El Punto

November/December 2007 Newsletter

The Point: This was the focus of the evangelistic activity, to reach the youth in the city of Tepic. The point was that Jesus Christ is Lord of lords and King of kings. Aside from letting people know this we also wanted to attack the enemy on his ground and defeat him here in our State once and for all.

The Purpose: Preach the gospel to over 5,000 youth in their territory using their activities and using the world’s money to do the job. At the same time we wanted to impact the city with a Christian activity that would be remembered.

The Promises we were given:

- This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

- Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”

- Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations….

- That now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places

- And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us …

The point was made, the purpose accomplished and a new way of doing things was established. On the 28th and 29th of September we had 14 hours of motorcycles, acrobatic bikes, skateboards, graffiti, fashion show and more. It was all done in a Christian atmosphere with a Christian musical and two concerts at the end of each day. The effort made by the organizing churches was incredible, the prayers of the saints innumerable and the preparations unbelievable. The promises were fulfilled.

Our work has just begun as we start to reap the results of the Word that has been sown. Also we are planning to reach out to other areas and States with this activity so the impact that our city received can be made available in other cities and States as well.

At this Thanksgiving and Christmas season we pray rich blessings upon all you who support this ministry. We covet your prayers and your faithful offerings.

Philip, Lucy, Simri & Vanessa Tolman

The Battle Ground

September/October 2007 Newsletter

From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force, Matthew 11:12

In the Americas the concept of war, or going to battle, is foreign to most of us. Soldiers have gone to war in far away places and everyone has his own personal opinion on the value of these wars. When the Bible talks about us being at war, it is hard for us to grasp the reality of what war really is. Spiritual warfare is not just saying a few prayers and hoping that things will work out. It is about life and death. The Christians with the greatest risk, are those on the front lines of the battlefield.

This year in Nayarit we declared war on the principalities and powers that have ruled over our land for hundreds of years. We must not only win the battle, but we must destroy the kings of the enemy forces. King Ahab didn’t kill the king of Syria when he had the chance and it cost him his life (1 Kings 22:30-37). Gideon didn’t finish his battle with the Midianites until he had destroyed their four kings. In January of this year the Lord gave us a plan, not only to evangelize the city of Tepic and the surrounding area, but to saturate them with the presence of God. The work started immediately with the planning, the legal permits and the contacts we needed to arrange. The end of May we had a free breakfast for the pastors in the area to inform them of the project. Between the 9th of June and the end of July we presented 3 Christian open-air concerts.

Vanessa on Dad's motorbike at an activity

Did we get a reaction! The traditional church officials successfully cancelled our permit for the second concert 24 hours before the event. Unable to use the baseball stadium we had rented we closed off the main street outside the stadium, with police permission, and set up our 40’ platform on the street. We had a concert. The rains came and tried to wash us out but in war you don’t give an inch. Our causality rate has been high. In our main church we have seen our membership dwindle from over 100 members to fewer than 60 in 4 months. Economically we have felt the strain as we are $6,000 dollars short of our budget.

The biggest and final battle is yet to come. We have permits to hold a social benefit activity in the park in front of the State Government buildings on the 28^th and 29^th of September. This social event ends at 8 PM and at that time we have two Christian concerts and a musical depicting the salvation message. With over $20,000 in rented sound equipment, lights, fireworks and closed-circuit T.V. we will be heard everywhere. We are financing the activity through sponsors from large businesses in our city. We are going to let the world finance the preaching of the gospel. We are going to take the enemy’s money and use it in God’s kingdom. This is the promise that Jesus has given us.

Simri and Damara with music group

It has not been easy, but then, war is never easy. Casualties will be replaced by victors, sinners converted into saints. The kingdom of Satan will be destroyed in our State and replaced by the Kingdom of God. The battlefield, where there is no comfort or rest, is not a pleasant place. Our rest is in the knowledge that we shall be victors for we have been promised the land.

Please keep us in your prayers as we fight in the thick of the fray.

