Greetings, March, 2009

We thank each of you for your interest in our letters. I receive encouraging comments from many of you on a regular basis. It seems you read our letters and even the notes I write at the end of each letter.

I work at it. It isn't easy to reduce a ministry like ours down to a short black and white letter. I feel that you are more interested in what we're doing with people so that's where we place our focus.

Eric, the boy with cancer was a fighter. He held on as long as he could. Last night about 7:00 P.M., he died. Fortunately Aaron was there to comfort his mom and sisters. It seems the large dose of chemo arrested his tumors but destroyed his kidneys and liver in the process. We'll have a funeral soon. Spectrum has helped his mother with expenses. (Thanks for making this help possible.)

After work at the jail, I travel a few miles to Zona Norte (red light district, near the border fence) where I have a class of about twenty teen boys in a big orphanage. Several kids join us fresh from the street. I was surprised several weeks ago when a girl slipped in. She came in late and quietly sat down in the hallway. Later I found out she was a he, a 15 year old transvestite, by the name of David. There's a transvestite bar nearby which he frequents. The kids accept "him" in our study, which he attends often. The expense of this study is two big pizzas and some cola. It's worth every peso.

I wish you could be there to watch as these kids listen to the Bible teaching ... it would be so encouraging. I might add, a study like this goes on in three other orphanages once a month. As long as we have the respect of these hundreds of orphanage kids we might as well make use of it. Add the weekly Bible Club, and we're reaching and discipling a significant amount of young people.

Two terms we hear in Christian circles are 'bang for the buck' and 'nickels and noses'; both indicating a concern for placing money where it will do the most spiritual good. Those are two good principles. We have not only spiritual good in mind but humanitarian good as well.

Thanks for your trust in our ability of balancing the two. Unfortunately bucks and nickels are in the equation.

Praise! In checking our last years financial records we were grateful to find that we were only $10,000 short of the year before. I thought it would be much more. You folks are great in helping us continue our ministry. Come down and visit your investment sometime, we'll be glad to show you around.

Any way you want to look at it we're a team that's investing in the future. In barrios, schools, teen's jail, orphanages; it's the future at stake. Your prayers are the catalyst that sets our message permanently into these young lives. The time to reach them is when they're young.

For all of us working in Tijuana, von

Please continue to pray for our safety as we work in these shady areas of the city. Indeed it takes a team.