On September 8, an 8.1 magnitude earthquake struck the southern part of Mexico, killing over 100 people. Eleven days later, another earthquake devastated Central Mexico at a strength of 7.1. Just a few days after that, a third earthquake hit in an area between the first two on the 23^rd.

The second quake was the deadliest. As of Saturday afternoon, the death toll had reached 360 people. Teams are working on clearing the last few rubble sites. Many of the deaths were reported in Mexico City.

(Photo courtesy of Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs via Flickr: https://flic.kr/p/YGiTAf)

Together the two earthquakes damaged over 150,000 homes and almost half of those were either destroyed or made uninhabitable. Thousands of people have been displaced. About 2,000 historic buildings were damaged, as well.

One organization involved in meeting basic needs is AMG International. Jimmy Myers of AMG says they’ve been in contact with a couple of their missionaries who have been reaching out to neighboring communities that were damaged in the quakes.

Puebla Mexico, where AMG missionaries Ruth and Manual Lopez minister, is about a two-hour drive Southeast of Mexico City. In a message to AMG, Ruth Lopez said that dozens of people had been killed in Puebla in the second quake. Downtown got hit the hardest.

Myers says the ministry site itself sustained little damage: “They were not hit too hard in their local city where they are in Puebla, but they did have some damage. They have a special needs school with special needs children. So they evacuated the building. They had some issues with some stairs and they have a few cracks in some walls.”

As is the case with earthquakes, a major part of recovery includes making sure the building, even though it only sustained light damage, is sound and safe for people to continue using.

Up until the second quake, their church had been collecting aid to send to Oaxaca and Chiapas where the first quake struck. But now, they’re focusing on the communities closer to home.

Immediately after the quake in Central Mexico, Myers says, “the church there that they’re a part of… they loaded up some supplies—food, water, some blankets, and basic items like that—and loaded up a van and they went to… some of the outlying areas, smaller villages.”

The team decided to focus on these smaller areas because so many people had already gone into the city to help. The smaller communities, Myers points out, have fewer resources than the city.

Photo Courtesy AMG International

So far, the outpouring of aid has been extremely helpful. But when the immediate aid slinks off, AMG will still be there to help with long-term recovery and basic needs. They will also be assisting their partners in rebuilding and making sure there is access to basic needs like clean water.

“AMG’s role is not to be on the front lines of rescue and disaster functions that those who are much more equipped can do. Ours is much more after the fact where we come alongside those [in] smaller communities, communities that we’re connected to, typically.”

When unspeakable tragedy strikes, people are affected on every level. There is the immediate physical relief to take care of. But people are also grieving the loss of loved ones. They are struggling to figure out what’s next, especially if they’ve lost their home or business. So beyond the physical needs, there is a feeling of loss and despair. This is one reason why it is so important for the Church to step in and help.

Myers says, “You don’t have to read too far into the gospels to find that we are to care for one another, we are to care for brothers and sisters in the faith, and for humanity and to give that cup of cold water and to come alongside people in crisis, [whoever] they are, and show the love of Jesus Christ.”

If you would like to help with this work, consider giving to AMG’s Disaster Relief Fund, here. You can do that, here. But more importantly, Myers invites you to support the Body of Christ in Mexico through prayer.

“Pray for your brothers and sisters. Pray for those who know the Lord, who are walking with the Lord, and are doing everything they can to reach out to people in their time of need because even though they may not have been right in the disaster zone, so many are affected because they’ve lost friends, they’ve lost relatives. No one, in this size of an earthquake, is untouched.”

(Photo courtesy of AMG International)

We can also be praying that God would use these believers to minister to the hearts of others. Will you pray that people would respond to their kindness and want to learn about the hope that comes from knowing Jesus?

“It’s tragic and it’s because we live in a fallen and broken world, and these things happen. But the God who is sovereign and who is full of grace and mercy uses these things to draw people to Himself.”

Myers reminds us that there are many Christians outside of AMG’s organization who are out on the field working right now. He encourages you to put “feet to the prayers” and partner with one of these organizations financially.

Myers leaves us with this prayer:

Lord, you are sovereign. And, in this broken world, we experience much tragedy and pain. But, Father, we are so thankful that you have shown grace and you show mercy and that you have shown so much love to us by sending your Son. And we ask for the people of Mexico that you would meet them at their point of need. Lord, we ask that, for our brothers and sisters there, our brothers and sisters in Christ, that you would use them to share the love of Christ with other folks, whether it’s a cup of cold water and blankets or whatever it might be. And I pray that you would give them boldness to share why they’re helping, and meet them at their points of need as well. And may this word get out in such a way that you touch people’s hearts who hear this and they participate as well in what’s going on. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Christmas tree with paper polyhedrons at Universum at Ciudad Universitario in Mexico City.
(Photo, caption courtesy AlejandroLinaresGarcia via Wikimedia Commons)

Mexico (MNN) — Want to change how you celebrate the holidays? Why not spend Christmas in Mexico?

