th. Pray for them please! The amazing thing to me, as always, was the women. Six of them, after cooking breakfast, sat around a table and had a ladies Bible study as a part of their Bible institute classes.
Lunch at Polo Sosa’s home. 
Saturday afternoon we were all invited to lunch at Polo and Lucero Sosa’s home. That is the family that sold the building to the Toluca church where they now meet. Several years later when they were experiencing some difficulties in the family, Polo was converted. Then one by one he converted his family. Now they are all faithful members of the church and they are getting ready to open a Christian book store about a half block from the church building.
 Sunday was an incredible experience.
There is so much love and enthusiasm when the family of God assembles in Toluca that it brings great joy to one’s heart. Class was first and I attended a prayer class where they, of all things, prayed almost the whole time for the needs of the church. During the worship service I preached on Trust in Times of Suffering and afterwards the church had a pot luck. It was a great time of good food and visits with old friends, many of whom Clare and I had the privilege of introducing to the Lord. The seminar continued that afternoon from 4:00 to 8:00pm making it a very long but good day.
I went to visit Luis, Aurea, Tere, y Isaac.
Monday was Labor Day when no one labored. Luis Manuel was gracious enough to drive me an hour south of Toluca, to a little pueblo named Tenancingo to eat breakfast with his parents Luis and Aurea. They purchased a new, well not so new, adobe home, probably more than 100 years old in that pueblo. They moved to get down out of the high altitude and cold temperatures of Toluca for their health and for the health of Aurea’s aging mother Rosa, who passed away this past Thursday. Their place is beautiful now after they have spent months cutting out the weeds and over growth. They have discovered about 25 different fruit trees and editable plants growing on the place.
After a ten o’clock breakfast we headed over to Tere (their daughter) and Isaac’s home to eat lunch. I ate a lot on this trip. It was so wonderful to see them. I haven’t seen Tere, who was my secretary in Toluca for years. The two families in Tenancingo have started a new little congregation in quite a remarkable way. Tere and Isaac started several years ago inviting all the neighborhood children over to their house on Sunday morning for a Bible story. They had about 40 kids that were coming and the parents all loved the hour of peace and quiet they got every Sunday morning, that is, until they found out Isaac and Tere were teaching the Bible and they weren’t Catholics. The number of kids has dropped to about 12 but now several of their parents have started coming. Tere has her masters in nutrition and health so another method they use is she offers a class each Saturday afternoon to all the ladies in their Colonia on food preservation and nutrition. She says sometimes they have 15 ladies come and other Saturdays no one shows up. She gets guest speakers, like her mother-in-law to come down from the big city of Toluca to teach special classes. They said it has been very successful in gaining the confidence of all their neighbors. Now there are a couple of women who have at least visited their church services on Sunday.
Isaac and Tere have tried every thing they could think of to get people to come study the Bible with them and just lately the Lord has blessed them. He brought a couple, both doctors, who have become Christians and now worships with them and several others. So their little church is growing.
Dinner with my old LIFE group. 
Monday night I had the most incredible dinner with the three families that made up the last LIFE group I attended in Toluca before leaving. Paco & Paty, Pedro & Pilar, and Beto & Heidi are three families who have given me such great joy and consternation over the years that I can’t begin to tell the whole story. Let’s just say they all came out of a Pentecostal church into the church of Christ with their own ideas, a lot of energy, and did I mention their own ideas. Our LIFE group meetings used to be theological debates till 2:00 in the morning sometimes. But they love the Lord and the truth and I am so proud of them as they work hard in different areas of the church. Beto and Heidi shared a story of love and service that you have to hear. A young girl, 14 years old lived in a little pueblo and crocheted doilies with the rest of her family to sell in Mexico City. She accompanied her step-father on the weekends to sell in a market and they stayed in a motel near the market. You can probably already imagine what happened that caused the girl to become pregnant but the problem was that she was so young and so innocent that she didn’t even know it until her due date approached and she started complaining of a stomach ache. By the time they took her to the clinic she was only a couple of weeks from delivering. Once she had the baby and returned home her mother told her not to tell anyone who the father was for fear the police would arrest her step-father. Imagine her confusion until her  grand parents stepped in and pressed charges. When the police did come to the home the man was nowhere to be found. Her mother kicked her out on the street which is where Heidi found her. She and her baby were both so emaciated from mal nutrition that Heidi took them directly to the doctor who told her if they didn’t receive some care and nourishment immediately they both might die. Heidi and Beto took the mother and daughter into their home just long enough to get them nourished and back to health. Well that was about a year ago and now the girl is a Christian, very involved in the church youth group. She is studying computers in a technical school in order to provide for herself and her daughter. She feels loved and secure, something she had never known in her life and she has a hope for the future. I almost cried several times as they were telling me the story, at first for sadness. How could people do what was done to that little 14 year old girl, but then for joy. Wow! What a wonderful place the church is and how incredible it is to be loved by God and his children.
