January 2011 Newsletter

January 2011

A new year starts and for us that is important, God has no need of time but he made time for His creation. Days, weeks, seasons, and years are all part of our needs. As a ministry we look at this New Year with much expectation and with plans to reach many goals. For us it is a year of success. The word that was given us comes from Joshua 1:8 that tells us our responsibility and then it says: “for then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall have good success.
Before making plans for a new year it is healthy to look over the past year and see your strengths and your weaknesses. Throughout the years we have informed you of our successes and our needs. The year 2010 was a year of evangelism, consolidation, youth ministry, seed sowing and church growth.


As were look into this present year our ministry plans are to open a second school that has grades 1-6 to compliment the school we presently run. We will be expanding two church buildings as our congregations continue to grow. We will be teaching once again in the ‘Rios de Agua Viva’ Bible School as we continue to focus on training leadership for the churches. Our youth and children’s ministries will continue and they are growing as we join these ministries together with evangelism in different parts of our State. Our work with the Pastors Alliance of our State is also a priority as is our missions program.


Lastly we know that the Lord will send us the finances to attend our son’s graduation from Hillsong’s school of ministries in Sydney Australia this summer. Simri finishes his two years of studying there and has plans to return to Mexico to be part of our ministry team in the areas that the Lord is leading Him.

Success is completing God’s will for your life.
How successful are you?

We invite you to sow in this fertile ground as we pray rich blessings upon all you who support and pray for this ministry. We covet your prayers and your faithful offerings.

Philip, Lucy, Simri & Vanessa Tolman

December 2010 Newsletter

Life goes through cycles and the church is no exception. Some of the cycles are short and repetitive, while others are long and drawn out.

In our State of Nayarit we have walked the churches through a cycle of inner strengthening and consolidation. Through Bible studies and systematic teachings the church body has been strengthened through a time of testing. In the last couple of months we have seen an influx of new people who are not only visiting, but are also having a life changing experience with Jesus Christ. Some of these people have been irregular visitors in years past but now the Holy Spirit has brought them into conviction and a new way of life.


As we mentioned in past letters, we started a small business venture in our spare time that has opened many new doors in government, business and with new people in general. The end of October Philip was commissioned by the Mexican government to travel to Toronto, Canada for two days to promote Mexican exports in the area of food products. Brother David was also able to go along and spend time visiting family. This past weekend Philip was once again traveling in Mexico by invitation through the business. His contact in Mexico City called to ask how he can become a Christian after spending a day with Philip on business. Please keep this business venture in your prayers as we look for Christian investors who want take our business worldwide. We desire to continue to dedicate our lives to missions, evangelism and training of national leadership.


On another note we are praising the Lord for Sister Elizabeth’s healing from cancer. After only 3 chemo treatments and a lot of prayer God performed the miracle.

On the 1st of December Philip will be going into hospital for vascular surgery on his leg. All going well he will only be in hospital overnight, and within a month he should be back to 100%. Please keep him in your prayers.

I want to leave with you a saying that I read which has changed my way of looking at the gift of FAITH.

“If God gave you a watch, is it any less faith to use the watch
than to ask God for the time?"

200 Years

October 2010

This year is Mexico’s bicentennial celebration. On the 16th of September, 1810, Mexico stated its independence from Spain (even though the actual declaration came 11 years later). Two hundred years have gone by which is a long time for man but for God it is only a flash.
The changes that have taken place in Mexico in the last 200 years are incredible. It has grown from a population of 6 million people to a 110 million people; from horses and mules to super highways, from six months mail service to high-speed Internet. In all this our God has not changed. Among all the festivals we have continued sowing the Word in all the areas that we can.


Our Christian Secondary School started classes once again on the 23rd of August. This year we have a new challenge as we do not only have our regular students but we also have 3 Huichol Indian students who are living on the premises and studying. We also have now registered with the government to open a primary school. We have already received the authorization and we are now working on some paperwork that needs to be finished. Our plans are to open the school in August, 2011.

The 15th of September is a big Mexican celebration. This year with all the violence that has been happening many people were afraid to leave their homes. To combat that fear we got together with 4 other churches in the city and celebrated a Christian Fiesta. We used the county fair grounds and had a great time with all the 3 ‘F’s’ (food, fellowship and fun). The youth did skits, while the rest of us just enjoyed fellowship and feasted. Being able to join together with other Christians of different denominations is a great testimony to the community. This is what made the New Testament church strong.


