Dear Friends & Prayer Partners;

I’m finally (I think) through with traveling for this year. It’s so good to be able to be home for a change, without having to prepare for my next trip. I expect to spend the rest of the year here with my family, and working in the office. Maybe that doesn’t sound very exciting to you, but after 15 trips this year, I’m ready to stay home for a while.

-- IN THIS ISSUE --

• URGENT PRAYER REQUEST FOR TABASCO
• TRIP TO TABASCO, CAMPECHE & CHIAPAS
• CHRISTMAS TOY DRIVE
• WEB SITE
• FAMILY NOTES

-- URGENT PRAYER REQUEST FOR TABASCO --

I don’t know if you’ve seen in the news, but there’s been widespread flooding in the state of Tabasco, Mexico. The state is currently 70% under water, and the capital, Villahermosa is 80% under water.

This is the city where I go the most to minister in the south of Mexico. The city is 1/3 Christian, but the other 2/3 of the people could rival new Orleans for wickedness. We have lots of pastor friends there, and two pastors under our covering. I’ve been able to contact some of them, to see how they are, but not everyone.

One pastor, Magdiel Canto told me they’ve lost everything. This is the pastor of the church I’ve written about where God has been moving so powerfully. He had just finished building and furnishing a house for his family (they’d been living in the parsonage which they want to convert to offices for the church), and have lost everything in the new house, the parsonage, and the church. He just managed to get out of the city with his family, and is now in a refuge center in a nearby city.

Another of our pastors, Hector Cruz, who has his home and church in the poorest part of the city, is probably in bad shape, although I can’t contact him. His church is right across the highway from the river that’s 6½ feet over flood stage. When he first came under our covering, his family had a house of corrugated tin. Just this summer, they finished building the second floor of their house (cinder blocks and cement). There’s a good chance they’ve lost everything as well.

Some other friends, who live in higher parts of the city have been untouched by the flooding. However, they’ve lost electricity, water service, and are essentially trapped on an island until the waters drop.

Please pray for all the believers in Villahermosa, especially the pastors. We are still trying to contact people, and are trying to work out a way to send them some help.

-- TRIP TO TABASCO, CAMPECHE, & CHIAPAS --

I spent most of last month traveling in the southern part of Mexico, ministering. Several of our churches in Tabasco asked me to go there and minister. Looks like I came home just in time to miss all their problems.

In addition to minister in Tabasco, one of the churches sent me to minister in some isolated areas of Campeche and Chiapas. The area in Campeche is the same one where we went in February, two years ago. The only way to describe the area is primitive. The pastor’s house looks like a clapwood barn from the early 1800’s. My bedroom there looked like a horse stall in the barn. The only difference is a cement floor, and a few electric lights.

When we were there the last time, they didn’t have running water, just a tank in front of the house, which the city would fill twice a week. To bathe, one had to take a bucket of water to the outhouse and use a cup to pour it over your head. They now have running water, or at least what they think of as running water. What that means is that they now have a spigot out front to fill the bucket from.

This was physically the roughest trip I’ve ever taken into Mexico. Normally, I don’t have any problem in Mexico with sickness, or any serious problems with the food. Not so this time. I was hit by the flu early on in the trip, and by what we Americans call “Montezuma’s Revenge” on the latter part of the trip. It was loads of fun coming back on the bus with my intestines in an uproar.

In addition, I was assaulted by a couple of youth, who were probably drug addicts. They came up behind me, sitting on a bench, while I was waiting in front of the house for the pastor. After breaking a beer bottle over my head, they stole my Pocket PC (something like a Palm, but by HP), and ran. The whole thing was over in about 3 seconds. People came running to help me, but the youth ran too quick to catch them.

Fortunately, I wasn’t seriously hurt; just a few cuts and some bruising. It could have been much more serious, but the Lord protected me. None of the glass went in my eye, and the cuts in my skin were superficial.

I like what Joshua, my son said of the incident. His first message to me was, “Praise God! Maybe they’ll come back so you can show them God’s love.” The second was, “You must be doing something right, otherwise the devil wouldn’t be so mad at you.”

I’ve been reading Fox’s Book of Martyrs. The one thing that stands out to me the most is how the early Christians faced persecution and death… with a smile, and with praises on their lips. We must understand that the devil can’t have victory over us as long as we keep praising the Lord. He must defeat our heart, before he can defeat us. As long as we are praising God, we aren’t defeated.

I didn’t let any of these problems affect my ability to minister while I was on the trip. Although the thought did arise to cancel the trip, and return home early, I kept on ministering, and wouldn’t be defeated. Towards the end of the trip, when Montezuma came to visit I was so weak that I slept all day, and preached sitting in a chair, but I still kept on preaching; glory to God! His strength is made manifest in our weakness.

The ministry time, as usual, was very powerful. I taught a lot on Praise, Worship, and the Presence of God. The people were hungry for the Word, and quickly applied it to their lives.

One of the problems in the Mexican church, especially the Pentecostal church is that they sing a lot of songs, calling them “praises” that really don’t have anything to do with praising the Lord; instead, they are songs to motivate and excite the heart of the believer. They problem with this is that God doesn’t inhabit these songs; He inhabits the praises of His people. Nor do people enter the courts of God with these songs (Ps 100:4), but only with praises.

