Dear Friends & Prayer Partners;

Well, summer has arrived with its 100+ degree days. We’ve developed our own version of hibernating down here. Bears sleep through the winter; but we hide in the air conditioning through the summer. Otherwise, it seems as if we would melt. I don’t know how people work outside in this heat. I had to do some cutting and welding outside yesterday (which isn’t really physically demanding work), and after an hour I felt like I’d worked all day.

-- IN THIS ISSUE --

• INTERNET VIDEO BIBLE SCHOOL - SPECIAL TESTIMONY REPORT
• PASTOR'S SEMINARS
• DEBORAH'S TRIP
• CHRISTIAN LIBRARIES
• FAMILY NOTES

-- INTERNET VIDEO BIBLE SCHOOL - SPECIAL TESTIMONY REPORT--

A lot of what I’ve been working on lately is getting ready to start the Internet Video Bible School.  We’re shooting for a September start date, and it looks like we’re going to make it. There’s still lots of work to do, but God is helping out.

The biggest issue in being ready to open the school has been that of video equipment. As you can probably imagine, we need to have an entire television studio to be able to film the classes. Not only that, but the equipment needs to be portable; because we’re going to film actual classes with students.

When we first tried to start the school, two years ago, I only had some rudimentary equipment, like anyone would use to video their kids’ birthday party. Although I tried to work with this equipment, the image and sound quality wasn’t good enough. In addition, I was dealing with the problem of one complete day of editing time for each hour of finished video. So, we had to come up with something better; in other words, a portable television studio.

Throughout the last year, I’ve been buying equipment bit by bit. Every time we had a little bit of extra money in the ministry account, I went searching on e-Bay for a bargain. Through that, I had bought some of what we needed; but the real breakthroughs have happened in the last two months.

One of the couples who have supported us in the past sent us a generous offering after I sent out our last newsletter. That offering was enough that we were able to buy the most critical piece of equipment for recording, a video switcher. (If you’re not familiar with television and video recording, a video switcher is the console that switches between the various cameras, video titlemaker and other video inputs.) Once again, I went hunting on e-Bay and found a simple switcher for a great price.

The last big problem was cameras. Through the last months I’ve bought a number of used semi-professional cameras. One of them arrived fine and I am using it. Another two arrived non-functional (one is in the repair shop). Another still hasn’t arrived, even though I bought it over a month ago. It seemed like whatever I did to buy cameras didn’t work.

About 10 days ago, I was on e-Bay looking at professional video cameras. I didn’t have any money to buy anything, but I was looking out of a combination of curiosity and frustration. Amongst the hundreds of cameras listed I found a listing for a package of 5 older Panasonic studio cameras (that means that they don’t have recorders built in). The starting price was very reasonable, $299.00, with a $1,600.00 “buy it now” price; but I still couldn’t bid. Nobody had bid on these cameras, so I sent the seller an e-mail saying, “The timing’s wrong on this auction. I don’t have anything to bid with, but I’d like to bid on your cameras. If it doesn’t sell, e-mail me later, maybe we can work something out.” They responded saying, “If it doesn’t sell, make us an offer.”

The cameras didn’t sell in the time of the listing. A couple of days later, a couple of checks came in to the ministry, and I had a little to work with, but it wasn’t enough to make a reasonable offer. Nevertheless, with much prompting of the Lord, last Wednesday morning at 2:00, I sent them an e-mail offering $300.00 including shipping (the shipping alone was $100). I also told them in the e-mail what I wanted to use the cameras for.

Later the same day I received an e-mail from that couple saying, “Please send $100 to my PayPal account to cover shipping along with your name and address. My wife and I would like to sow these cameras into your ministry.”

So, the biggest need we had to complete the equipment package was filled by a couple we don’t even know. How’s that for God working to bring about His work? Praise the Lord!

Although there are still some equipment needs, they are minor pieces of equipment to improve how we’re doing things, and we can start filming without them. Right now I’m in the process of building the whole editing console into a case to make it portable.

Now that the equipment needs are basically taken care of, the biggest need is for workers. It will take a team of three people to set up and shoot a class. We will also need some office help for records. Please be praying that God supply us with volunteers to work with us in this project.

We also need ongoing funding for the Bible school. As I mentioned before, our budget for this project is about $2,000.00 per month. God has brought us two new supporters in the last month, but we still need more. Please pray and agree with us that God brings us people to financially support this work.

I’d also like to ask your prayers for God’s protection over our equipment. As I was writing this, I found out that UPS had made an error with the shipment of cameras that was supposed to come in today. That started me thinking about the amount of problems we’ve had in buying equipment. A couple of things we bought were damaged in shipping; requiring return to the vendor. Additionally, several smaller pieces of equipment have arrived defective; also requiring return to the vendor for replacement.

