Message from Harold Harmon, High School Teacher

This past weekend was our Christmas celebration in Mexico.  My wife, daughter, and I have been involved with this mission group, AIM, for around 12 years now.  Where twelve years ago virtually everyone lived in a make-shift shanty of some sort (one family’s house consisted of a piece of plastic supported on four corners with sticks), many of the families now have small crude block houses.  The government has laid slabs for some and has extended access to electricity to about one-half of the area we refer to as the dump.

Twelve years ago AIM supplied presents to around 500 children who lived in the area.  Saturday over 800 children showed up for the celebration and over 1200 hotdogs were served.  The mayor, with his entourage and camera crew, usually shows up when we have a major event and gives a boring speech; but he does extend appreciation for what AIM does in the area.  He has pledged to match us dollar for dollar for the food that is distributed which has allowed us to bless many more people. 

We have prayed for a way to reach the people with the gospel since our Spanish is not very good.  God has provided a retired New Tribes missionary and his wife, who live in the area, and who are going from home to home teaching the people about Jesus.  Although meager by our standards, the area has shown major improvement over the past decade.

Sandy, Paulita and I are now moving into a new area by the tracks that has about 250 people that have not been reached yet.  This is where many of the shoes that Phoenix Christian donated last year went.  Since this new effort is not really supported by AIM, everything is essentially done by the three of us.   Sandy and Paulita handed out over 200 shoe boxes filled with toiletries, etc., and served about 250 burritos.  They were very sad because this was all that we could afford to do and we had no presents for the children.  Please pray that God will greatly bless our efforts there.  Food distribution is once per month but we are only able to go down every other month because of our health and other commitments.  Our next trip will be in February.