Ashley Williamson with Buckner International says they need more people to join their upcoming Shoes for Orphan Souls trip to Mexico City. She describes the type of people they’re looking for: “Someone who has a big heart for kids and for missions, and just for sharing the hope and love of Christ.”

From December 6 to 11, Buckner’s team will be fitting orphans with new shoes and telling the kids about Jesus.

“We’ll be serving about 600 kids total that week,” says Williamson. “This Mexico City trip is actually the first one where we’re taking a team to serve children who are part of our long-term programs.”

Williamson is referring to Buckner’s Family Hope Centers, which take a more holistic approach to helping orphans in the name of Christ.

“We’re trying to more holistically provide for the families so that the kids are able to stay in their families, instead of having to go and live in an orphanage,” she explains.

Formerly known as Community Transformation Centers, these centers offer services like food and aid assistance, classes, job skills training, medical clinics and much more.

“There are all sorts of services provided by social workers who work there year-round with families in poverty-stricken areas,” says Williamson.

During the trip, Buckner’s team will also give shoes and the love of Christ to orphans in a government facility. Williamson says they’ll be handing out their three-millionth pair of shoes on the trip.

“These shoes that we’re delivering are meeting a physical need for these kids, but they are [also] opening that door for us to be able to share the Gospel,” she states.

“This boy whose feet I was washing is not only an orphan, but an orphan with disabilities. He has been completely rejected and cast aside by this world and by his own family.
Suddenly it hit me that this boy is going to be chosen to be first in the kingdom of heaven, and I realized what an honor it was to sit on my knees before him and serve him by washing his feet.
Instead of rushing through it like I may have done before, I started washing every inch of his feet and made sure to clean each little toe.” Amy Kraus, shoe trip volunteer
(Photo, caption courtesy Buckner)

Team members get to connect with kids individually while fitting them with a brand new pair of shoes, but they also demonstrate Christ’s love in a corporate manner. Williamson says team members will help share the Gospel in different group settings.

“We have recreation time and craft time, Bible stories–just all sorts of places where people can fit in based on their level of interest,” says Williamson.

“Right now, we actually don’t have too many people signed up, so we’re hoping for at least 10 more.”

Get in touch with Williamson by emailing shoes@buckner.org. If you’re not able to go, surround the trip in prayer.

“Our biggest prayer requests are that the kids we serve would come to know and experience the saving grace of Jesus Christ as their Savior and their Father, and that they would come to know Him through our team,” Williamson says.

Find more trip details here.

Emergency officials say reports of injuries and collapsed buildings are trickling in because phone systems have been down in most of the country since a September quake.

Paradise Bound Ministries issued an immediate prayer alert. They indicated the epicenter was near many of the villages where they work, including La Reina and La Bendicion. In addition, since the quake struck near the volcano that erupted in September, many of the affected villages will be the same. The team is still trying to establish communication in the villages.

The good news: at first report, the Paradise Bound staff and their families are all accounted for, and their mission base is undamaged.

Over 15 years of ministry, Paradise Bound Ministries has developed a comprehensive and growing suite of programs meeting the needs of children, families, and villages for basic sustenance, medical care, and Christian ministry.

As a result, teams can provide regular medical care, pastoral training, and discipleship training. They also help rebuild homes for families, and run Open Doors Orphanage.

Thank God for keeping the staff safe. Pray for wisdom as they begin to assess damages in the surrounding communities in the days ahead, and ask God to provide the resources needed.

For the Buckner International Pan de Vida foster group home in Mexico City, they did the most logical
thing: they began growing their own food. Their approach became an innovative hunger
solution for the community. Not only did
their recent harvest bring in more than
1,000 pounds of tomatoes, but it also brought Gospel opportunities.

The idea was the brainchild of the wife of Buckner Mexico program
director, Juan Carlos Millán. However,
Millan was faced with two problems: "The land is not good, and sometimes the
people have water. But they don't know how to manage this water."

The team found ways around that with its first project in Mexico
City. Millan explains there was a learning
curve, too. "Many poor people don't
know how to get food because they don't know how to produce it and have no
opportunities to have this knowledge.
One of the best things that our team is working on is giving people those
opportunities." Last March, Buckner
planted its first greenhouse garden on the flat roof of the Pan de Vida group
home.

