Dear Friends,

Many of my friends and supporters, of which you are one, may not have heard from me in a little while. Well I am still alive and have successfully returned from my 4 months in Puerto Escondido Mexico. I have been back in Tassie at the Worldview College since mid-June.

The time I had overseas was GREAT. It was more successfully than I could have asked or imagined. It was definitely in God's timing for me to go and work with the Christian Surfers ministry that is functioning there in Mexico.

I went with 3 distinct goals and all were achieved. Firstly I wanted to get my personal relationship with Godright. Prior to going, due to the difficult situation of the last six months of last year, I was feeling a bit distant to God but aware that I was in the will he had for my life. While away, I fell in love: with Jesus (hey what were you thinking!) I had ample time daily to read the Bible and pray.

I may have had this spare time in Australia, but always found other things to do. Here I had no excuses except to make time for God; and before too long was longing and looking forward to spending time with my Lord and saviour. This enthusiasm hasn't gone and I can't see how it ever might. Thank-you Jesus!

The second thing that I wanted to do while away was to learn the Spanish language. Over the four months the amount of Spanish words I leaned (and could remember) increased and the pronunciation improved so that I could hold conversations for hours and be understood.

God facilitated this by hooking me up with some great young people whom I meet on my first visit to the Baptist church. These Christians had a busy corner store and bakery in the town, so nearly every day, after their initial invite, I would visit and hang-out and be taught natural common Spanish by different folk.

At other times I would visit peoples homes or go with friends to special events where I would hear new words and therefore increase my vocabulary. I had a small textbook that I worked through at home and it was all these things combined that made it possible towards the end of my time, to be able to comprehend and appreciate the sermons at church. Thank-you Jesus!

The third goal that I had was to do a bit of ministry. Surfing was included in this, so about twice a week I would walk the 3 minutes down to the beach to catch a few waves. I liked to surf at the main beach called Zicatela. On this beach is the Aroma Divino caf that the ministry owns and runs. This caf apart from being in a great location is totally staffed by Christians. All of the locals seem to now use this shop as a meeting point and come and go throughout the day. This little restaurant has so much potential to reach the hard to reach surfing community.

At other times at El Refugio, the facility where I lived, we would have short-term teams from different parts of the world, come and get a taste of cross-cultural missions. They and we had a great time of fellowship. So much was learned during those weeks.

This Christian ministry in Puerto Escondido is headed up by a young godly man named Ronne Jones. He with his family have been there for 7 years and have a fantastic witness. It was Ronne who gave me opportunities to preach at some of the Tuesday evening bi-lingual Bible studies and grew me in the area of believing in the miraculous physical healing power of God that can be evident through Christians today.

These were only some of the highlights that helped to change my life for the better. At this stage I am planning to return to Puerto Escondido as a missionary of Christian Surfers International and work with other in establishing a Christian surfing club for the local youth. I will continue on until the end of this year and complete the course at Worldview in Tassie and then most likely get overseas by mid next year.

Thanks for reading this mailout and please remember to pray for me as I do for you.

Your Friend in Christ,

Mike Allbutt