Carlos Franco, the miracle story. 
Tuesday morning I went to eat breakfast with Chelo, her husband Carlos and their son Paco. They told me the most amazing story. Several months ago Carlos was diagnosed with colon cancer but it was not an easy diagnosis. Carlos has had emphysema for many years now and because of that has suffered many physical problems which flair up from time to time. It was for that reason that the family was not too alarmed when he began complaining of stomach pain a couple of months ago. When the pain continued they took him to the family doctor which in turn sent him to a couple of specialist. For several weeks the doctors couldn’t make up their minds. Some insisted he had severe colon cancer and should be operated on immediately while others said it was merely a symptom of some other ailment and could be treated with medicine. Finally the cancer doctors won and he was rushed to surgery. Sure enough they found cancer and ended up removing 20 centimeters of his small intestines. The surgeons removed a large tumor with the intestines but were not able to get all the cancer. They closed him up and told the family there was not much hope. Chemotherapy may slow the inevitable but the prognosis was not good.
Meanwhile the family, the church, and lots of the Lord’s people were praying for Carlos. Two weeks later they took him to the cancer center in Toluca to start his chemotherapy. The doctors ran a battery of tests to prepare for the process and then ordered some more. After they ran all the tests they could think o,f they came back to the family and said “why is this man in here? He doesn’t have cancer. Are you sure the surgery was for cancer?” The family’s answer was “we’re sure!" Twenty centimeters of his intestines and a tumor were removed, sent to the laboratory, and confirmed as having malignant cancer. Here are the reports.” All they could say was “well it must be a miracle then.”
Amen, we believe in miracles! The odd part of the story is Carlos is not a baptized believer. He is a very faithful Catholic but I can’t help wondering what the Lord has in store for him because it’s obviously something very significant. Please pray for Carlos to know the Lord and the purpose for the rest of his life fully. Pray for Chelo and the family that they may have peace and wisdom as they wait for God’s plan to be revealed for Carlos’ life.
 Farewell breakfast with the leaders.
On Wednesday, the morning of my departure I had one last meeting with the leaders of the church. As many had asked me before they said, “Well, how do you see the church?” I told them I see the church better than ever. When the Americans left the church became unstable. Then they appointed elders and it gained back it’s stability although briefly. When the eldership broke up and two of them left the church, it hurt the church deeply and made all the other leaders gun shy to become fully involved in leadership. They have still not recovered completely but I see them closer than ever. They learned the painful but valuable lesson of what happens when men try to lead without God’s leading in them.
I just got an e-mail from Roberto saying they had one baptism Friday and two more last Sunday. Praise the Lord. Toluca has never lost their evangelistic zeal.
John Dyas
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October 21 and 22 we received a visit from some brethren from Gresham, Oregon, USA, along with brother Ron Clark who gave a conference in order to that all the congregation be prepared for when the moment arrives for us to establish biblical leadership in this congregation. Brother Ron, spoke to us of "Good Shepherds". This conference helped us as a congregation re-look at the idea that we need to establish the biblical leadership. We as congregation are devising a plan so that next year we will be working on the development of leaders, whom can be the future elders for our congregation.
