May 14, 2007

Dear Sisters and Brothers:

Greetings from the border!

The Adams Maldonado family: Miriam, Anna Flor (3), Cindy (11) and Mark.

I want to express once again my deep gratitude to God for the amazing privilege and responsibility of serving as a PC(USA) mission co-worker here on the United States-Mexico border. Furthermore, I want to express my sincere appreciation for your partnership that makes our life and ministry here with Frontera de Cristo possible!

In August, I complete my third three-year term. Wow! That’s hard to believe. These past eight and a half years have been absolutely incredible. We have been reappointed for an extension of our term until June of 2008. The PC(USA) is not appointing mission co-workers beyond June 2008 because of budget constraints. Unless there is a change in the financial situation, it is possible that mission co-worker positions will have to be cut.

We are grateful for your support. Together with other churches, our position is over 70 percent funded through Directed Mission Support by local churches, which is a pretty high percentage and makes it unlikely that our position will be cut.

Miriam, Cindy, Anna Flor, and I will be spending five months on “home assignment” beginning in August. The home assignment—which is officially known as “interpretation assignment”—has three purposes: (1) visiting supporting  churches (2) continuing education and (3) reconnecting with family.

During this time, I will be one of 46 mission co-workers who will be speaking for a week in 136 presbyteries this October in an ambitious project called “Mission Challenge 07”. During October, I will be assigned to four presbyteries and itinerate in each for a week. 

I know that I will be in Providence Presbytery from October 14-20 and Foothills Presbytery from October 21-27. We are still working on firming up the other presbyteries for October.

In addition to the Mission Challenge, we hope to visit you even if you are not in one of the four presbyteries we are assigned to in October. We will be available in August, September, the last two weeks of November, and the first two weeks of December.

We will be based in Clover, South Carolina, and hope to be able to visit you. Please let us know if you would like us to visit with your church and we can schedule a time.

On the family front, we have exciting news—we are expecting a new member to arrive on or near November 10, 2007. Please join us in celebrating this gift of new life and pray that God would prepare Miriam, Cindy, Anna, and me for our new family member.

May God grant us eyes to see, ears to hear, feet to follow, hands to serve, and hearts to trust in Emmanuel—God with us!—today and each day of our lives.

Peace,

The 2007 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 66