This false teaching about praise has been one of the ways that the devil has been robbing from the Mexican church. However, I saw churches literally changing overnight by teaching them the truth about praise and worship. Praise the Lord!

-- CHRISTMAS TOY DRIVE --

Once again, it’s time for our annual Christmas Toy Drive. This has been growing every year since we started it. We’re expecting this year to be even bigger than any of our past toy drives.

The toys, food and candy we collect and pass out in the toy drive go to the children of the poorest of the poor in Reynosa, Mexico; the closest border town to where we live. The families of these children live and work in the garbage dumps, collecting garbage, sorting out recyclables, and burning what can be burned. These families earn about $30.00 per week.

As you can imagine, a family making $30.00 a week can’t buy Christmas presents for these children. The toys these children receive from us are the only ones they will receive this Christmas; quite possibly the only ones they’ll receive all year.

One group of seven churches in Alabama has committed to make and ship us candy rolls. We’ve never had contact with these churches in the past, but they found us through the internet, and decided to become part of this work. Another businessman, who supported us last year, has committed to buying 100 toys to get us started. We appreciate all the churches and individuals who partner with us in this, and other projects; there’s no way we could do projects like this without their help.

If you would like to bless a child this Christmas, we are looking for new $5.00 toys, that don’t require batteries. We ask for new toys to avoid anyone sending us broken things (you’d be amazed what some people have sent in the past); we ask for $5.00 toys, because we don’t want to give one child a bicycle, and another a dollar store toy. This way, everyone leaves happy.

You can either send us toys, or send a special offering designated for the toy drive. If you send money, it will all be used for the toy drive, with noting taken out for “administrative costs.”

-- WEB SITE --

We now have over 11 years of ministry on the Internet. Our web site, which started in 1997 with 23 pages keeps growing and growing. As of last count, we have 467 pages between what we have in English and what we have in Spanish. 195 of those pages are teachings in English, and 107 of them are teachings in Spanish. If someone was to print all those teachings, it would be over 2,000 pages.

At first, we created the web site with the idea of promoting our books. However, we needed some reason for people to come to our web site, and see our books. That’s when we started putting teachings online. Since then, the focus has become almost entirely the teachings, with the books being incidental.

This year, we’ve hit a new record for visits to the web site: 25,000 visits in one month. I realize that is probably nothing compared to some of the big ministries here in the United States, but for us, it’s awesome.
Every month, we receive numerous contacts from pastors, around the world, asking for prayer and counsel. In addition, we have received pastors under our covering through the web site. Recently, a believer from the Virgin Islands started sending us $5.00 per month because of how they have been ministered to through our web site.

The great testimony about all this is how God has grown this part of our ministry. To go from 32 pages in 1997 to over 400; from 2,500 visits a month is 2000 to 25,000 a month this year. God has taken something that started out as a small sideline of our ministry and turned it into a way that He is ministering to thousands! Praise the Lord!

If you haven’t seen our web site, it’s at: www.MaranathaLife.com

-- FAMILY NOTES --

My trip to Ohio to pick up the things we had in storage went smoothly and successfully. We made the trip, 3,400 miles, in only 4 days. Now we have to sort through the things I brought back, and find places to put them. A lot of it is things that have sentimental value (especially to Debbie) and books. I also brought her piano, which was in storage for all those years. Amazingly enough, the piano was not damaged at all by the heat, and especially the humidity of being in storage.

Amongst the things that I brought back are all of our Christmas decorations. Some of the ornaments we have are antiques, and many were special gifts, or handmade ornaments. For the first time in 10 years, we are going to be able to put up a Christmas tree, with all the decorations that my family collected since my childhood.

That may not seem like much to you, who have been able to have a tree every year, but there are some sacrificed one makes in the work of the Lord that really touch the heart. I didn’t realize how much I missed having the family Christmas tree until I saw those boxes of decorations.

For other family news, while I was on my last trip both Jenni and Josh were able to buy cars. We’ve had lots of problems with the old vehicles we’ve been using, and have lost two this year to catastrophic engine failures. A friend took them car shopping, and they were both able to find cars they both liked and could afford at the same car lot. Since they were buying two at once, and paying cash for them, they were able to get really good deals. Not only that, but they were able to get economical cars, which will save them a lot on the rising gas costs.

Josh passed his driving test on the first try, even though he didn’t have a lot of practice driving. I think that’s because he’s cautious by nature. Having his own car and drivers license has made things a whole lot easier for both of them. Now, Josh doesn’t have to wait at school until Jenni can pick him up. Nor does she have to go early, just to get him to his classes on time.

Please pray for Deborah’s work in the school. She’s received a lot of opposition for the bible club, mostly from ever changing rules and regulations that the school is trying to impose upon her. Since the bible club isn’t a “school club” they make things harder for her than for the other clubs on campus. She’s also having trouble with her department head; who is doing a lot of petty things against her and another teacher. Basically, the department head wants the teachers to be “yes men” and Deborah doesn’t do that. She’s trying to do a better job, and the department head feels threatened.

I may not have time to write to you again before the end of the year, so let me say Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas to all. We hope and pray that Christ be the center of all your festivities, and that His mighty hand rest upon you and your life. Always remember, Jesus is the reason for the season.

Blessings in Jesus,

Rev. Rich Murphy
Maranatha Life