Church buildings are necessary. Without them we have no place to gather together. Out-growing a church building is a wonderful experience. In the small town of San Luis de Lozada we have had to double the size of our small church building. The town's people are responding to the gospel and the number of believers is growing. Little by little the building is going up. This month we will be finishing the bathrooms and we hope to have the new section roofed by the end of October. Very soon we will be dealing with the same situation in other churches where we minister.
Ministry is a family thing and we are blessed to have all of our family involved in the ministry. Over all we are very grateful for the miracle that Jesus has worked in Sister Elizabeth. The cancer that had invaded her body is gone and she is on the road to recovery. Brother David is now able to get back to his reading and counseling that has become his ministry. Agustin and Damara are working well along side us and have been a great blessing in many areas of the ministry. Simri and Vanessa continue in school, Simri in Sydney, Australia, while Vanessa is here with us in Tepic. Lucy is very involved in many aspects of the ministry, as it has become a fulltime job for her.

Our special need at this time is to purchase a good used vehicle here in Mexico. We need just over $5,000 dollars for this purchase. We covet your prayers and your faithful offerings.

Philip, Lucy, Simri & Vanessa Tolman

Being Part of His Promises

God is not in a rush. We get all worked up over time and when we have to get things done. Life picks up a very hectic pace but God is not in it. He is never in a rush and if we move with Him we can live a life without stress and worry as we cast all our worries on Him.

At the end of May we (Philip & Lucy) had the opportunity to be part of a conference and missions symposium in Western Canada. It is a part of Canada we have never visited before and what caught our attention more than anything else was the calm that the western Canadians have in carrying on their everyday events. In Mexico the slow “mañana” attitude of the past has changed to a very up beat pace of life, which we have carried into the church. The change of pace and the lesson that God taught us were very enlightening.

In Mexico we have seen a move of God as we walk into the promises that He has given us.
Since their marriage. Agustin and Damara (our daughter), have been helping other churches but the Lord has led them to work with us. As well as joining the music ministry of the Xalisco church they also took charge of one of the village churches in the town of San Luis de Lozada. San Luis is a town of under 2,000 inhabitants and we are the only Mexican Christian church in the town. They planned a special children’s program to celebrate Children’s Day here. In the church we have about 30 children but this activity in the plaza drew about 300 children plus many mothers. We had to divide our 150 bags of candies so that each child could have something.
The next week there was a special Mother’s Day service in the small church. Instead of the usual 6 mothers we had 50 visitors. This helps to break the taboo town people have of attending a Christian church.

The end of May we partnered with other churches in the Tepic area to have a three-day outdoor evangelistic campaign. Using the open-air theater that is in the State Fair grounds, a Mexican evangelist shared with the non-Christian on how to increase their faith to receive from the Lord Jesus what He has promised them. Many people came to be healed and God was faithful to His Word. On the first night of the campaign we had close to 300 people in attendance but by two days later there were more than 800.

This summer we will be staying home in Mexico in order to be close to my parents as they walk through a new trail in their lives. In May my mother went through two major surgeries and was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Thirteen years ago she was given 3 months to live after having a radical cancer surgery and the Lord Jesus performed a miracle. We are praying at this time that another miracle will take place in her life. Thank you for your prayers and the concern that many of you have shown.

We invite you to sow in the fertile ground of Mexico as we pray rich blessings upon all you who are supporting and praying for this ministry. We covet your prayers and your faithful offerings.


Philip, Lucy, Simri & Vanessa Tolman

Living the Promises

As Christians we don’t live life in the same realm as the rest of the world. We not only live to please God but we also live directed by God. As servants of the Lord we thrive on the promises that He gives us and we walk towards them each and every day of our life. Even the direction of teaching that we take for the church depends on the promises that we receive to go forward.
As we entered into this new decade we received, through prophetic word and confirmation, six promises for the churches working under our covering in Mexico. As we are now in the third month we are thoroughly blessed as we see these promises taking form and overtaking us. After a year of sowing all we had into the areas that the Lord directed us, we are excited and encouraged as we see this seed growing.


Promise #1: That there would be an influx of new believers into the church. In the past years the churches have evangelized but with little results. So far this year we have seen over 10 families come into three of our churches drawn only by the Holy Spirit. No one invited them to come or evangelized them. To establish them in their walk with Christ we were given a simple three-step plan, disciple them, baptize them and then teach them.


Promise #2: Extender the cords of your tent: One of the pastors that ministers under our covering called me last week and he said: “Can you loan me 25 chairs because on Sundays I have people standing”. Considering that he pastors a church of 60 members that is an exciting problem. This year we will be building, expanding and making room for more people to come and worship in the house of God. Even now we are looking for a property to move one church out of a rented building and into a larger building that will be there own.


