Broken Hearts MinistriesJanuary 2014 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. Psalm 51:17 Another year has flown by and it s good to reflect on all that has gone on. First of all we want to acknowledge the tremendous blessing of having faithful prayer and financial supporters who make it possible for us to serve here. We give God all the glory but we never forget He provides through people who decide where to focus their resources and time. We are also so grateful for the people who work along side us here in the field. Vero, Raquel, Leti, and Janet, plus their families are vital to the ministry. The countless tasks, personal connections with the community, and sometimes just good friendship and fellowship provided through these great folks are such a blessing. God bless you all. After a long dry spell with only a few visitors due to the violence during the last 4 or 5 years we hosted four visiting groups in 2013. With those groups, all of which were from Wisconsin churches, we helped advance a two bedroom and bathroom addition to a small house for a family of six. We brightened the homes of a few of our ladies with the help of one group consisting of six ladies and a pastor by repairing walls, wiring, windows and doors and then painting and even providing curtains. We were also able to do a few projects on our new ministry facility in order to move in and begin using it for the community. The first three groups came down in January and February and the fourth came two days after Christmas and left on January 2. The fourth was a big group for us consisting of 12 women and 6 men; five families of moms, dads, daughters and son. They got to enjoy our newly finished dorm addition which added 12 more bunks to the existing dorm plus another bathroom and shower. Some of our project work was rewiring a four room home by cutting holes in block and concrete in order to install new wiring, insulate and sheet rock ceilings in two rooms and install a new secure steel front door unit. The group provided the funds for a new bed for a daughter with severe disabilities plus materials for the dad to finish plaster work on the walls and to paint. Roofing paper was also installed on a room for another family. During their week the girls and moms helped Peggy with numerous other activities. They prepared and served food for a belated Christmas celebration for our ladies Bible study. One of the ladies shared a devotion and others provided kid s crafts and games for about forty of the ladies kids. On two afternoons they hosted volleyball camps in the community where they taught the local kids how to play volleyball and just spent time playing with them. One of our local young couples provided a brief devotion time for the kids during those afternoons. Finally their last evening with us the girls helped provide a belated Christmas celebration at another local weekly kids club. It s not possible to mentioned everything these visiting groups did for us and our community of faith but they blessed us all greatly and honored God. Contact us: jpeewarren@hotmail.com Call 915-731-4235 Visit our website at www.bhmjuarez.com
Lupita is a single mom with 7 kids, 2-15 years old. They had been living in a borrowed house which she was asked to vacate. She acquired a piece of property through a government program which basically sells her the land cheap and allows her to make small payments. The problem is that she was required to occupy the property in a very short time. Therefore she began to build a house out of pallets. The area has no city water or sewer system of it s own and no electricity. With the financial support of churches and individuals we were able to build Lupita and her kids a simple but nice 2 room house. It includes a living room/kitchen, one large bedroom and a full bathroom. In the bedroom we built bunk beds, some 3 tiers high, to provide a bed for each of them. (before they pretty much all slept in one bed). Using the finances provided we were able to pay local men who needed the work to do most of the digging, cement work and laying block. This included digging a septic pit, trenching in a water line to a nearby supply, and burying a conduit for wire which needed to be connected to a neighboring street where there were power poles. With the help of members of our church in El Paso we installed window, doors, roof, plumbing and wiring to complete the project. Several of our local families helped clean and prepare the house and move them in. It was a great project that included many people in the process. The finished house may not seem like much by our standards, but it greatly blessed Lupita and her kids. Here s the thing.to provide this single mom and her kids with a safe, solid place to live is a great thing to be able to do, but this all too common situation has much more deeply rooted problems that can t be overlooked as we minister to the community here. Please pray with us and for us, for Lupita and her kids and others like them as their teens begin to become rebellious, as wisdom is needed to make good parenting decisions, and strength and endurance are needed to maintain support for their own families. They need Jesus. They need to follow His lead. They need to be with others who love God and to learn His Word in order to be encouraged to make good life decisions. We need prayer for wisdom and discernment for how to help them. Just yesterday Peggy met with three of Lupita s girls at our ministry building to spend some time with them. They visited as Peggy taught them how to bake cupcakes. They respond to the attention and our hope is they not only hear the gospel story in church and at Bible studies, but they be drawn to a life of truly following Christ. 