Sept /Oct 2024

           

Once again it is time to give a praise report on the work that the Lord has let us do here in Mexico these past two months. We hope that you will be as excited as we are with the ministry we have been able to accomplish. We tell the church here that it’s not how many people start to walk with Christ that is important, it is even more important how many people end their lives still walking with the Lord.

 

The end of July a group of youth from our churches went on a mission’s trip with Agustin and Damara for a week. They visited 3 churches, one in our State of Nayarit, one in the city of Guadalajara., Jalisco and a third one in the State of Guanajuato. These trips are great for two reasons. The first is that it blesses the churches that they visit, secondly it helps the youth to become on fire for the Lord and to get to know different communities.

The first weekend in August we had our national ministerial meeting in Ciudad Victoria in northeast Mexico. We had right around 30 ministers in attendance and all of us that came from central Mexico travelled on the same bus to get there. It being a 24-hour drive there and back, we had a lot of time to fellowship and get to know each other better. Almost all the churches that form part of the association were planted under the covering of Seedtime and Harvest Ministries.

 

We had a special offering sent to us to purchase shoes. We have a social program that we are running in the town of El Ahualamo called SAMAO2040. We now have over 100 families signed up in the program. With the money that was sent over 70 pairs of shoes were purchased and given to the children of the families in the program. We also had a time of sharing the gospel and praying for the people that attended the event. This program is very instrumental in getting new families to come to church. Both Lucy and Damara worked alongside Fernando, who is in charge of the program, with this shoe project.

The end of August we started classes in both of our schools. The primary school had a very low enrollment this year and we are looking how to up our enrollment. As things stand at this time, we will have to invest from the ministry to cover our running expenses. Please pray with us that new students will sign-up for classes.

We also started a new semester at the Bible school that we run on Saturdays. There were 5 new students enrolled this semester and by December we will be graduating 4 students that have been studying with us for the 3 years. Our total enrollment this semester is 19 students.

Stephen had a medical emergency in August. As he attended our annual ministers meeting, he became very sick and had to be driven 6 hours to home. Over the course of the next 6 weeks, he had 2 operations and spent 12 days in ICU. Philip made a trip up to be with him and stayed with him until his health situation was stable. Thank you to all of you who knew what was happening and prayed for Stephen. He still has a long road to recovery but at least he is going in the right direction.

 

Please keep us in your prayers as the Lord continues to help our faith grow in the area of finances and work. We appreciate your monthly support and offerings.  

 

 

Philip & Lucy, Tolman.     Agustin & Damara Bizarron. 

 

Shoe project with Lucy. Shoe project with half of the people. Lucy Evangelism team in Guadalajara

Pastors that went to our national meeting in front of the fountain

 

     

 

July /August 2024

           

Where we live in Mexico we fluctuate between the 4 seasons of the northern hemisphere and the 2 seasons of the tropics. We have cool winters (no snow) and a very hot spring but what marks our year is the coming of the rainy season. We can go up to 8 months without a drop of rain but when the rains come, we get rain almost every day for 3-4 months. Everything turns green, sometimes even our shoes, the temperature drops and the work outside starts. Every year as this happens, I remember the promise in the Bible for the former and latter rains. The rain of the Holy Spirit refreshes us, makes us grow and blesses our churches. We all need times of spiritual rain.

          On the home front we have been kept very busy. Our regular schedule of church services and other activities keep us going fulltime. Aside from the daily events we travel a lot between different areas of ministry. Since most of our members don’t have a vehicle, we plant our churches close to where they can get to church using public transportation. Because of this we use our vehicles to travel between the different churches. Agustin and Damara are working on getting the funds together to replace their 1998 Chrysler van that is not in conditions to travel long distances. Philip & Lucy´s Ford Transit van is still in the shop after losing the turbo and having a cylinder replaced. Hopefully by the middle of July we will have it running again. Our total repair bill is just over $4,000 dollars.

 

Lucy along with other pastors’ wives in the city held an afternoon ladies’ cafe the 1^st of June. They had an attendance of over 100 ladies for the event that was focused on evangelism. Lucy was one of the speakers at the event. They are now programming a ladies’ conference in November where they will be expecting more then 300 ladies.

 

June was a month of special celebrations.  Our church in the town of Xalisco celebrated its 36^th year from when we started holding services in a home. We had a special Sunday service and a potluck dinner that followed. On the 12^th of June Philip and Lucy had their 25^th wedding anniversary. On the 14^th they held a special celebration with 100 family and guests from the different churches. It was a special time of renewing their vows and reliving the original marriage ceremony.

 

Church construction is continuing at the site of the “Nada es Imposible” church in Tepic. The walls are up, the roofing material is being put on the structure. On Sunday July 14^th they will be having an inaugural service in the church building. There is still no electricity and there is only a dirt floor, but God has supplied. Everything that is in place is paid for as God has supplied. Last year we were able to purchase the next property over from the church on which we are still owing but once it is paid for it will become the parking lot for the church. We are still planning on being in the church build by the end of October.

