Adopt
a Computer Geek
One of our goals with
these monthly letters is to help you feel a part of our life.
And since an important part of our life here is the relationships
we've developed, we have occasionally told you about our friends
and co-workers. My desire is that this letter will take you one
step closer to them.
When you pray for and
give to us and our ministry, you do the same for our coworkers
because our lives and work are so intertwined. 
BUT...
unlike them, we experience the encouragement and joy of having
you behind us, we know you
and feel that you are a part of what we do here. We know that
our little web team needs the same encouragement and prayers as
we do and we desire that for them.
We're not talking about
money -- God's generosity to us through His people -- provides
the material resources our little team needs for their work and
ministry. When you give to us that covers their salaries too.
Rather we hope that if any of these people's lives or work is
of particular interest to you that you would adopt
them. By that I mean, pray specifically for them and their personal
needs and thank God with them when things go well.
To facilitate this
you can check out their individual web pages below, which we will
be updating periodically with prayer requests, photos and other
notes. You can also write them in care of us
(see our mailing address
below) or email them
directly from their individual web sites which you will find links
to below.
(note:
most have had exposure to English, at least in school, and we
can fill in the gaps they might not understand. Or you can practice
your Spanish.)
*Click
on Dora's photo to go to her page
Dora
- She grew up in Tepito, known to all as the grittiest neighborhood
in Mexico City, yet she was one of the first females ever to receive
an engineering degree from the 500,000 student national university.
When her two boys were in elementary school her husband left her
for another woman, yet this courageous single mom has consistently
carried out responsibilities in the church and with our OC team,
including being our language and cultural tutor for a year, and
most recently our team administrative assistant. We respect her
servant's heart, admire her personal integrity and strength, and
depend on her hard work and support. She is an editor for content
and grammar for the web site, as well as doing most of the translation
of our youth ministry materials.
email:
dora@sepal.org
*click
on Daniel's photo to go to his page
Daniel
(on right)- A web programmer from the projects. He's a motivated,
go-getter who can teach himself just about any computer program
or programming language. Besides winning a full scholarship to
the best private high school in the city, Daniel leads a small
group bible study in his home and is a leader in his church youth
group. His father lost both legs to diabetes and when Daniel isn't
programming for us, he's transporting his father to and from work
and other appointments as well as driving the family taxi during
the night shift. Daniel was the first to work with us on the web
site and his role will be changing significantly (into what we're
not quite sure) as the site becomes "data base driven"
instead of him having to create each page individually.
email:
danielmc7@hotmail.com
*click
on Benjamin's photo to go to his page
Benjamin
- When we were looking for someone to do some illustrations for
the web page we solicited samples from several artists. Far and
away the best was a 16-year-old student in our youth group. Over
the past two years we have learned more about the artistic temperament
than we ever dreamed of, and we've seen "Benja" grow
in his understanding of the Gospel and in his technical abilities
as illustrator and animator for the web site. We not only depend
on his drawing to make the site look good, but his animated comic
strips are becoming one of our most important teaching tools.
email:
benjamin@sepal.org
*click
on Veronica's photo to go to her page
Veronica
- Veronica is one in a million: a seminary graduate with a shepherd's
heart; an experienced youth pastor with previous experience in
editing and publishing. She is the assistant editor of the web
site, writes a monthly column giving practical and biblical ideas
for youth workers and personally responds to all our web site
email (about 80 letters a month.) She also works with Annette
in curriculum development and has published two series of active
youth group Bible studies on the web site.
email:
vdominguez@sepal.org
*click
on J.C.'s photo to go to his page
Juan
Carlos (J.C.) - He was the second youngest out
of 10,000 invited by the Billy Graham Association to participate
in this summer's Evangelism Conference in Amsterdam. The youth
group he has lead full time for the last 7 years has more than
300 youth involved in almost 30 small group Bible studies (for
a salary of only $220 per month) and his heart's desire is to
be a missionary to the Ukraine where he has lead two short term
trips. He write a monthly column on the web site helping youth
leaders know how to use drama and the arts in their ministry.
This column has generated the most interest and response of any
single item on the web site.
email:
jcmarker@yupimail.com
*click
on Jorge's photo to go to his page
Jorge
- At 17 he left his home and city to be a missionary. His life
has been threatened by machete wielding men for bringing the gospel
to their village; his clothes have been covered with the blood
of a man dying from a gunshot wound as he cradled the man's head
in his lap witnessing to him all the way to the hospital, and
besides his courage and dedication, he's a gifted communicator
and evangelist who speaks to an average of 17,000 students, teachers
and parents per month about how to put biblical values into practice
in their lives. Oh, and he's only 24 years old. Jorge writes a
monthly column in his exhortational style and is a wonderful ministry
partner, whether it is working together at conferences or sending
him to fill some of the many requests we receive to speak to youth.
email:
jbernaldez@sepal.org
*click
on Nahum.'s photo to go to his page
Nahum
- If you recognize his name it's because we've written about him
before. He's the one who tumbled 150 feet headlong down the inside
face of an extinct volcano and turned to Christ because of surviving
it. He's a natural leader and uses that gift well in the youth
group of our local church. An Industrial design student in the
local university and the newest addition to our web team, Nahum
is the technical illustrator and animator for our latest venture,
online youth ministry courses. He is developing scores of drawings
and animations to reinforce the learning objectives.
email:
humi@starmedia.com