"We
began to use that greenhouse as an educational piece to teach families in the
community to grow vegetables for their families as a food source, and later, for
ones who got better at it, to sell surplus produce to the market and generate
income for their families," said Dexton Shores, regional director of Buckner in
Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Peru. "The big greenhouse on the roof is
also used to provide food for children at the foster group home and the
community feeding program."

In
the first growing cycle of the project, Buckner Mexico staff planted 150
cucumber plants and 150 tomato plants. They produced 661 pounds of cucumbers
and 1,404 pounds of tomatoes.

In the second cycle, the greenhouse was only planted with tomatoes
and finished the cycle with a production total of 1,774 pounds. Of that, 358
pounds were consumed at the foster group home and in the feeding program, and
more than 1,300 pounds were sold at the market, helping the home become more
sustainable. 

With such successes behind them, the idea of feasibility for other
Buckner projects was a step closer to reality. Millan explains that "the hydroponic is not expensive and is easy
to understand and to learn. We now have 43 greenhouses around Mexico's
Republic, and it's working."

In addition, with a grant from the Mexican government, Buckner Mexico built
20 small greenhouses last July, purchased seeds, and installed extra water tanks
where hydroponic solution could be stored separately from water for daily
household use. 

These greenhouses were built in July 2010, and a year later, the
families are growing spinach, carrots, tomatoes, chilies, radishes, lettuce and
cucumbers for their own consumption. "It's
a pleasure for us to see that the people have some fruits and they are eating.
The most important thing for us is that
they understand that they can do more with their resources that they
have."

Even better are the numbers
of people who are being helped. "Directly,
it's like 43 families, but they give to their neighbors, so indirectly, it's
more like 90 families," says Millan.

This year, another greenhouse was added to the project, and the
team included worm composting to help enrich the soil. There are also plans to begin a program to help families start raising hens for
eggs and meat.

Along the way, community members get involved. Many times, they volunteer their time to help
just so they can learn how to grow their own food. Buckner is relatively new in the
country, so the name isn't closely associated with Gospel work. However, Millan says that's never far from
their minds as they work. "Those
activities that we have as Buckner teams are giving another idea for people to
understand that we're not talking to them about religion, we just want them to
discover our relationship with Jesus Christ."

To learn more about Buckner ministries in Mexico, click here.

The resulting effect is that an observer from the outside
gets the impression that Mexico is falling apart and that a visit to the country
would result in death, great bodily harm, or something equally disastrous.

Border-state governors from Arizona and Texas insist the cartels
are hitting their states hard, using terminology like "war zone" to describe
the mayhem created by drug bosses.

However, there's another side to the  picture. In stark contrast, Customs and
Border Protection along with Homeland Security say their measures are working
and the border has never been safer. Their claims are backed by a recent study
that violent crime in cities within 50-miles of the border is consistently
lower than state and national averages.

Juan Carlos Millán, Buckner Mexico program director, agrees
with that. "I have never seen
people fighting with guns, and I have been four or five times in Juarez, per
year. And in Oaxaca, I have been many times, and in Guerrero…and we haven't
seen problems like that." 

That's not to say that it doesn't exist, Millán notes. "Nothing is 100% sure on safety. But we
received five groups this year, and all of them are really happy because we had
no contact with this problem (violence)."

Millán says they take the safety of short-term team members seriously. "We know there is a really
bad situation in some places. Some moments are really difficult, and you have to
be careful." When a team visits,
their safety is paramount. However,
this year, the  reputation of the region scared
a lot of people off. "Many people
don't want to come to Mexico. The people who live in Mexico, like me and our
team, know that God is in control. We have to be serious and careful."

The question of violence came up again when looking at the
disruption to other ministries. Millan
explains that the opposition they encounter doesn't come from the place you'd
expect. "In Mexico's Republic,
nobody knows Buckner because Buckner began to work three years ago. Now, they
understand sometimes it's a little difficult, as you may know. The Catholic
people are 99% in Mexico, so sometimes they reject the Christians."

During the last quarter of 2007, more doors for ministry
opportunities opened in the cities of Oaxaca, Mexico City, Arcelia and Juárez.
Buckner officially formed its NGO in April 2008 under the name "Familia y
Ninos Buckner Mexico A.C."

Today, Buckner has foster care programs, feeding ministries,
and humanitarian aid programs. They're
a ministry dedicated to the restoration and healing through the hope of Christ. They
also just started a hydroponics program to address the food shortages. It opens a lot of doors. "When we work with them to get fruit for
the poor people, many people are growing in the knowledge of Jesus
Christ."