 

We are now ending our 24^th school year in Xecora, our Christian elementary school. We are praying for an increased student population since the Mexican school board is teaching more on gender rights than math and Spanish. We have gone to a complete Christian curriculum even though the textbooks for the year cost us over $150 per student, The 6^th of July we also end another semester at our bible school. We currently have 18 students in classes, and we have opened inscriptions for our new semester that starts in August.

 

The end of July we will be sponsoring our annual youth missions’ trip. The purpose is to get youth involved in missions and also in ministry. Ending the trip, we will be holding VBS in 4 of our churches. We will let you know about these ministries in our next newsletter.

 

Please keep us in your prayers as the Lord continues to help our faith grow in the area of finances and work. We appreciate your monthly support and offerings.  

 

 

Philip & Lucy, Tolman.     Agustin & Damara Bizarron.    

 

Drama team doing evangelism. 

New church building.  

Lucy teaching at lady’s café.

Some of the Bible school students

 

 

  

May Newsletter 2024

 

March Newsletter 2024

 

8635 Callaghan Rd, San Antonio TX 78230-4429                   e-mail: jptolman@yahoo.com     web page:  www.shmin.org

Seed time and Harvest Ministries Inc.

Jan /Feb 2024

           

The year 2024 has started and we are sitting down to see what we accomplished in 2023 and what are our goals for this coming year. Some plans are accomplished in a few months while others take years. We started a project in 2020 called SAMAO 2040 that has been very effective. It is a social project that helps orient families with new babies and gives them free advice and direction for the next twenty years of their child´s life. We now have over 150 families in the project and more than 10 families have accepted Christ and are now part of a local church. This is a plan that will run for more that 30 years.

 

What was done. In 2023 were able to install a new pastoral family in the church we have in the city of Compostela. 

We continue pastoring two churches and one mission as well as overseeing 9 other churches in our State. We 

helped raise funds for the purchase of a property for a church building in Tepic and started the construction of the

 church. Philip worked as president of the Pastoral Alliance in Tepic achieving 12 united prayer meeting as well as

 different activities with youth, men, and couples. Lucy was in charge of the Ladies conference that took place the 

last week in November with over 180 ladies in attendance. The job was not only getting the conference together

 but also getting over 12 churches in the city of Tepic to participate in the activity. We know that Jesus only has 

one church but taking the theory into practice takes a lot of work along with the urging of the Holy Spirit. We 

could go on to talk about our camps, our Christian schools, the Bible School and much more but we have shared 

this with you throughout the year. 

Our main focus in ministry is pastoring the people that God has placed in our churches. We have had many 

hundreds pass through our doors and stay for a while, but they are not part of the flock that we have been called 

to pastor. As I look at our work over the years, I find that the number of people that accept Christ is not the most 

important part of our ministry. What counts for us is the number of people that make that transition from 

physical to eternal while still being part of the church. It is not important how many start the race, but the 

winners are all that finish the race. 

 
In 2024 we plan to continue on doing what we are doing, taking it a step at a time. We start our year with our 

first fruits offering in the churches. The 20th of January we have programmed a youth night with the Pastor´s 

Alliance. The first weekend in February we have a programming session with the pastors that work under our 

covering and then the following week a couple’s activity in two different churches. We just do what we have 

been called to do, pastor the flock.

         Please keep us in your prayers as the Lord continues to help our faith grow in the area of finances. We also pray that you will live blessed in this New Year that is before us. We appreciate your monthly support and offerings.  

 

One class of Bible school students December 2023

 

 

Christmas activity in one of the missions 2023

 

 

Ladies Conference November 2023

 

 

 

Philip & Lucy, Tolman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

November - December Newsletter 2023

Seedtime and Harvest Ministries Inc.

8635 Callaghan Rd, San Antonio TX 78230-4429
e-mail: jptolman@yahoo.com web page: www.shmin.org

Nov/Dec 2023

As another year comes to a close, it is a good time to look back and see how effective we have been in the work that we have set out to do. Everything we do has to have a start and a finish. This lets us bring about change. In a recent meeting at the city ́s Pastor ́s Alliance, the comment was made to why we don’t do more evangelism as an alliance. The answer was easy, sure we can make this change, only we have to come to an agreement first. Fulfilling the prayer of Jesus in John 17 to become one is what takes work. Once we are one, very little is impossible to accomplish.

In our last newsletter we mentioned about the new school curriculum being used by the national school system and that how it destroys the morality that we preach, which is what is taught in the Bible. We continue in the courts asking for legal protection against the use of this material, not only in our school but in all the schools in the State. Our vision is not to just protect the children in the churches but to transform what is happening in our social environment, which also affects the church. We know that in the last days sin will increase, but as long as we are here, we must take a stand for what is right.

