Pastor Raul, from Guadalajara enjoying some fresh OJ with Dave Miller
Dave Miller took a few minutes to share his thoughts from this years Oaxaca Men’s Ministry week over on the MISSION focused site…you can go HERE to see what he wrote.
Growing up, when there weren’t thousands of channels to pick from, you didn’t get picky about what you watched. You just picked the best of the 7 or 8 channels you could get depending on the weather and how good your “rabbit ear” antennas were…
Channel 5 in LA, had Tom Hatton who would host Saturday morning Popeye cartoons and in between he would draw cartoons from squiggle lines kids would send in to him. I remember wanting to send something in to see what he could draw from the craziest scribble I could dream up. That was back in the day!
That same channel would show Godzilla movies afterwards. I think I saw every movie with all the different monsters Godzilla would fight. Tokyo has to be the toughest city in the world with the best construction crews around, considering how many times the city was destroyed!
I started thinking about this when recently I had to make some changes to this blog. It had to do with a photo shoot I did recently and me posting photos that I was not supposed to post.
Unfortunately this is an issue that’s not new to me. 
Photographers tend to be Lone Ranger types, wanting to be individuals, artists, not wanting to be held down or limited by anybody. Photographers don’t want to be Tonto.
But sometimes, we have to be Tonto, when we are photographing for someone else…which means we have to play by someone else’s rules when it comes to how and what we take photos of and how we use the photos we take. Other times, we have to follow the rules we a contractually bound by. Which is what happened to me this weekend.
Lesson here…read the fine print!
Or take your football and go play somewhere else…
Jamii (pronounced “jah-mee”) is Swahili for family 
Family of believers praying for Michelle
I met Michelle Contreras on Thursday night, when she came to visit the small group I go to. She is a missionary in Tanzania, Africa (serving with Hope of the Nations) who is stateside on furlough right now raising support, visiting friends and family.
As God has been working on me over the last few years, through my relationship with Adventures in Life and Mission Focused, He has given me a desire to serve using the gift of photography, to bless others and help spread the work that missionaries like Dave and Michelle are doing around the world.
Friends of Michelle gathered on Friday night to fellowship, pray, and raise support for her as she prepares to head back to Tanzania. I honestly didn’t know anybody besides Michelle, Susan Daughters and her daughter Julie. Most important to me, Christ was there!
I decided to go to this little fellowship night for Michelle after getting to know her on Thursday night. The key for me was her honesty and truthfulness when it came to sharing what her first year in Tanzania was like. (If you want to know the details, you can visit her website and email her…I’m sure she would love to share what God is doing in her life and in Tanzania)
After talking with Michelle, and from conversations and observations from my visits to Oaxaca, Mexico…I know that it can be tough and even lonely sometimes. Especially if you don’t speak the native language. I’ve learned that the missionary life is far from glamorous and sometimes the american church tends to sugar-cote what it’s really like.
This is why I believe that fellowship and the family of believers is so important. Important to missionaries like Michelle in Tanzania and Americo & Norma in Oaxaca, and to Dave, who seeks to minister alongside missionaries in the field. Without that support network, the work doesn’t get done. Without jamii, it doesn’t happen.
God willing, maybe I can go with Mission Focused to visit Michelle in Tanzania, to help document the work God is doing through her and Hope of the Nations…
Pray for the workers in the field who are seeking to share the Love of Christ…and if you can, go visit. I know it will bless them as much as you will be blessed!
And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
(Hebrews 10:24-25 ESV)
I highly encourage yall to visit Michelle’s site HERE and Hope of the Nations to learn more about what God is doing in Tanzania.
To learn more about Dave Miller and Adventures in Life please go HERE
Family…no matter how you say it or in what language, it means the same thing. These men came together from all parts of the U.S. and Guadalajara, Mexico to serve Jesus and be used for God’s Glory. After a great week of ministry we each left as friends and family. Many of the men who had come for the first time were already talking about coming back next year. The Spirit of God was truly present and active this week!
This photo was taken in San Baltazar Guelavila, Oaxaca. The men built a roof on 2 adobe buildings that will be used as a kitchen and classroom, seen in the background, and they built a greenhouse that will be used to grow small crops of vegatables such as peppers, tomatoes, and radishes that they can feed families with and sell in the market.
A “family” photo taken in San Baltazar with the local church after a Wednesday night fellowship and Bible study. It was a great time of fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ!
A final family photo with Pastors Americo and Norma’s family with the men of Adventures in Life inside the storage shed they built during the week. It was a great week of ministry and fellowship…Praise God!
I’ve been to Oaxaca and some of the surrounding towns several times now, and as sad as I am that it took 3 years to visit La Capilla de Zaachila…it was worth the wait. Great food, great atmosphere, and good friends, it doesn’t get any better than that. My friend Dave Miller, co-founder of Adventures in Life ministries has been coming down to Oaxaca for over 10 years now (give or take a year) and he hadn’t been here either.
So it was about time….go check out the food experience we had at Dave’s blog HERE then go visit Oaxaca. It will change your life!
Silhouette of the Catedral de Oaxaca
Back in San Diego.
It’s now time to process….images and thoughts, and write. More soon….to catch up on what happened in Oaxaca, please visit www.MISSION-focused.com
On the way to the Zocalo Sunday morning, I started shooting random things that caught my eye 
These statues are part of a large art installation in Oaxaca, each statue is hand made and represents someone who died trying to cross the border into the United States
As I got into the flow of it, I started wondering wear are all the cool streets at in San Diego. It seemed like every nameless street I walked down, there was something interesting to take a photo of…Needless to say I had a blast! I hope you like some of the random stuff I shot on Sunday. 
Don’t forget to check out what’s happening in Oaxaca at MISSION-focused.com