It seems that the enemy doesn’t want me to have this equipment, so that I can start the bible school. Well, my God is greater, and I speak blessings over everything that He’s given me for this project.

One more detail I’d like to mention. If anyone out there is an expert at web design, I need some help on something I’ve never done before (yeah, I know, we have a big web site, but this is something new for me). I need to know how to make parts of the bible school’s web site password accessible. If you know anything about that, I’d appreciate it if you could contact me, and point me in the right direction. Everything else for the web site seems to be under control.

-- PASTOR'S SEMINARS --

In the last few months, we’ve started organizing seminars for the Mexican pastors on the U.S. side of the border. This has basically grown out of my being president of the Hispanic ministerial alliance.

Many, if not most of the pastors here on the border have only had minimal preparation to be pastors; they are in great need of further training. As the president of the alliance, I’ve taken the opportunity to organize several seminars for the pastors. In some of these seminars, I’ve been one of the speakers, and in others I’ve sought out people who had more expertise. In whatever way, it has been another opportunity to minister to the pastors.

Please keep the pastors here, on both sides of the border, in your prayers. Border areas are always a challenge spiritually; because they are also spiritual borders between the influences of two principalities. As such, these areas need some of the greatest spiritual warriors and ministers. Looking around me, I have to wonder why God has called those of us who are here. I know He doesn’t see things the same way I do, but we all need your prayer support

-- DEBORAH'S TRIP --

Deborah had a great start to her summer vacation. A friend of ours, who has a ministry ministering to missionaries, invited her to spend a week in Georgia and the surrounding states. Her husband was out of the country, so the two women could hang out together.

Three days after getting out of school for the summer, Deborah flew off to be with Anita (they bought her the ticket). Together, they went to a leadership conference by Peter Wagner, the International House of Prayer, Rick Joyner’s church, a ministry that provides spiritual books to ministries, to visit one of our supporters, and I don’t know what else. It was a whirlwind spiritual tour to refresh and rejuvenate her.

Considering that Deborah is teaching in a public school, I think that was just what she needed. During the school year, she doesn’t have the opportunities she is used to for basking in spiritual activities and the Lord’s presence. This was a great time of refreshing, and being ministered to.

-- CHRISTIAN LIBRARIES --

Two of the Bible schools here in Reynosa (Mexico) have started lending libraries for their students, and the pastors of the city. We are always ready to support any work that makes recourses available to the pastors; especially study resources.

We’ve seeded copies of all our spiritual books to each of these two libraries. If you know of any ministries that have resources available in Spanish, and are willing to donate same, please contact them for us and ask them to send us books, CDs and whatever for these two libraries.

-- FAMILY NOTES --

We’re not doing a lot of traveling this summer. Last year, when we were in the Yucatan peninsula, Deborah had some severe problems with the heat. Because of that (and previous heat problems), I decided it was best if she didn’t travel with me in Mexico (although I much prefer having her with me when I travel). So, we’re spending the summer at home.

Actually, that’s a blessing in more ways than one. With all the work I’m doing to prepare for the opening of the Internet Video Bible School, I really don’t have any time for traveling right now. I’ve only got seven more weeks until we start shooting classes, and at least a ton more work to complete. If we were traveling, I’m not sure that I would have enough time to finish it all.

When we moved into this house, Deborah started teaching the very next day. Last summer, and every other vacation has been spent in traveling; so she’s never had any time to spend here at home. Due to that, there are still things in boxes from when we were living in New York. So, we’re finally unpacking some of those boxes, digging out things that we haven’t seen for years. Of course, some of it is stuff we don’t need any more, but there’s a lot of books, photos, and other important things in there as well.

Jenni had a grueling four weeks of summer school. She’s finished her music courses for her degree and has entered into the education part. There was a special program given by the university this summer for education majors who came from “other” disciplines (such as music and sports). In those four weeks, they did an entire semester worth of education classes. She was really burning the midnight oil during that time, but finished it off with straight “A”s.

Rebekah is working on spending her summer dancing. The ballet school she attends held a three week summer workshop, ending with a performance on the 4th of July. She worked as an assistant in the mornings, for the little kids classes; and went to her workshop classes in the afternoon. Then, just in case she wasn’t tired enough, she took her normal classes two nights a week and Saturday.
Josh landed himself a job working as a bartender. But, don’t worry, he’s not serving alcoholic drinks; he’s serving coffee. Yes, Josh is not a bartender for Starbucks. If you ever had any obscure questions about coffee that you’ve wanted someone to ask, Josh is your man; he knows things about coffee I’ve never thought of.

Blessings to you all. We covet your prayers. God has been good to us, and the work of the ministry is going forward. Every time you pray for us, you are preparing yourself to receive part of the reward for all those souls who are being impacted by our ministry.

Blessings in Jesus,

Rev. Rich Murphy
Maranatha Life