After over 25 years of working in home groups in the town of Santa Maria del Oro, we made the transition of renting a home to use as a church building. Over the years we have moved from house to house and the children ́s services have always been outdoors, rain or shine. A family from our Xalisco church, that have graduated for our Bible School, have now taken the work as a constant ministry each week. Francisco and Maria Luisa now have a group of over 25 children, and not one of them is from a Christian home. Every Monday they take the afternoon to travel 45 minutes to reach the town where they minister and teach, and then another 45 minutes to drive home. There are some towns that are very open to the gospel, but in this town it has been very difficult to break the spiritual chains that hold captive its inhabitants. Our battle is not only with flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness in high places.

We also work with other churches doing evangelistic outreaches. In the month of August, we supervised 3 VBS, not as a church activity, but as an outreach. We ministered to a total of over 100 children. One of the outreaches was in a part of Tepic where we have no church. Our next step is to start a home group and children’s classes there to make the seed that we planted grow. Even as the world system tries to captivate and indoctrinate our children, we need to plant the Word of God in the hearts of all the children that we can.
We cannot do the work alone. As we form teams that work with us, we also can use people from other churches to open our eyes to different ways of doing the work of the Lord. This last month we participated in two different activities of evangelism with other churches in the city. In September we were part of a 3-day outdoor evangelistic campaign held in one of the city parks. There was a mighty manifestation of the presence of the Holy Spirit and many people received a touch of God in their lives. In November we had visiting pastors from Colombia with us along with their 4 children. Once again, they impacted lives with their testimony of a vision that they experienced of the Lord taking them to Hell and then to Heaven. The fear of God can only exist in our lives when we know that all that do not have their names written in the Book of Life will be sent to a place of torment for the eternity.

Finally, in the month of October Philip travelled to Guadalajara to preach at a fellowship meeting among the 5 pastors that we have in that city and some of their members. The city is so large that the travel time to between the churches is often over a 45-minute driving. Philip has met with the pastors several times throughout the year, but this is the first time in many years that they have been able to have a fellowship meeting with members of each church.

Please keep us in your prayers as the Lord continues to help our faith grow in the area of finances. We also pray that you will be blessed in this Christmas season as we celebrate the birth of our Savoir. We appreciate your monthly support and offerings.

Philip & Lucy, Tolman

Church Get Together In Guadalajara

 

 

Philip & Lucy with Grandchildren. October 2023 

September-October 2023 Newsletter

Sept/Oct 2023

Intense would be the word to describe these last two months of ministry here in Mexico. In August we started classes first in the Bible school and then at the end of the month in our Christian school. We did not have sufficient enrollment to open our middle school, but we had a good enrollment in our primary school. We had been told since last year that the schools in Mexico were going to get new textbooks and a new teaching curriculum. We didn’t know what the changes were going to be. It turns out that the new curriculum is propaganda about sexual inclusion. There are no longer textbooks for Math, Spanish or History. They are teaching sexual education starting at 3rd grade with same-sex marriages, you choose your sexual identity and many other antibiblical teachings.

In our school, we have gone to a complete Christian curriculum, even though we must pay for the textbooks. All the parents of our students, even though they are not Christians are in accord. The second thing that we have done is take our case to court here in Mexico since we have a lot of members who cannot bring their children to our school. We have opened over 35 legal cases in our State this month asking for the new books to be taken out of our schools. This has taken a lot of our time and finances as we try and change the direction that our society is turning. Each person has the right to live whatever lifestyle they choose but they don’t have the right to indoctrinate our children (and grandchildren) to live their choice of lifestyle. Please pray with us as we battle this case in court.

Speaking of differences, we are on the board of the pastor’s alliance in our State. We get together with pastors from different denominations and associations twice a month. We also hold 4 to 5 different activities a year together. One is a leadership seminar, as we had on the 12th of August this year. We had 160 pastors and leaders in attendance, and we were blessed with the teaching and the fellowship. We also hold a women’s conference which will be the last weekend of November this year. Last year they had an attendance of just over 200 women.

Transitions are necessary as life continues forward. We can hold on to positions too long or let them go too soon. Finding the right time has to be a God thing. On August 27th, we installed new pastors in the church we had started in the town of Compostela. Rafa and Karla have been on staff as assistant pastors for the last year and a half. Karla was almost born in the church as her parents were saved when she was 3 years old, and they are still part of the church 35 years later. We will continue to minister in the church 2-3 times a month and will be working alongside them in this time of transition. I look at the young ministers and wonder how they can do it, but then I remember that I was once one of them and by the grace of God I came through.

The church building project that we are doing is coming along fine. This is our fifth church plant in Tepic and as we mentioned in our previous newsletter, the property has been paid for and we have started construction on the first phase of the church. We have also been offered the property next to the one that we purchased, and we are looking into the possibility of acquiring it as well. Our plan was to be using the property for outdoor services by the middle of October, but the rains have put us a little behind schedule. The advantage of living in the subtropics is that outdoor services are feasible as long as you have a roof over your head.

Finally, on the family side, we have been blessed with two new family members this year, and two grandsons. Owen, the older, and Abraham Ashrey are a blessing to our extended family and a joy to their parents. Please keep us in your prayers as the Lord continues to help our faith grow in the area of finances and the monies that we need for the different projects that we are doing. We appreciate your monthly support above all.


Philip & Lucy Tolman