Dear Friends & Prayer Partners -

WOW! We serve an awesome God! He has been moving so much on our behalf the last few weeks that we're having trouble keeping up with Him. More than anything, I'm writing this newsletter to let you know how He has been answering prayer.

Before I get into that, let me say that March has been our worst month financially in two years. Although our trip to Tabasco and Campeche was a great success ministerially, it wasn't financially. On top of that, the offerings we received in March were much lower than normal. However, it seems that the greatest attacks of the enemy come right before the biggest blessings from God! We always need to remember that no matter what the enemy does, God is greater!

-- IN THIS ISSUE --

• MINISTRY HEADQUARTERS

• ANSWERED PRAYER FOR MINISTRY HELP

• "DAY OF THE CHILD" - MEXICAN HOLIDAY

• SPIRITUAL ROOTS CD

• MEET OUR SPIRITUAL CHILDREN

-- MINISTRY HEADQUARTERS --

We've mentioned in a couple of our previous newsletters that we are believing the Lord for the land and resources to build a ministry headquarters. The ministry needs space to grow, and after eight years of living in the motorhome, the family is tired of walking over each other.

A couple of weeks ago, some friends, who are also missionaries, took us to see a double wide mobile home (28 feet by 76 feet) that they are working on buying. The only thing is that they had to go back north (to Minnesota) and won't be back until the fall. In the mean time, the mobile home needs to be set up, and needs someone living in it. They've asked us to do this.

There still remained the little problem of where to put the mobile home. There's a Christian retreat center north of town here, that has extra space, and desires to be a blessing to ministries. We went to visit the director and talked about using part of their land for both the mobile home, and building our ministry headquarters.

Although the director's reaction was favorable, we are still waiting to hear from his board of directors. We put together a proposal, asking for them to allow us to use about 1½ acres of land; ½ acre for the mobile home, and the other acre for our ministry headquarters.

Please pray that they respond favorably to our proposal. This would not only save us the cost of buying the land, but would allow us to start construction much sooner. Please also pray and seek if the Lord would have you participate in this work. This is going to be the largest faith project that we have ever undertaken. We will need God to open the windows of heaven for the financial provision to complete this project. We will also need church groups that are willing to come on a short-term basis and help with the construction of our ministry headquarters and home.

-- ANSWERED PRAYER FOR MINISTRY HELP --

We have been seeing a need for God to provide us with people who can come and co-labor with us in the ministry. There are not enough hours in the day to do all that God is directing us to do, and the need is much greater than what we can accomplish. Due to time pressures, some things just don't get done. On top of this, some of our time is lost due to the normal vagrancies of life; such as repairing the cars. With the building of the ministry headquarters, this will become worse, instead of better. All this time is time that we would prefer to use extending the Kingdom of God here on earth.

Last Thursday, a couple we have known for a while called and told us that the Holy Spirit was directing them to come and join us in the ministry. They are an experience ministry couple, who will fit perfectly with the work the Lord has us doing here in Mexico. He has experience in construction, and can't wait to start building our ministry center. She has office experience, which will free us up from some of the administrative work. Both are bilingual, and have pastored before.

This is a big step of faith for this couple, as they are leaving a stable job, with a regular paycheck, in order to come to work with us. They have peace in their hearts that this is what the Lord wants them to do, but none of us knows how God is going to work out the details.

Please pray for God's increase in provision for us and for our new co-laborers in Christ.

-- "DAY OF THE CHILD" - MEXICAN HOLIDAY --

As we reported to you, on December 26th of last year, we went to one of the dumps in Reynosa to bring food, clothing, candy and gifts for the children. If you haven't yet seen the pictures, we have a number of them on the web site at: www.MaranathaLife.com/mexico/dump.htm

The 30th of April is the Mexican holiday "Day of the Child." We are planning to go back to the dump and bless the children. We've already received 10 cases of candy, which we will be bagging up for the children. We still need more toys, and could even use more candy. If you would like to help with the purchase of toys, and bless these children who don't have much of anything, earmark your check "toys" and get it to us right away.

-- SPIRITUAL ROOTS CD --

Early this month, I had the opportunity to do a preliminary presentation to one of the Hispanic ministerial alliances on the spiritual roots of Mexico investigation we've been doing. Since the church I did the presentation in was equipped was equipped for doing presentations in Microsoft PowerPoint, I took advantage of the opportunity and put a number of the pictures we've taken on our trips together to illustrate my points.

I have this presentation available, with English narration, on CD. If you would like a copy, just let us know. We would appreciate it if you could pay a couple of dollars to cover production and shipping costs.

-- MEET OUR SPIRITUAL CHILDREN --

I have finally put the pictures, and some information about the native pastors under our covering on the web site. Please go to meet them at www.MaranathaLife.com/mexico/spirkids.htm If you can print this page out, and hang it on your refrigerator, it would be a great reminder to pray for them.

These are obviously not all the 280 pastors that we are ministering to every month. These are only those who have come to us and asked to officially be under our covering. There are others who we work with a lot, even though they aren't "officially" with us, and there are a great number who we minister to, although we don't have any "official" relationship with them.

Please pray for these pastors. As with all pastors, throughout the world, they face battles and struggles in the ministry. They need your prayer support.

Thank you for all your prayers. As you can see, they are having an effect on what is happening here on the Texas/Mexico border. We ask that you keep praying for the work here, and especially for God's provision.

Blessings in Jesus,

Rev. Rich Murphy