Dear Friends & Prayer Partners;

Have we ever had a busy summer, traveling pretty much all the time. Since school let out, we've been home less than one third of the time, and that's been just a few days here, and a few days there. Since Deborah can't travel with me during the school year, we've really taken advantage of her being able to travel with me in the summer.

-- IN THIS ISSUE --

• NEW CAR

• TRIP TO TABASCO

• TRIP TO CAMPECHE

• TRIP TO COLOMBIA

• EVANGELISTIC EVENTS

• FAMILY NOTES

-- NEW CAR --

The first news that has anything to do with our summer is that we've got a new car; new for us that is. As I wrote in a previous newsletter, our cars have been getting old, and we've needed to replace them for some time. We started praying, and God has come through with at least one vehicle for us.

A couple we've met before, who are children of another missionary couple decided to donate one of their cars to the ministry, instead of taking it to California with them. The car was a '96 Pontiac Sunfire. Although it might not seem so new to others; to us is really new.

Thank God for that car, because we really needed something good to travel in for the summer. Our van needs some work, before it can be used for traveling in again, and the air conditioner is out. With the heat in Mexico, traveling without air conditioning is a serious problem. The Sunfire's air conditioner works wonderfully well.

There's two things humoristic associated with this car. The first is that I've said for the last several years that only fools drive black cars in south Texas. Between the heat, and the dust, black isn't the best choice of colors. Guess what color the Sunfire is. You're right, it's black.

The second thing is that it's a sporty little car. So, it doesn't look like what one would expect a missionary to be driving. The congregations where we ministered had lots of good natured laughs about the Americans in their sports car. That's okay, when we told them that God gave it to us, it helped build up their faith.

Please keep praying for us in the area of vehicles. We still need three more economic, well running vehicles to replace those that are no longer functional, or heading in that direction.

-- TRIP TO TABASCO --

Or first trip of the summer was to Villahermosa, Tabasco. We've talked about Tabasco a number of times in the past, and travel there two or three times a year. Of all the trips we've made there, this was probably the best.

We only ministered in three churches on this trip to Tabasco, but they were great churches to minister in. Usually, in Mexico, we spend a lot of time in very traditional, Pentecostal churches. Often, there is no presence of the Lord whatsoever in those churches. This trip was a real refreshing time of ministering in churches that were seeking the presence of the Lord.

One of the churches we ministered in was Hector Cruz's church, who's under our covering. We always enjoy being in his church and the Holy Spirit moves freely there. His congregation has grown incredibly, now over 800 people. They have so many people; they have to close the street off during service times!

God has also blessed Hector and his family. When we first met them, four years ago, they were living in a house made of corrugated metal with a dirt floor. When we got there, the workmen were just finishing up building the second story (concrete block) on their house. They built the first floor last year, and have now have the bedrooms done.

Another of the churches we ministered in was the one I've told you about where God spoke to the pastor of a very conservative, frozen chosen church. That church is also in incredible growth. They've bought land, and are making plans to build a 7,500 seat sanctuary.

There is no other church I can remember ministering in where there is as much freedom for the Holy Spirit to move as in that church. The people are so hungry for God, passionately seeking His presence that they pull upon the anointing within the minister. They start receiving from God from the moment they walk in the door, and all through the worship time. At times, the presence of the Lord is so strong, that the worship team is unable to play!

That was a truly wonderful trip.

-- TRIP TO CAMPECHE & YUCATAN --

Between our trip to Tabasco, and our trip to Campeche we made two short trips north. One to minister in the area of San Antonio, Texas, and the other to be at the convention of our spiritual covering, Vernon Holloway.

The trip to Campeche was the longest trip we've made into Mexico. It was a 32 hour drive, taking us through Villahermosa, Tabasco, and several hours past there. We'd been in the southern part of the state a couple of years ago, but this was the first time we were in the city of Campeche (the city of Campeche is the capitol of the state of Campeche).

If that wasn't far enough, on the middle weekend of that trip we went another four hours up the Yucatan peninsula, into the state of Yucatan to minister in some small villages in the area of the city of Merida.

This was also the hardest trip we've ever made. Spiritually, the people were even more legalistic and traditional than those that are here along the border. In a couple of churches, the men sat on one side of the church, while the women sat on the other side. They were so bound up in their legalism that the Spirit of God couldn't move in their lives.

Jesus said that the only thing more powerful than the Word of God is our traditions. That's because tradition prevents us from receiving anything that the Spirit wants to give us. When we walk in legalism, we are so bound up that we can't hear God's voice, nor see what He wants to do.

Basically, we spent the entire trip battling against legalism, tradition, and religious spirits. It was necessary, so that God could start to minister to the people's hearts. Although I don't enjoy that type of ministry, I recognize its necessity and feel that we did make some definite progress n the people's lives and hearts.

In addition, we both suffered from health problems on this trip. As you probably remember, Deborah has had some serious problems with heat. On that middle weekend, when we were in Yucatan, we didn't have any air conditioning for three days. That affected her greatly, and for the rest of the trip I had to leave her in the house while I went out to minister. A number of spiritually sensitive ministry friends all confirmed that a spirit of death was after her.

Praise God for His power and anointing. We've been able to break that spirit off of Deborah, and she is doing better now, but we did have a battle on our hands for a while.