Philip, Lucy, Simri and Vanessa Tolman

Motorcycle Club Outreach

Motorcycles are part of our life as my son Simri and myself travel over 150 miles a week on them between us. Even though we are not part of any motorcycle group or club we have been working on getting an inroad with them to be able to reach them for Christ where they are.

In our planning for a massive outdoor crusade in September for over 5,000 people, we invited the different motorcycle clubs in the city to participate.

To open the doors not only to their participation but also to their friendship we decided to invite one of the clubs to our ranch for dinner on a Saturday. Over 20 of them show up for the event.

After a good barbeque we did a drive through town and took a picturesque drive down the highway for an hour or so. We had a great relaxing afternoon as well as opening the door to new acquaintances and future Christian brothers.

Special Concert

On the 9th of June we were able to carry out the first of several outdoor activities for this year. In the fair grounds of the city of Tepic we set up an outdoor stage with sound and lights for a first class outdoor concert with local Christian groups.

The first group that played was Red Sky, directed by Simri Tolman. They did an excellent job. The next group was Paco and Levi’s Band from the town of Compostela. Once again their performance was first class. The two and a half hour concert was closed out by Milo Jr. and his group ‘Rocka Solida’ (Solid Rock). With over 350 people that assisted and the rain that waited to fall until after the concert had ended, the whole activity was above all that we expected.


The whole activity would have stopped there except for a 7 year old girl that attended the concert. As the concert was in progress this child leaned over and asked her Mom how is was that some men were hanging above the stage. The mother answered that they weren’t hanging, only standing on the stage. The girl insisted that these men were dressed in white and once again the mother insisted that there was no one dressed in white. The young girl stood silent a while with her mouth open and then answered her mother: “What about the whirl wind?”
It was then that the mother understood that her daughter was seeing more than the concert, she was seeing angels of God flying around the stage. As the mother continued to investigate
she became sure that it wasn’t just her daughter's imagination but a real manifestation of the Lord. The whole time of the concert these angels were present, manifesting themselves only to this little girl but the presence of God accompanying them was felt by all.

It's a Thing of the Heart

May/June 2007 Newsletter

The Lord offers us a choice of life and good or death and evil. Conscientiously we choose the good but our actions do not always suit our choice. The Word is in our mouth and in our heart but if we try to decide with our mind we have problems. The Holy Spirit works through our heart but never though our mind. As we are learning to practice this principle, the Lord has opened new doors to share the good news with the youth in our State.

Even though the daily work in the church is necessary to bring stability to the members, our calling is also to reach the lost with the gospel. This is not done in the church but on the street. It can be done one on one or in larger groups. At this time we are working on various activities of mass evangelism in our area.

On June 9, we are presenting an open air concert that equals the best the world can give in the technical area, but our advantage is the help of the Holy Spirit. On June 29 and July 20, we will be directing another 2 concerts together with other ministries that are working in Mexico to reach students. Our goal is to have over 2,000 non-Christian youth in this last concert. Please pray with us for this undertaking so that we can reach the goal that He has put before us.

Philip teaching at a Conference

At the end of September we will be having a 4th activity, a mega presentation, to reach thousands of youth in the downtown area of Tepic. We are thankful to have all of our family participating in all these activities.

Aside from our special activities, most of the local churches are experimenting a time of growth. The youth are still burning with the fire of the Holy Spirit they received at Youth Camp and are letting it extend through the churches. Our goal is still to lead people to a heart experience in Jesus. We are reaching out to attain one of the goals that the Lord has placed in our heart, to place a Christian church in each of the 20 townships in our State. We are only lacking 2 townships, Ahuacatlan and the Yesca. Please pray for us as we reach out into these areas. Both of these townships have their own special challenges.

Pastors’ breakfast and meeting

In Ahuacatlan we have had missionaries living there for the last 6 years and there is still no church. The Yesca, high in the Sierra Madres, is a 10 hour drive from Tepic. The town still doesn’t have electricity which makes life very primitive and difficult.