Promise #3: Recover the lost and the stolen: We were given the example of David and his men when they went to war with the Philistines. When they returned to their homes in Ziklag everything was gone. David first strengthened himself in the Lord and then asked for direction of what to do. They recovered everything. In the churches we have had people leave. Some have gone to other churches while others have simply stopped serving God. The reasons, in many cases, have been hurts and offenses that the enemy has used to move people away from the plan of God in their lives.
One example of what is happening is a telephone call that I received three weeks ago. One of the leaders that had left the church a number of years ago offended and had gone to minister in another church called me and asked to talk with me. He said that the Lord had told him and his family to return. He had already talked with his present pastor and received confirmation. They are now back and looking on how to restore the ministry that they had in the church before they left.

There are still three more promises that the LORD has given us in financial areas as well as areas of authority in our lives. These promised will also overtake us this year even as we are seeing these first promises coming to pass.

We have also enjoyed the visit of a group of youth from San Antonio, Texas that spent their Spring Break with us painting churches and working with the children. I know that they returned exhausted but blessed.


We invite you to sow in this fertile ground as we pray rich blessings upon all you who support and pray for this ministry. We covet your prayers and your faithful offerings.

Philip, Lucy, Simri & Vanessa Tolman

March/ April 2010

The Route 2010

2010 is a very special year for Mexico. It was 200 years ago that Mexico started its war for independence from Spain (which came to pass 21 years later). One hundred years later, in 1910, Mexico had it’s equivalent to a civil war, the Mexican Revolution. This year as Mexico gets ready to celebrate its bicentennial and it’s centennial at the same time, the church in Mexico is also getting ready to celebrate. In 2009 we closed out the year with a national call to prayer that impacted Mexico and continues to do so. Through prophecy we have received a word of 6 promises that the church in our State of Nayarit can enter into this year. They are ours to take.

Even as Joshua entered to take possession of the Promise Land, we have grouped together to take hold of these promises. The first three have to do with the church:

• The church will fill with new converts through a process of discipleship to baptism and then teaching
• It is time to extend the cords of our tents as growth comes into the church
• We will recover what as been stolen by the enemy in regards to church members

The next three promises are individual for each member of the church body that wants to receive them:

• Abundant finances for the Kingdom
• Important governmental positions for Christians
• Prosperity in all things as our soul prospers

To bring God’s army into these promises we have joined together in a Statewide Pastors´ Alliance of respect, trust and joint activities. We are programming the following activities in the first three months of this year:

• A Christian open-air concert the 30th of January
• A youth conference the 12th & 13th of February
• A couple's dinner and conference the 14th of February
• The first of March we start classes in the Bible school
• The end of March we have our youth and children’s camps

Make yourself part of this victorious eventful year in Mexico with your prayers and your finances. You will be sowing in good ground.

Philip, Lucy, Simri & Vanessa Tolman

Expectation Creates Joy

Our expectations create the atmosphere in which we live. When we live expecting big things, we often live downcast because the small things that pass our way are not perceived. When we have expectations of small things, we can live delighted for every small detail that comes our way and together many small details create big blessings.
In the way a small child lives expecting his father to fulfill the promises that he gives, we are living in expectation of what God has promised to do in Mexico. The small blessings that we are receiving from the Lord at this time are reason of great joy.

In the town of Santa Maria del Oro, a county seat, the Lord told us to plant a church there over 12 years ago. We started and in these 12 years we have only seen 3 families saved of which two moved out of town. This last week we had 17 people in our weekly service and now we have a young minister from our Bible School that is working with us there. We still have no church building or new converts but the Lord is fulfilling His word and it is reason of great joy.
In the small town of San Luis de Lozada we have had several deaths of older members in the last years including Pastor Chuy that was overseeing the work. Many services only had 4 to 6 people attending. This last Sunday we had 18 people in service, most of them non-Christians. A cause of great joy.

Our State of Nayarit (along with all of Mexico) was called to a time of prayer and fasting and various pastors answered the call. Along with the 56 days of prayer and fasting we decided to participate in three joint activities. By the time you receive this letter the first one will be history but the miracle has already started. We invited the participating churches to form a joint choir. At the first choir practice we had 25 people show up to sing. Now after one month of having two practice sessions a week we now have 83 people coming out to each rehearsal. TO GOD BE THE GLORY

Even in finances the Lord Jesus Christ has been faithful. In the last months money has been really tight, as we have reached out to start new endeavors. Three times in that time span we have received a text message from a brother in the Lord, that he has wired us money just at the right time without us even mentioning our need to him. This last week I had to make a trip out of State and I didn’t have the finances to go. Unexpectedly we received a down payment on some products that we had sold, when the contract said that no payment had to be made for 2 months. Once again our needs were met.

Joy is the fulfilling of our expectations. The Lord is showing us to expect small things and thus live in His eternal JOY.

In this time of a special moving of the Holy Spirit we pray rich blessings upon all you who support this ministry. We appreciate your faithful offerings that help us to continue moving forward.


Philip, Lucy, Simri & Vanessa Tolman