2 Coffee Time Ladies! Coffee Time as we call it, is a new women s ministry we ve begun since occupying our new building. Our purpose is to get to know ladies in our community who have not yet been involved with us by providing a friendly, comfortable, non-threatening environment where they could get to know us and us them. For each event five ladies who are currently involved with us are invited and asked to bring one or two friends or neighbors. We have received a very good response with attendance and interaction between women during this time. Ladies arrive and are greeted; seated, served coffee, tea, or juice with cookies and then the conversations start. In order to get the conversations going there are written questions, with the purpose of getting to know one another, on pieces of paper in a container on the table. Ladies take turns pulling out the questions and everyone at the table answers the same question. Many times the conversation turns to spiritual questions from the woman and doors are open for sharing the gospel. Near the end of our time together each person is given a small sheet of paper with several verses on it, a devotion is shared, going through these verses, and then we close in prayer. Several ladies have come to know the lord through these events and more have begun to attend our weekly ladies Bible Study..the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Galations 6:8
Over the past seven years Women with Hope, the embroidery microbusiness, has been a very fruitful ministry to women and their families. During a very difficult, dark, and seemingly hopeless time here in Juarez this ministry brought women together for fellowship, prayer support, work to do together and in their homes, income, and many other daily blessings. Women with Hope, the name chosen by the ladies, really did bring much hope over the years! However, all things here on earth do come to an end and last August the Board of Directors, Jim, and Peggy decided it was time to shut down the micro-business for now. For the past couple of years we have had to rely primarily on craft fairs for sales, which took a lot of time, energy, travel, and money. Originally, we relied on visiting groups and churches for our sales but that seemed to get old and it became more and more difficult to find people to host an event for us. We are praying for more US staff to join us and if God provides someone with the gifts and desire to work with this ministry it could be started up again. The ladies were very sad and disappointed but all have handled it well. We did agree with the women to do special orders and this did help out several women through the holidays as we had a couple of large orders to fill. A special Thank you! to all who supported us over the years with materials, purchases, and hosting events! the woman of noble character watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Proverbs 31:27 3 What started back in 2005 with one student supported by one family has grown to 46 students completely supported in junior high and high school and many other students partially supported. We have had the joy of seeing many graduate from high school who without the support would not have made it. This program relies on many faithful prayer and financial supporters and many hours of hard work to keep these kids in school. We are especially grateful for Vero, our local staff person in charge of the students. While their education is vital to breaking the chains of poverty their spiritual needs are even greater. In many of these families we have been able to build relationships that have lead to spiritual growth as well. But it never stops. There are always students on our waiting list to be sponsored! If you d like more information about how you can be involved in this important part of our work please check out the web-site for more details. Please mail all donations to Broken Hearts Ministries, P.O. box 31237, El Paso, TX 79931 Or visit our web-site at www.bhmjuarez.com to make an on-line donation
4 Feliz Navidad!! For the past several years we have focused our Christmas emphasis on providing a gift box of food for families in our community, many of which wouldn t have the resources to have a nice Christmas meal at all. What began with one family s burden for our folks at Christmas, providing funds to buy food for a few families, grew to more folks providing support in the following years for 20, then 40, then last year with the help of individuals and supporting churches we provided the packages for fifty families in our ministry community. After last year s event we got a real sense that we should ask God to provide 100 families this Christmas. This would enable us to bless some of those outside our regular families in our ministry community. We prayed, God blessed through churches and generous individuals. For many weeks Vero and her family made numerous trips to the local stores buying hundreds of items such as cereal, sugar, coffee, pasta, flour, canned veggies, soap, shampoo, and many more. We were able to bless a small local vendor who s been struggling economically by purchasing more than 15,000 pesos worth of potatoes, eggs, onions, oranges, chilis, and corn husks used to make tamales, which they bagged up for us in 100 packages. At a local butcher shop we ordered two hundred kilos of cut up pork and fifty kilos of chorizo. Then on Saturday the 21st of December a dozen of our folks including some teenage family members gathered in our house, (which by now looked like a small grocery