Last weekend in the town of Compostela, we had a gathering of some of our churches. It was a time of fellowship, sharing and ministry. Every three months we try and have this type of meeting so that the smaller village churches can participate with a worship team and feel the emotion of being among a large group of people worshiping the Lord. Many of these small works don’t have musicians or people that can lead in singing. We were also able to host a breakfast for local pastors and leaders to invite them to participate in the different outreaches we have planned. More than 65 leaders attended.

With all these activities on this summer we will not be able to itinerate and visit your church to raise the extra finances needed to live here on the mission field. Please plan special prayer and offerings to help us as partners in these efforts. You can designate your offering for our personal support or to cover the extra expenses that will strain our budget. At the same time we also want to thank each one of you that stand with us with your prayers and faithful monthly support.

Philip, Lucy, Simri & Vanessa Tolman

A Place of Blessing

Last week, during Easter vacation, we held our 20^th annual youth camp. We hold it during Easter week for two reasons: one being that it is a week that all businesses, schools, and government offices are closed for at least 3 days; the other being that there is no probability of rain. In the summer rainy season it rains every day, and this makes camping difficult, if not impossible.

This year we chose a place up in the mountains away from civilization for our campsite. Each youth had to walk over a mile down a mountainside to get to the spring of water where we held our camp, and the same distance UP to get out. The general consensus among the exhausted young people who arrived was that the place was terrible, full of rocks and dust. By the second day, the opinion had changed due to two facts. The less important of the two was the fact that the over 110 young people had slowly made the place livable. The kitchen was made and bathrooms were installed. The land was cleared with large machetes and then leveled so that the tents could be erected.

What really changed everything, though, was the moving of the Holy Spirit. By the second night the power of God was so strong that almost no one could stand in His presence. Even the people who knew nothing about the moving of the Holy Spirit were moved. The signs of change were immediate. The men removed their jewelry and earrings, and the women began to dress much more modestly. We had a wonderful 5 days in the presence of the Lord. No cell phones, radios, T.V.s, video games or other distractions - only the Bible and the Holy Spirit moving in people’s lives. God’s hand was even on the poisonous animals - the scorpions and the snakes that were in the area didn’t bother anyone. The Bible is true; the desert place continues to be the best way to get in communion with the Lord.

Youth camp, although exhausting, is only one area of ministry that we are participating in. Camps held without the support of the local church would have no meaning. The local church is the life-breath of the Christian. During our years of ministry here, Lord has let us raise up 7 churches that continue to this day, as well as some centers that are still in the process of growing into churches. The daily ministry at the local churches is what makes life interesting as we deal with different areas of difficulties in the lives of the members and look for the guidance of the Holy Spirit on how to deal with each one. At times we get discouraged, as we do not win every battle, but each victory makes us shout for joy.

Please pray with us as we continue to focus on our ministry to the young people. In the next two months we still have our children’s camp, a church get-together for all our churches in the area, and an outdoor concert for over 1,000 youth. We thank you for remembering us, as it is your prayers and your financial support of the ministry that make this all possible.

Looking for a place

Each year, during Holy week or Easter week (for those that are not from Latin countries), we hold a youth camp in the Sierra Madre. There are many special things about this camp both in the physical and in the spiritual aspects. Each year we change the location of the camp, looking for places that have lots of spring water (for drinking and bathing), no electricity, a flat area to camp at and fire wood for cooking and light at night.

On the spiritual side we don't allow the use of electronic equipment (cell phones, radios etc) or any other type of distractions. Each youth that attends comes into a personal encounter with the
Lord Jesus Christ because there is simply nothing else to do.
Looking for a place the fills all of these requisite is not easy and especially now that water is in such high demand. The pumping of deep artisan wells has reduces the flow of water in many natural springs or completely dried them up. Other water holes have been dammed up making the water putrid and only good for agricultural use. As the years go by (this is number 20) we have had to delve deeper into the sierra into areas that are more isolated and as such, more
dangerous. As we have combed the country side these last three months looking for a place for this year's camp I have learned two truths.


