Pueblos Hermanos launching new church development in correlation with Mexican Presbytery
Our Northwest Border Presbytery meets in San Jose de Cabo, southern tip of the Baja
Enrique Romero sabbatical flood relief in Tabasco
Spring Mission Teams Build Houses, Ministry and Relationships
Soldwisch personal news

The big news this past quarter is the new endeavor and directions Pueblos Hermanos Presbyterian Border Ministry is taking in its partnership with the Northwest Border Presbytery.

Pueblos Hermanos launching new church development in correlation with Mexican Presbytery

PH begins planting a new church this spring in coordination with and under the authority of the Presbiterio Fronterizo Noroccidental (Northwest Border Presbytery) and its budding new systematic approach to church development.  Rev. Enrique Romero, returning from his six month sabbatical, was assigned this task as his major work area at the PH meeting last Tuesday.  He has patiently worked these past 11 years building up churches planted by others, some of which had faltered under inadequate pastoral leadership. He is excited about putting into practice his sabbatical studies on evangelism and cell groups. 

This new church development will be different in two ways from the three PH has helped to start so far.  Instead of surveying the city, designating a likely neighborhood, then buying land and establishing a center (either by building or moving in our Salud y Vida Health Trailer), we will be working with small groups in people’s homes, developing the people first; then helping them as they look for a suitable place to build a facility.  Secondly, we will be working as part of the Mexican Presbytery's church development plan.  When PH began there was no real presence of a presbytery and we just did everything on our own.  Now we work to support and build up the Northwest Border Presbytery and its churches which have grown up since PH began.

The Presbytery voted to adopt a proactive, more systematic approach to planting new churches in Baja California (Norte and Sur) at the proposal of PH staff and board members at its meeting last week in San Jose del Cabo. It has elected its first full-time President (or Executive Presbyter-Moderator) who will coordinate and execute the directives of a presbytery-wide steering committee for church and presbytery development, responding to PH board member Nicasio Rojas’ challenge to move from a reactive, insipid approach to church planting to a proactive, vital involvement of all the elements of the Presbytery.

The steering committee will be officially formed and defined along with the job description of  the new  Executive Presbyter at an extraordinary meeting of the Presbytery in June, after the May 17, Pastors’ Meeting has begun to flesh out the ideas. Rev. Robelio Roblero, presently pastor of the Nuevo Jerusalen Church in Ensenada and Presbytery Stated Clerk the past two years was elected to this new presidential position.                                                                                              Go to Top of Page

An executive presbyter is a rarity in the Mexican church.  Most presbytery officers are volunteers, because the presbyteries do not have the resources to have paid staff of any kind as well as needing their ministers for pastoring churches.  The Northwest Border Presbytery can contemplate this only because Baja Presbyterian Missions founders Roland and Kay Taylor provided an endowment for aiding the Presbytery further its work of reaching people for Christ in Baja California.  Income from the endowment can provide for almost two full time pastors with expenses (if we can find inexpensive places for them to live and the stock market does not go down too much more).  

The proposal for an executive presbyter grew out of committee discussions at the Presbytery meeting, was proposed and approved with just a half hour of discussion.  In the U.S. church there would have been task forces working on the issue with updates for months and a final report before a presbytery would take a major step like that.  In our small Mexican presbytery at the northern edge of the nation the idea struck a chord and was accepted, but the pastors and elders will discuss its ramifications as they develop its working structure and could conceivably reverse the decision next June.         Go to Top of Page

Our Northwest Border Presbytery met in San Jose de Cabo, southern tip of the Baja peninsula April 19-20. As head of the Resources Ministry I ended up organizing the car pools for the 1,000 - mile trek, but flew myself so as not to miss my family's departure for the Philippines April 22.  I'll write more in the future about the vibrant church that has grown up in the midst of the tourist driven expanding economy of the Lost Cabos area, but it all began with three Mexican Presbyterian families deciding they should start a church because there was no Reformed theological church in town. 

Spring Mission Teams Build Houses, Ministry and Relationships: Our first mission teams arrived for Holy Week this year, the earliest Easter comes in the next 200 years.  Youth from First Pres Bakersfield on the east side of town and from La Jolla (CA) PC and San Diego Young Life built seven small houses Easter week as well as doing vacation Bible school with children of the community.  (A second grade class room and a health clinic were two of the La Jolla houses.)  Teams from Gordon College worked with the Casa de Esperanza Orphanage, Nueva Vida Congregation of El Pipila, Tijuana, and for the first time across the mountains at Cristo Viene Church in Mexicali.  The week after Easter adults from First Pres Carson City, Nevada, related to the Dios Es Amor Mission in La Planicie and put up the suspended ceiling of the new mission center there (yes, about 2,500 square feet). The team from Wheaton, IL returned to Mexicali with 31 people from three churches working with four of the churches of Mexicali, beginning with a united worship service at the seminary on Sunday, and then two days of heavy work and children's ministries - 11 of the folk were from the Hispanic Canto de Esperanza Church.  The second weekend of April the River of Life Community Church folk returned to El Pipila, Tijuana after missing last year with a fine evangelistic show (including teaching a couple songs in Chinese) that touched many lives.

We are so thankful for the spirit of servanthood and engagement that these mission teams bring with them.
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Enrique Romero sabbatical flood relief in Tabasco:  Pueblos Hermanos Co-coordinator Enrique Romero spent two weeks of his sabbatical this past month helping to coordinate flood relief work in Tabasco in conjunction with the Solana Beach Presbyterian Church of Solana Beach, CA.  Different teams and people from the church came down for different amounts of time during the two week period, but Enrique and anther church member were there the whole time to set things up and keep them going smoothly, as the Solana Beach team helped the rebuilding process.  Enrique also preached four times in four different Tabasco churches. 

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Soldwisch personal news: Two former bosses finally took Susan up on her invitation to everyone she knows to come visit us in the Philippines.  Julian Moffet, formerly area coordinator for Mexico and Central America, and Marilee Blanchard, formerly Director of People in Mission for the PCUSA, went with Susan to the Philippines in February.  Bill managed to drop a chair on his head and get at least 8 stitches in March (yes, how does one manage to do that?!)  We leave April 22 for a month in the Philippines, including the Philippine wedding reception for son Jonathan and wife Gwendolyn (married November, 2006).