warehouse), to pack 100 large boxes full of fresh food and household items. We had made up a list of 100 families who would receive the gifts and divided the names among five of us families who would deliver the packages, visit and pray with each one our lists before Christmas day. It was awesome! As you can imagine. All the items; about $60 per box, were purchased in Mexico, supporting the local economy. Several of our families participated in the work and the blessing of delivering the gifts. Thanks to the generous financial support of brothers and sisters in the U.S. and the hard work of our local families it was a Christmas event that lifted up the name of our Lord not to mention it just blessed my socks off. Gracias! This is our van. It s a 1984 15 passenger Dodge. Those of you who have visited would remember it. We ve had it for years. We call it our Juarez limo. Its been a good vehicle. Many years ago some great friends bought it from a church in Tennessee and gave it to us for the ministry. It has been used for everything from a work truck, to transportation for visiting groups, to hauling soccer teams, to taking people to funerals, to taking our families or youth on a retreat. We have been blessed to have it, but its time to look for something a little less tired; maybe a little more modern; with working AC and heater and things like that. We re asking that you pray. Perhaps you would like to help purchase our next van or perhaps you know of a church getting rid of one that s still in fair condition. I ve been shopping around and it looks like we can find a suitable one for our needs for anywhere from $3000 to $8000. If you would like to make a donation to the van fund you can mail a check to: Broken Hearts Ministries, P.O. box 31237, El Paso, TX 79931. Please note van fund on the memo like. Or you can go on-line to: www.bhmjuarez.com, follow the menu to On-line Donations. Please make a note in the comment box designating the donation to the van fund. Any information you may have about an available van either as a donation or to buy at a reasonable price please call Jim at 915-731-4235 or email: jpeewarren@hotmail.com Thank you.
Our good friend and brother in Christ Rudy Acuna is a singer/songwriter/worship leader. He has recently produced an EP of original contemporary worship music called; to all the world. Here s what Rudy shares about the album. The songs in this album have been picked with great intention in the hopes that you, the listener would enter into your own time of reflection and worship. The influences that have shaped my songs began long ago when my parents exposed me to country, Motown, the blues, rock and roll and everything in between. Moreover, my faith journey is embedded in these songs and my desire to see God's kingdom expanded through both the listening to and sales of these songs. 100% of the proceeds will go directly to Broken Hearts Ministries, a mercy ministry serving in Juarez, Mexico. You can find out more about this ministry at Brokenheartsministries.org. Thank you for stopping by to listen! We are so grateful for Rudy and his wife Ceci for their heart to serve God and support others to do so also. You can download the EP on-line at itunes, cdbaby.com, or Amazon.com. Remember when you purchase the music for your enjoyment you are also supporting Broken Hearts Ministries work in Juarez. Also for the next two months when you make an on-line donation to Broken Hearts Ministries at our web-site we will send you a copy of this cd. Simply go to www.bhmjuarez.com and follow the menu to on-line donations. Note in the comment box you would like the cd. 5 It s impossible to write in a newsletter, even if we did it monthly, all that goes on in our days here in Juarez. Many ask what a typical day looks like for us. Truth is we don t really have a typical day. Not that we don t plan our days, it just that serving in ministry demands you be flexible, available, and ready to have your plans changed without notice. We re not complaining. We are blessed to be where God has us. We are grateful to Him and people who support us in this work. Peggy and I would love to share more with you about the countless visits we make to the homes of our folks; the Bible studies, the counseling, mentoring, encouraging, and sometimes exhorting times we spend with them. Or the tremendous times of fellowship we experience in our home celebrating a birthday or holiday with those whom have become like family to us. Living and working with our folks in Juarez is not just a ministry, it s our life. We are especially blessed to have the life we have and we thank God for it. We invite you to come down and visit; to serve along side us and to fellowship with our community. The violence here has greatly subsided. Short term groups are returning. We ve added dormitory space to accommodate you. We also ask that you pray with us for God to provide for more local staff people and more U.S. field missionaries. There is so much to do; so many opportunities to minister that we haven t even tapped into. And we re not getting any younger. We need fresh new ideas and energy. Over more than 13 years we have established a great foundation for relational mercy ministry in one of the neediest, both economically and spiritually, areas you ll ever see just a few meters across the border from the richest country in the world. If you would like to visit more about how you could be a part of this great opportunity, whether that be as a full time missionary, a short term visitor, a financial support, or prayer partner, please contact us....for we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10