The first is that life is full of changes and if we don't change with life we become obsolete. The command that God gave Israel to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles and spend one week in a tent to remember the goodness of God will never become old. How we do that will have to change. The liberties that we had in an open, unpopulated world are quickly being lost. If we don't find a place where we can get alone with the Lord Jesus we will get lost in the preoccupations of this world. Next year our way of doing camp will have to change radically as we look to obtain the same results in a different way. Even outside of the camping experience we need to find places where we can get alone with God.


The second truth is that man is not only destroying the natural environment but also his spiritual environment. Things that we took for granted for many years are being lost. Our spiritual life spring is being contaminated by man-made 'improvements'. The time is measured and the environment now has to be comfortable and perfect. Crying out to God or letting His Spirit move on you for 2 or 3 hours is a thing of the past. Waiting in His presence no longer fits into our schedule. The same difficulty that we are having to find an adequate place for our youth camp is the same problem that many spiritually hungry people are having to find a church that will let them bathe in God's presence.

I know that change is necessary and that it is not easy. The problem is not that we have to change but the reason why we have to change. The destruction of our environment, be it natural or spiritual will eventually catch up with us and what used to exist will only be a memory in books or picture. What we need today are spiritual environmentalist who will fight against the tide and protect our spiritual heritage.

Resigned But Not Down

January 2007

There are lots of circumstances that happen in our lives that we can’t control or change. We can decide to flow with the circumstances or try to fight against them. Some things that happen in our lives are natural while others are caused through spiritual dealings as in the case of Job in the Bible. These past two weeks we had group of situations that taught us resignation without being defeated.
The adventure started actually the end of December when we took our ‘new’ Toyota van (a demonstrator model) into the shop to get the heater and defrost to work as without them it was impossible to use the van in cold weather. To our surprise the van was built without a heater/defrost system and the Toyota agency would not take responsibility for the error. We would have to go to court against Toyota but in the mean time we could not use the van to make a missions trip into Texas as the temperature was below freezing. We readied our old Dodge van that had a newly repaired motor and set out on our trip, Lucy, Simri, Vanessa and myself.
The first day was great and even though we started the trip in the early afternoon we made good time. The next morning, a Friday, we were on the road at dawn, hoping to be in San Antonio Texas by mid afternoon. Two hours down the road an engine valve jammed and the van came to a screeching halt. We managed to limp the van into the next small village where at the side of the highway we lifted the head off of the engine to replace the valve. THE Valve! A three hour bus ride was the closest place to get it and as it turned out the valve stem was too thin but it would have to do. By the time I got back to the van, seven hours later, it was too dark to start putting the engine back together.
By noon the next day we were finally on our way, at least partly. The oil had water in it from the work we had done and the partial engine job was leaking oil terribly. It was after midnight, now Sunday morning when we finally arrived at our destination, grimy and exhausted.
The mission’s conference at our home church, Destiny Church was well worth the effort made to arrive. It was the best conference we have been at because the word that we needed from the Lord was given to us there. We left for home early Friday morning, blessed and refreshed in our spirits. Our adventures were not over. Two hours out of San Antonio one of our rear tires blew to pieces. We had a good spare and in 15 minutes we were back on the road. We stopped at a Walmart up the way to buy a new tire and they said that they could do our work right away as there was no one ahead of us. Well it took them two and a half hours to get the tire on the van. I would of hated to be there when they were busy.
The story continues but I will spare you the details. Our head lights went out and we traveled for two hours with intermittent headlights and a spot light for driving. There was a major accident that closed the highway for three hours. The rad hose started leaking and the oil pressure gage went out. We were 35 km. from home and it didn’t look like we were going to make it back. It was then that we did a very spiritual thing and it wasn’t prayer because that’s what had gotten us this far. We stopped to eat! After a good hearty meal of lamb we got back in the van and it drove like a charm all the way home. Imagine, even the headlights are working again.
After a trip like this it is easy to get down. We could have blamed God for the things that happened but no. We have learned that there are a lot of things in life that we can not change. The important thing is to make sure that the things that you can not change do not change you. Many things can happen in my life that I don’t agree with but not one of them will defeat me or keep me down, I will just learn another lesson from the Lord.