One good thing that we were able to do on that trip is to visit two important Mayan archeological sites that we hadn't seen before. The first of these was Uxmal, the only site explored to date that has no evidence of human sacrifice, although it does have clear evidence of self-sacrifice of blood. The second was Chichen Itzá, one of the seven new wonders of the world. For these trips we had a Christian professional guide who was able to share a lot of the spiritual significance of the sites we were visiting.

-- TRIP TO COLOMBIA --

After all that, one would naturally think that we'd had enough of traveling to last for a while. However, that isn't the case. Or, let me put it this way: God isn't done with us traveling yet. I leave tomorrow (by myself) for a week ministering in Cartegena, Colombia, in South America. This will be my first trip outside of North America.

I'll be going to visit Edwin Ardilla, one of our spiritual children who is pastoring there. Edwin came to us, to be under our covering, through the internet, three years ago. We've been able to maintain a good relationship with him, just with the internet, but we've never seen him in person. This trip will give me the opportunity to really get to know him and his wife.

Edwin was married in April of this year, and unfortunately I wasn't able to be there for that. But, we expect a joyful reunion (can you have a reunion if you've never been together before?) in a couple of days.

I expect to be ministering a lot while I'm there. In fact, Edwin has scheduled me to minister in the two largest churches of his community while I'm there. But, more than anything I expect to be spending time teaching and mentoring Edwin and his wife. This should be an exciting time of imparting directly to him, in a way that I haven't been able to do with him before.

I'm excited about this trip for one other reason. We've had prophesied to us many times throughout the years the verse in Isaiah 54 that talks about enlarging your tent. This will be a definite manifestation of that prophecy.

Please pray for this trip. Edwin has told me that there is much legalism, tradition, and religiosity in his area as well; although he doesn't follow after that. In addition, it will be a new spiritual area for me to enter into. Any time we enter into new spiritual territory, we can expect to confront new principalities and powers. One doesn't know what they will encounter until they get there. So, please pray for wisdom and protection as I go.

-- EVANGELISTIC EVENTS --

On the home front, or at least on the front of ministering here where we live, we've been busy as well. Since they voted me president of the Hispanic ministerial alliance, I've been investing a lot of time into the pastors, and building up the alliance.

A few months ago, a man, the son of a pastor, who is working for a Christian business came to me, as president of the alliance and offered to financially support any evangelistic events we wanted to hold. What a blessing from God! Normally, the church, or alliance has trouble holding events because of lack of money. Instead of lack of money, I'm battling the problem of lack of hours. With all the traveling, it has been a challenge to organize all the events we're planning.

Currently, we're hosting an evangelistic concert for the elderly once a month. We're inviting the owners of adult day care centers to bring their clients in to this concert. In addition, we're holding an evangelistic concert for youth in one of the area parks, bringing in music groups that do their style of music. Those two events are our basic monthly schedule.

In addition, we're working on holding larger events. I've just signed a contract to bring three teams from The Power Team down to this area in April of next year. This will be the first time in their 30 yeas that The Power Team has sent three teams to the same area the same week. We'll have one in McAllen, one in Harlingen, and one in Brownsville. We're expecting this to create quite a splash in the media.

More than anything, we're trying to do evangelistic events that don't look like evangelistic events. I'm tired of seeing churches advertise their evangelistic campaign to the church, and getting the church saved over again. It's time to try something different.

-- FAMILY NOTES --

With school starting again, there's a lot of focus in the household to get ready for school. Deb will be teaching French in the high school again this year. She's expecting an easier year than last year, because it won't be her first year at the school. She now has the advantage of knowing the curriculum she'll be using, and knowing the school's systems for doing things.

Rebekah will be attending the same school where Deborah's teaching. I spent a week there on Tuesday getting her registered for class. What ever happened to the 15 minute class registrations we had back when I was in high school? I was getting so irritated with the bureaucracy that it gave me great material to write a satire entitled "The Week I Spent in School Registration."

Rebekah went with us on our trip to Tabasco, and then went to Nuevo Leon as an interpreter for another ministry. This is the third summer she worked as an interpreter for that ministry, and it is always a good time for her.

Deborah & Rebekah are chomping at the bit to get their bible club restarted at school. They've already made plans, and are looking for God to do great things. We are expecting that they will have more ministry opportunities this year, than they did last year.

Jenni & Josh spent the summer in school. Their degree requires lots of hours of classes, so they are just about required to take summer classes. Today's their last day of summer classes, then they have a week off, before they start again.

Please pray for their financial aid. Since Deborah's working, we don't know what affect this will have on what the government will give them. They are both concerned about this, and we want them to be able to finish their schooling. I also ask that you pray for their personal finances. They are both looking to change jobs. Jenni, because the job at the mall interferes with her study time, and Josh because his work/study job at school doesn't pay enough to cover his expenses.

On the other side, they are both doing really well in the church they're attending. Both are members of the worship team, and are in the leadership of the youth group. This church has really done wonders for them, and helped them in their walk with the Lord.

Well, I think that's all for now; although there's probably lots more things that I could share with you. Please keep us in your prayers, especially for provision, wisdom, protection and good use of our time. There's lots we want to complete for the Lord, but we need to keep ourselves in His perfect plan.

Blessings in Jesus,

Rev. Rich Murphy